Today I got to babysit my nieces and nephew for a few hours. My nephew Will loves to jump on the furniture, which he’s not allowed to do. So I made a “rule” that any time he jumped on the furniture, he had to do ten pushups. This playful punishment had two benefits: it gave him an immediate consequence when he disobeyed a rule and it helped work off some of his energy (it poured rain all day, so we were cooped up inside).
My two nieces, Abby and Caroline, soon joined us (we were playing imaginary soccer), and Caroline jumped on the sofa (I believe she was dive-catching the imaginary ball). I laughed and said “10 pushups!” But she staunchly refused to do them, even after much light-hearted cajoling. Of course, if you let one kid outright buck a rule, then chaos enters soon after, so I said (again, with a light hearted tone) “well if you’re not going to do the pushups then you’ll have to go to your room.” She did, erupting into much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
A bit later, as she hadn’t emerged, I went down to check on her. She was on her bed, crying with her head wrapped in her covers. She wouldn’t talk to me at first, so I just laid down beside her for a while. I spoke occasionally, asking her to tell me what was wrong. Her level of upset was way more intense than the simple circumstances warranted, and eventually, with much gentle probing, I got her to start talking. She rehashed some details of the situation where she had “gotten in trouble,” but still seemed much more upset than would be expected. I said, “it seems like there is something bigger that is upsetting you.” Again, after much gentleness, reminders to take some deep breaths, and some basic guesswork, I got to the bottom of the issue. Turns out she was upset because she feels like she gets in trouble more than her siblings, often when it isn’t her fault or she hasn’t done anything wrong.
Now, is that true? I have no idea. What’s more, it doesn’t actually matter in terms of how I handled her sadness/frustration/pain. The important thing was that she feels like she is always getting in trouble. I could have explained, with reasoned logic, that she was not actually in trouble. The whole “pushups” consequence had been a playful interaction, and I sent her to her room cheerfully, sensing that she just needed a minute to collect herself. Her refusal to do the pushups had not seemed defiant; it had been expressed with a kind of confused indignation, and I thought she just needed a moment by herself to realize the pushup rule was just part of a fun game. There was nothing punitive in my attitude or voice or in the environment, and her two siblings had to do pushups right there in front of her while she was refusing. [I did actually go through all of that before she started talking, just to reassure her that I wasn’t mad at her and she wasn’t ‘in trouble’] Her reaction to first the pushups and then the time in her room was illogical and uncalled for, and I could have explained that to her and been perfectly right. BUT, if I had done that, she would have heard the message that her feelings were wrong, that not only her behavior, but also her reaction to it, was wrong, and that I was not sympathetic with her or interested in hearing her side of the story.
Instead, I scooped her up into my arms, helped her again to take deep breaths (honestly, it is amazing how calming a few deep breaths can be!), and listened to her talk about her frustration. I told her I often felt the same way when I was a kid. We are both middle children of three, and that’s a tough road. I told her the truth, that I think she has a harder time than I did, because Will, love him though we do, is a real handful, especially to his closest-in-age sister. My younger sister Anne was all sweetness and snuggles growing up, whereas Will can be a bit of a Tasmanian devil.
As I snuggled her close, we swapped stories of how we’d both gotten in trouble in school for talking, even when it wasn’t our fault—I once got in trouble for telling someone to be quiet, and she once got in trouble just for giggling, and neither of the people we were reacting to ever got in trouble! We shared the indignation of the wrongfully accused. I told her that it was hard now, but that it would make her a stronger adult. I told her that someday God might use this anger toward injustice that she feels—He might even empower her to help people who have been treated unjustly. But mostly I held her, and heard her, and even cried with her.
A year ago, I would have hidden those tears and pretended I wasn’t crying. Today I didn’t hide them, and I think they were a sign to her that I heard her pain and hurt for her. We ended not with a problem solved, but with a pain shared, and I think that means a lot to anyone, child or adult.
Was this a perfect interaction? Not even close. I’m pretty sure the whole thing could have been avoided if I had realized earlier that she probably didn’t hear the introduction and explanation of the pushup rule. It’s not fair to expect a kid to follow a rule he doesn’t know exists, and the fault lies with me on that one. But I do think our conversation was valuable, if only to show her that I love her and am always willing to listen to her, even when I can’t offer a solution. I wouldn’t have known how to do that ten years ago. I still often don’t know how to best handle similar meltdowns from my older niece Abby. But I am learning. And I am listening.
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