Why can’t I leave it alone?
Kiki and I got into an argument over clarinet practice. This is not the problem. The problem is that in certain emotional states I can not leave things alone. I lecture and Kiki acts stubborn. So I lecture harder because I feel like I’m not getting through. And in that moment it feels critically important for her to learn that lesson right now. Finally I manage to break out of the face-off, usually because another child has developed a dire need for attention. However the argument with Kiki feels unfinished and so I’ll go back to it. Eventually I allow Kiki to escape into solitude in her room. Once Kiki is away from the barrage of parental scold, she invariably breaks down into noisy tears. During that time she is taking my words and using them to berate herself. I hear the sobbing and the nurturing mommy part of me just has to do something, so I go to her to try to make it all better. But she’s still angry with me and with herself. She isn’t ready for it to be “all better” yet. So we end up going for another round of argument on the same subject that started the mess, or sometimes we find another thing to circle endlessly and uselessly.
Honestly the best thing for me to do when we end up in a face-off, is for me to leave Kiki alone until she works completely through her emotions and thoughts. She is really smart and she knows what is right. She has really good instincts that lead her down the right paths. I need to back off and trust that she’ll find a good way, even if it is not mine. But it is so hard. I really dislike conflict and I have a driving need to make it all better. At the same time I have a driving need to make sure that I teach my kids the lessons they’ll need. And so I try to do both and end up making a mess. Poor Kiki doesn’t see that I’m the one making mistakes in managing a minor incident, and so she feels like everything is crashing down around her. She is convinced it is all her fault. I’m convinced it is all mine. And sometimes we fight over that too. Which is dumb.
I have got to find a way to stop these escalation cycles. Everyone else suffers for them too. Gleek, Link, and Patches did not have a pleasant bedtime because I was pre-angered over the conflict with Kiki. Fortunately this kind of head-to-head conflict is fairly rare. Today it happened because I’m stressed about the books arriving tomorrow and I was subconsciously looking for things to fill my time. I need to teach my subconscious that picking a fight is not a satisfactory way to spend time.
Tonight I broke the cycle by leaving the house. I left the kids with Howard and went shopping. By the time I arrived a Walmart I realized that, except for a 15 minute trip to pick up kids from school, this was the only time I’d left the house all day. No wonder I was ready to pick a fight. I bought a card to say sorry to Kiki because cards are very important to her. She keeps all of them. I figured that I should apologize in the way best suited to her. Tomorrow Kiki and I will talk and it will all be okay.
Now if I can just figure out how not to do this to any of us again.