Last weekend, while Chetan and I were out visiting his aunt who had lost her husband just the night before, I got a call from my oldest son who seemed all hyper and anxious. "Tara and her friend have messed up the wall. There is slime all over the wall", he screamed. She has also locked herself in the bathroom and is crying loudly, he added.
I listened to him calmly and asked, "Are you okay?" Telling me had calmed him down and he replied, "Yes I am now." I told him that Tara would be okay in a while and to give her space. "She will come out of the bathroom in a while - don't worry."
In a while, Chetan's phone rang and it was Tara on the other side. I don't know what exactly they spoke, but I did hear Chetan tell her it's okay and she shouldn't worry about it.
When we were back we saw lavender coloured slime spluttered on the wall. It amused us to see everyone in the house all worked up about it. We asked Tara, 'What happened?' 'Why did you throw slime on the wall?' and she blamed her friend. "He asked me to throw slime on the wall" she replied. Her friend responded, "we first did it by mistake and then felt it was fun and so kept throwing it." I could see Tara check my expression. She probably got the message that I wasn't angry or upset and added, "Yes it was lots of fun." I told them that they had to be careful and not spoil the walls and we now had to think about how to repair the damage.
We didn't have any more discussion until the following day when I checked the wall and tried to scrub off the slime. Some of it peeled off but the rest was stubbornly stuck to the wall. This time, I saw Tara look at the wall with remorse. 'I am sorry. Maybe we could cover it with something - stickers maybe." said she.
I am sharing this example here because similar damages happen all the time. It could be breaking something in the house, or spilling water all over the room or spilling food, soiling the floor with muddy legs...Parents often deal with such situations by bringing in strict rules or grounding the child or denying them something. We forget that it is natural for such things to happen. They do cause some inconvenience for the parent and probably adds up a task of cleaning up or repairing the damage - but they are definitely not the end of life.
We need to remember that, 'A small damage on the wall can result in a long lasting damage on the mind of a child. You could repaint the wall, but how do you repaint your child's mind?'
When my oldest son was about the age of my daughter (6 years old) he was constantly told to not write on the walls as it would spoil them. I would immediately try rubbing off any crayon or pencil line that found its way on the wall by mistake. I would blame him for adding more work on my already overflowing plate of work and would bar him from doing things he liked. On seeing the slime spluttered wall, his past memories came alive and made him agitated about it. His experience taught him that drawing on the wall was a crime. His anxiety led him to make Tara own up to her mistake. In fact I can imagine that he would have used the very same words I had used when he made such mistakes. He felt helpless when his sister shut herself in the bathroom. What he didn't understand that blaming her and telling her that 'mom and dad' would get upset was not helping ease the situation.
Tara responded by shutting herself in the bathroom. She was scared and angry and feeling helpless too and simply wanted to go away from the situation. For both it was an ugly experience.
It took Tara some time...in fact a day to share that she was sorry. She took her time to process everything in her mind and take responsibility for what happened. What I liked was that she was also looking toward moving on and finding solutions to repair the damage.
But my son, hasn't yet spoken about his reflection. The damage in his mind is going to take a long time to heal.
I have been reading Susan Stiffelmans, "Parenting with Presence." I so wish I had read it when my oldest was small. I would have avoided so many blunders.
According to Susan, children are more likely to admit to a mistake when they think of honesty as a positive quality than if they think of dishonesty as something that leads to a bad result. So far I have always questioned my children when they hide something or lie. My tone has been authoritative and my question 'why?' has always made them defensive and fearful of a bad result. This probably played a big role in Tara denying a mistake. I realize that I could be more inquisitive than authoritative and I could replace 'why did you do that?" with a non threatening - 'how did that happen?'
One thing I learnt earlier on is to never force a child to say sorry especially as soon as I notice their mistake or their mistake has been brought to my notice. My children feel at ease about this and say 'sorry' only when they mean it. According to Susan, "We must gently help our children be exposed to the injured heart of another so they can consider the impact of their unkind behaviour." To add to this, I believe we need to trust our child and believe that they would not harm anyone intentionally. Their unkind behaviour definitely has a reasoning behind it. When I say this, I in no way justify that behaviour, I simply ask parents to separate the child and the behaviour. The behaviour has to change and the hurt or the pain that is the cause of that behaviour has to be dealt with.
Tara took her time to say sorry and said it when she meant it. She did fear my reaction and when her older brother blamed her, she reacted by shutting herself in the bathroom. In no way I justify this behaviour of hers as it resulted in everybody feeling helpless and agitated. Right now I do not have a definite strategy or plan to stop her from behaving this way in the furture. What I know is judging her on this behaviour will not help, nor will it help to infringe a rule to not shut oneself in the bathroom. I do know that once she believes that I will not judge her, blame her or punish her for her mistake and will help her take it in her stride, take responsibility for it and move on, she will stop resorting to such actions.
Excellent Thoughtful Article.
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