Put Up Your Dukes
Yesterday evening my son and I were wrestling. This is a common occurrence in our house. He will wrestle with anyone who will put up their dukes. But, something has suddenly happened in all our playfulness, he is getting bigger and does not recognize his own strength. This was the case yesterday.
After about fifteen minutes of playing and obtaining several likely bruises I asked him to stop. “ I want to play, “ he screamed. “ I know you do, “ I replied in a calm manner. “ I want to play,” he screamed again. Again I softly said, “ I know you do, but you are hurting me and I don’t want to play.” On and on he went screaming. After trying to ignore him for several minutes and trying to remain calm I could take it no longer.
I turned and took him by the shoulders leaning right into his face, “ I know you want to play, but you are hurting me, “ I screamed. He moved back and looked at me. “ It doesn’t feel good to have someone scream at you does it?” Tears welled up in his eyes and he went to his room. I gave him time to calm down and went in to speak with him.
Take The Anger Headphones off
As I went in I thought about the verse Psalms 15:1 that states, “ A soft answer turns away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.” His words had been grievous and had definitely stirred up anger in me, but I also realized that he was angry to because he was not getting his way. As I put it, he had anger headphones on and if you’ve ever encountered someone playing loud music in their headphones they can’t hear you. You have to scream to get their attention so they can hear you as you speak more calmly, more softly. That is what I explained to my son and informed him that we will take our headphones off from now on when we realize the other is trying to speak softly and hopefully what had just taken place would not occur anymore.
Being Real
After apologizing and smothering each other lots of hugs and kisses we made up by playing a game of Gestures. I think all in all when you have a confrontation with your child it lets them know you are human and part of being human is recognizing when you are angry, may have spoken in a wrong manner, and saying I am sorry. Remember they learn a lot more by what they see than what they hear. They need to see us being real.
