Note shoved under the door of my child who locked herself in after being ordered to her room:
Gleek,
I am mad at you because every time I try to talk to you about the upset over at Bestfriend’s house, you yell at me, or run away, or throw things. I don’t want to be mad, but we have to talk about what you did and how to do it differently.
Mom
Response written in the margin of my note:
no i do’t don’t want to talk.
Gleek,
If a grown up treated people the way you treated Bestfriend’s mom and me, that grown up would be arrested and taken to jail. Hitting, screaming, and running away from people in charge are wrong.
no. I still don’t want to talk.
I’m sorry you don’t want to talk. I want to talk. I want to snuggle you in my lap and talk about what went wrong and how it could be different next time. I want to be on your side, but I can’t be when you scream and run away from me.
no!
Gleek I love you. No matter what. Even if I feel mad I still love you. Mom
yes. I know but I still don’t want to talk.
Okay. I’ll let you be alone for awhile. You don’t have to talk. If you want to come out, but not talk that’s okay too. I am going to go help Link with homework now. I love you.
Mom, I want to talk but I w want to wrigh it on PaPer as note’s.
Okay. I think you need to write a note to Bestfriend’s mom to apologize but you can’t deliver it tonight because she has guests. A note to say sorry to me would be good too.
I’m sore sorry ser so I’m so sorry!
It’s okay. I love you. (( Hug )) <-- those are hug marks.
I love you too! no-mater wat wate wut.
The notes continued for awhile after that. I pushed her homework under the door and she finished it and pushed it back. We even batted a lego man head back and forth under the door for a bit. When she finally came out, we had hugs.
Wow. Oh, wow. SO well handled.
Seconded. Trying to force a child to talk on your terms instead of hers will just cause further anger and resentment.
Well done. *takes notes*
How sweet. *chuckles* I hope I’m half that good when I have kids.
Thanks. I wish I’d handled the 10 minutes prior to the notes better, but at least I got it right in the end.
Thanks. Now I just need to figure out how to manage this well ALL the time instead of occasionally.
Wish my folks had been like that…
OK, a non-Mommy’s thoughts here … I’m impressed that Gleek took the route of writing things out. And that she *wanted* to talk about it via written communication. Even at her age, perhaps especially at her age, her brain and emotions run waaay ahead of the pen. She has to think through what she’s thinking and what she wants to say, and be able to put it down on paper. That’s a lot more control than she was exhibiting earlier in the day 🙂
It’s an interesting way of taking control.
You can’t. About the best you can do is 75% of the time because what works well now won’t work well for the next one or even possibly the next time. You would have to figure out who they are becoming before they show signs of becoming that person and as far as I know, no one has that sort of time machine. Best you can do is be quick on the uptake. And you are. Ten minutes to figure out the solution is a lot faster than some people who take 10 hours or even 10 days or 10 weeks or 10 months to say nothing of the ones that take 10 years (I’d go on with 10 decades but I doubt anyone could live that long and be clueless about other people.)
Good point.
Gleek is amazingly aware and controlled after the upset. The trouble is managing to avoid the upsets in the first place.
That’s the sweetest thing I ever read.
Thanks. Gleek really is an amazing person.