Make it right

Quinlan and Drew vacillate between love and hate on a conveniently unpredictable schedule. They'll play like bffs right when dinner is ready or when the timer has gone off for bedtime, but when I'm about to hop on a conference call, they decide to initiate World War III.  

Quinlan gives me a running commentary like she's reading from a set of cue cards. 

"Mom, he's kicking me. Now he's jumping on me. He just hit me on my leg."

She's slowly learning to actually do something, other than perfect her tattle telling skills, but even when she pushes him off, or gives him a well-deserved shove, I know she's probably still annoyed. And rightfully so. Little brothers can be a big fat pain in the ass.

So a few nights ago, we were getting ready for bedtime stories when we couldn't find Drew's book. It had literally disappeared into thin air, and after searching high and low for it, I asked Quinlan if she had seen it.

She shrugged her shoulders a few times and gave me the "I know exactly where it is but if I don't talk then it's not technically lying so I'm just going to keep shrugging my shoulders" look.

As it turns out, she had hid it. Not as a joke, but because she had just taken it one too many times from her bratty little brother that day and was going to jab him in the side when he wasn't looking.

Yep. She's already refining her womanly skills at an early stage.

Teaching kids about emotional expression is one of the hardest lessons because they very often get in trouble for expressing them. Annoyance, frustration, and anger get an almost automatic time out or punishment (hello tantrums), so trying to explain to kids that it's okay and even good to express them seems counterintuitive.

Sure, there's the whole thing about expressing it appropriately, you know, like counting to ten, or screaming in your pillow, or telling the person that you are mad "dag gummit" - all of which are clearly not as satisfying as throwing a big ass hissy fit and screaming a few choice obscenities. Did you really think we all actually outgrew tantrums? Please. We just get better verbal skills and the ability to raise a finger or pull down our pants. I've told her 4000 times to tell the person how you feel in actual words and in the back of my head I'm going "And then give 'em the finger!"

But on that night, as I was talking out of my ass, I had a rare mini-epiphany. 

If you don't express your feelings at the time that they occur, you don't give the other person a chance to make it right.

And a light bulb went off in my daughter's head. 

The truth is, when you don't tell someone how you feel when you've been hurt by them (which is what anger generally stems from, really), you're not giving them the chance to learn from it, apologize for it, and most of all make it right by you. You're not holding them accountable for their words and actions.

The backhanded, passive agressive bullshit that many of us (yeah, me included) engage in does absolutely nothing to resolve anything and basically gives them a free pass. And not only does it do nothing to allow the other person to atone, it doesn't give you the opportunity to forgive, which is just as important a process as apologizing.

It's one thing to be able to say you're sorry. It's another to be able to forgive.

I know the kids will still fight. And I know that she'll still want to swipe his toothbrush in the toilet when he's not looking, but I hope that she'll feel empowered by her own emotions, and not powered by them.

There's a huge difference.

Comments

[rachel]

Awesome post. I am having the same problem with my kids though they are younger.

[Asianmommy]

Not easy to do, but so true.

[amanda]

If we can give them even a sliver of the emotional wisdom we acquire through egregious error, they'll be golden.

[Julie @ The Mom Slant]

Freaking brilliant. Seriously.

[Cecilia]

You did such a beautiful job of handling the situation. If you don't mind, I'm going to copy you and explain it the same way to my children. It was also a good lesson for me - thank you!

[caramama]

This was incredibly insightful! Thanks for sharing these thoughts. I think a lot of people need to hear this, not just kids. I know way too many passive agressive people, and it drives me crazy!

Have you read Between Parent and Child? He talks about the importance of children being able to express their feelings without being punished or taught to hold it in. But even if we do that as parents, the children still need to have an appropriate way to express those feelings at home and outside the home.

[Rita Arens]

I want to write that on my walls. What an astute observation.

[Cascia @ Healthy Moms]

Your daughter sounds a lot like mine. They both have younger brothers too. I wonder if they are meeting secretly and plotting together. I really can relate to this article!

[Christy Writes]

So, true...and yet, so hard to do (when you're older anyway.) Hopefully trying to help our kids get it when they're little will carry through into their adult hood.

[Jill]

Wow! I never thought of it that way before. You win the Brilliant Mom award of the day!!

[Karen M.]

Those are some profound words, woman. You hit the nail right on the head. Thank you :-)

[Heather]

That's a great lesson to teach your kids. Mine seem to express their feelings a little too easily...and loudly, over everything. EVERYTHING I tell you. Sigh.

[Jenny]

WOW! You have just made my job easier! Seriously, I can use this with a bitch (and I even use that term nicely) that I work with!

Amazing - how what we try to teach our children, really isn't what we MEAN to teach them! Thank you!

[Gretta]

Nicely written.

[Sarah @ BecomingSarah.com]

I think this is one of my favorite posts yet. Emotional expression is something that seems not only difficult to teach and learn, but also so vitally important in the standard social skills set. Thanks for writing about it; I'm sure I'll be searching desperately in the archives for this in a few years!

[patois]

Mimi got it for me: if only I could learn what I'm teaching my kids.

[Randa @ Honestly Crazy]

Thanks for this post. My boys almost 4 and almost 1, so we're going to be into this stage soon. Such a good point about how we tend to squelch the expression of emotions by a 2 year old, because they're so extreme, and then turn around and tell them to express them a couple of years later!

[Mimi]

Isn't it funny what we learn from trying to teach our kids the right thing? "Tell your brother why you're mad... And by the way, I have to go talk to Daddy."

[natasha the exile on Mom Street]

A great post Kristen.

I wish I'd had your epiphany YEARS ago.

You've just provided Q with a wonderful life lesson that she'll benefit from forever.

[Ruth]

Well crap, with my oldest 14 I could have used this info a few yrs ago!! LOL! You're an awesome Mom!

[hollygee]

What an important lesson! For any age of life.

[Kia]

With all siblings some days are better than others but at 4 and 6 we are going thru a good stretch.

At one point it was my daughter's ability to drive my son over the edge without technically violating any of the house rules that prompted some of the ugliest episodes. My son would lash out physically after being toyed with mentality, while my daughter would feign complete and utter innocence as to what had caused his rampage. The day he learned to tell us "mom sissy is messing with my feelings again" was the day she scaled her nonsense back considerably.

[Mom101]

Ob look at who's all smart and stuff. I'm going to have to steal this one for my own kids. Because the running commentary had me laughing out loud - glad it's not just them.

[Michelle]

So true, so true.

I have a cartoon on my fridge which reads "That guy makes me so mad!", "Let it go, Jack. Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die." Such a big reminder to me to let things go, and make it right.