The other day I was talking to a friend outside of my house (yes, I have friends). My family had just returned from the park, so we were all still outside. My wife had the baby and was putting the stroller in the house, my middle child was climbing a tree (I think she was trying to make a couple more bruises to add to her collection), and my six year old was making happy noises and dancing in front of one of my gardens… which was strange. She was waving around what looked like tiny green leaves on a stem. As my brain was very confused by this, she bent over and quickly bounced back up with more tiny green leaves on a stem in her hands. This time she raised leaves high in the air dancing like she had just defeated her lifelong enemy. I suddenly realized she was ripping apart one of my plants. In shock, I interrupted my friend’s story to scold, “Gracie! What are you doing?” My daughter immediately stopped, turned around to look at me, and then ran away. Not knowing what to do, I apologized to my friend and let him finish his story. It wasn’t long after this that my friend left and I found my daughter. She’s grown up going to garden centers and has had nice gardens at the house her entire life. She’s even helped me plant and water some of the flowers we have. It’s not like she’s an alien that’s just arrived on our planet and learning what these things are: “These green things are so fun to wave like flags after I free them from their brown prison!” Not knowing how to begin and unable to come up with a question with two options, I simply asked in a very confused voice: “Why were you ripping at my plant?” With as much remorse as a child can have, my daughter replied, “I thought they were weeds.”
I should point out that my oldest is generally a very good girl. When she’s tired she can be a bit rude like a normal person. Her main issue is actually something she’s very proud of – she’s a hoarder. She’s going to be on TV one day… and not in a good way. Overall, she gets it when she’s done something wrong and is very good to be remorseful. When she was two, she accidentally ripped my Bible and even at that young age she was incredibly apologetic and the care she showed was impressive. My middle child, the one covered in bruises, is not the same. She’s four, and if she knows she did something wrong, she’ll likely go full on mean girl teenager style and throw sass on your anger: “I don’t care.” That’s fun. Hopefully we’ll be able to break that habit soon. On the plus side where my oldest had a month of feeling bullied at school, when my middle starts school next year, she won’t get bullied… she’s more likely to be the bully who will make the teacher cry. I point this out because it’s important to know your audience. When my oldest told me she thought it was weeds, even if she was lying, she felt terrible for upsetting me. I didn’t have to go hard on her. My middle? She would’ve likely ripped a bigger plant out to spite me for being upset. It really is fun. I would need a different approach with her.
After my oldest gave her reason, my shock grew even bigger. All I could think was: “Why would you think it was a weed?” Instead, what came out of my mouth was “New rule: You can’t touch any of the plants unless you first check with me.” She quickly agreed and then there was silence as I stared at her still in disbelief of what she did.
So my daughter was upset for doing something wrong, she agreed to the new rule, which meant the goals of helping her be a better person in the future and keeping the contents of the house safe had been achieved. With this in place, do you think I felt better? Did I feel satisfied? Were my emotions absolved? Not a chance. I felt like screaming at her. I felt like repeating my new rule over and over. I felt like giving analogies and expressing why her doing that was unbelievably dumb… but would that help her in any way? No. It’d likely make it worse. My daughter would likely develop an unhealthy fear or resentment toward me, which would make things worse for me in the future. By knowing when to stop and actually stopping my discipline, I was putting myself in a better position to be respected as I was acting respectable. What’s strange is if this was my middle child, she would’ve given me a fight, but on some level it would’ve felt better for me because I would’ve naturally gotten out more of my emotion by being more threatening and using lectures to put her in her place. It’s a strange reality.
At this point, I was done disciplining my daughter, but I was still rattled. So what did I need to do? As I regularly teach, I needed to vent privately. I needed to find a space for myself to do something to safely get out my emotion, so I didn’t bottle anything up. In this situation, I did a few fist clenches and grunts, nothing too intense, but that’s all I needed as I moved onto doing something to distract myself.
Part of the problem with conflict is we don’t feel good after, but our brain wants to feel peace. That’s why a lot of people end up talking too much and pushing issues because they’re trying to “feel” good, but resolution doesn’t feel good. It’s like telling a kid to apologize to their sibling. Sure, they might say their sorry, but they’re not happy about it. Adults are no different. We’re not suddenly fine. Some people recover quicker because they’re easily distracted, but most people need a cool down period after a conflict or a very big environment change. My daughter knew she screwed up and was remorseful, but that didn’t help me feel better. My job was done, but the emotion was still there because the plant was severely damaged and will likely die.
So how do we deal with conflict? The basic steps are pretty simple in concept, but they’re hard to execute:
- Define the problem in one sentence.
- If step one can’t be achieved while with the person, call a Time out with a Time. It’s like in a boxing match. Ring the bell to show the round is done, so both parties can go to their corners to regroup and find a one sentence to summarize their point.
- To help figure out the problem, sometimes we need to physically vent to calm our emotions and then we want to process the situation by journalling or talking to a trusted outside person to find our one sentence.
- After finding the one sentence summary of why we’re upset, there are three main options: A) Using the one sentence, turn it into a request for how you’d prefer the other person to behave next time. Complaining feels like criticism, but making a request for different behavior next time is solution focused and easier to accept, which is what I did by making a new rule for my daughter. B) Each person in the conflict in one sentence shares the hurt they felt and then apologizes to the other party for the hurt they felt whether it seems justifiable or not. Both sides need to apologize because conflict means two people felt hurt. After both parties have apologized, you can then ask if you can explain what you were actually trying to do if their was a misinterpretation. C) Ask a two option question to double check what the person was doing. For example, “When you (thing they said or did) were you trying to hurt me or did I misread it?” or “When you said (blank), were you trying to be helpful or were you talking down to me?” If the person was being bad, get away because they were being bad. If you misinterpreted, great. Move forward knowing the other person wasn’t trying to hurt you.
Tip: Whatever choice you go with, conversations should be less than five minutes because the longer the conversation, the greater the risk of blowing up into another fight.
5. Sometimes after these steps we need to vent privately to get our emotions out.
6. Resolution is found when we can find one sentence to summarize what happened and/or what we can do differently next time. For example: A) We had a fight because we were both tired, which means we shouldn’t talk about anything serious right before bed. B) When it feels like she’s criticizing me, I get too defensive, which makes it worse. Instead of giving explanations for what I was doing, I need to help her feel cared about by (thing). C) When he doesn’t do what I ask, it feels like he doesn’t care about me, but I should remember it might be a sign he has a different perspective and ask a two option question about it before getting angry.
7. Distraction is a necessary last step in order to prevent over thinking.
In my situation with my daughter, I was able to do step one, so I skipped the Time Out with a Time and Venting. If I couldn’t come up with my one sentence, I would’ve sent my daughter to her room with a time (something I can’t do with my wife because she’s my equal). This would allow me a chance to calm down and process the situation better. Instead, I was able to go straight to:
- Problem: She ripped out my plants.
- Request: Don’t touch the plants unless you check with me first.
- Vent out the emotion to calm down.
- Distract myself in order to let my brain relax.
This also shows how it’s helpful to be remorseful when we’ve upset someone because you can really reduce the potential conflict when you don’t defend yourself and simply show you care.
This week may you consider how you can reduce conflict.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)