Talking Up

I did a new parenting “thing” this week, and it worked, and I’m so excited I’ve got to write something about it, and so here goes.  When I thought one of the kids—specifically 7 y.o. Towser—might have done something he shouldn’t have, I sat down on the ground before I talked to him.  I mean all the way down on the ground: my butt down, leaning back on my elbows, looking at the kid from below his line of site even when he sat down.

And then, we talked.  We actually talked.  To each other.  He was upset about the thing that had happened before, the thing that had caught my attention, but even relative to that he looked down at me, opened up about what was going on, and we talked calmly.

The calmness was the of the best aspects of the whole experience.  Towser and I talking didn’t add to the stress the kid was already holding inside.

Instead of trying to figure out what he should say, or what would keep him out of trouble, the kid spoke about his feelings.  He spoke about what had actually been going on in unfiltered, unadorned terms.  It was so easy to understand where he was coming from, how he got there, and how he felt as a result.

Turns out that despite his older sister having biffed in the middle of the game, and despite Towser yelling at her, it was just an instance of being seven and being crazy-excited by a game, and nothing ‘bad’ had happened.  Towser hadn’t  set out to maliciously knock over Daize.  In fact, he hadn’t been involved in her biffing it at all.  Kids fall down during games.  It’s what happens.  He wasn’t expressing untoward opinions about Daize or anyone else.  It turns out Towser was expressing his frustration at a apart of the game he thought was unfair.

But really—to me anyway—all of those details are unimportant compared to the thing Towser and I had just done.  We communicated—really, really well, and really efficiently!  We’d managed not to hurt each others’ feelings.  I was even able to suggest that Towser perhaps not yell at people who have fallen down, and he saw the validity of the suggestion.  We both shared our thoughts, and things got better between the two of us instead of worse.

And that’s all.  Lots of other folks may have hit upon this method of peaceful communications long ago, but for me, it was new and wonderful, and I wanted to share.  Taking it easy physically helped Towser and I take it easy mentally and emotionally, and that made all the difference for us!