One of the strategies I used with rascally little kids was time out. This is not because it is based in research, or a longitudinal study highlighting its efficacy. It is just what a mother who is outnumbered by her progeny resorts to when her brain has turned off.
Sometimes our kids spent time as a prisoner in his or her room. The thing is, I was stuck too, holding on to the knob to enforce the banishment. I recall being braced there, holding tight, my teeth clenched while he or she railed on the other side of a too thin door.
"This is winning?" I wondered. Sure didn't feel like it.
There was another impasse that flummoxed me. Should I give a child a ride after he or she has been rude to me? What if the place that they need to go is actually somewhere I want them to be, like school, or youth group? I asked John, who seemed less mired in the dilemma than I was.
"Give him a ride. Or don't give him one. But whatever you do, skip the resentment."
That one sent me to a place of pondering. Maybe my actions were somehow a decoy from the actual spiritual challenge. Perhaps it mattered not at all whether I was a softie or a hard liner. The opportunity in front of me was to treat my child with compassion. Which is incompatible with resentment.
I am currently reading a book that suggests another way. In one of the dialogues we follow a wife who is angry with her husband for not wanting to spend time with her. The speaker invited curiosity.
"Can you think of a stress free reason to remain angry?"
The questioner assured her that there was not a right or wrong answer. She merely wondered if the wife was aware of the price of being upset.
"No." Her demeanor softened.
"Do you suppose that your actions encourage him to want to be with you?"
"no..." Her voice was quiet.
I am only a few chapters in, but I think there is a shift happening in me. Punishing someone I love with my disapproval, or harsh words, does damage to me as well.
Maybe I can let go of the door between us. See what happens when it opens.
