Deconstructing a Conflict
Today’s conflict was larger than usual, primarily because it took place in public. However the fact of conflict with children is common, particularly this Fall while three of them are pushing forward on developmental curves. I thought it would be useful to examine the conflict, a post-mortem if you will. If I understand this one, then I am better prepared for the next one. Or at least that is the theory.
The conflict began when I noticed that red liquid was leaking from Gleek’s backpack. We discovered that the liquid was from a bottle of Gatorade that she was given for participating in an activity. This is when the screaming began. Gleek began shrieking at the world and refusing to go home. The situation was worsened by the discovery that the bottom of the backpack had a pool of liquid and other items had been soaked as well.
Conflicts are often the result of needs crashing into each other.
My needs:
to get back home because I’d paused my process of bottling pears to pick kids up.
Gleek to stop shrieking and kicking up a fuss in public.
to get kids home so that we could problem solve. I was pretty sure that I could replace or wash the affected items.
Patch and Link needed:
To be away from the unpleasant conflict and to be home instead of sitting around waiting.
Gleek needed:
Her gatorade back unspilled. (She’d earned it yesterday, but they had run out, so she waited a whole day to receive it.)
Her emotions vented.
Her notebook to not be soaked with pink liquid.
Looking back, I wonder if I had responded differently in the first moment of discovery, would that have made a difference? If I had said something sympathetic instead of “let’s go home” would Gleek have moved into a problem solving mindset instead of a tantrum? I’m not sure that would have been the case. She was so focused on being mad at the world and shouting because she wanted it to not have happened. Unfortunately her response changed my options.
I could have hauled her kicking-screaming person into the car and driven away despite her protests. I could have shouted her into the car. I could have threatened grounding or brandished some other punishment to force compliance. These tactics can be used to good effect in a crisis, but if they don’t instantly bring compliance, they escalate the conflict. They also change the conflict so that it is Mother vs child and the issue is obedience, rather than Mother and child with the issue being the sad thing that occurred.
Forcing her to go home required me to change the conflict in unpleasant ways, so I had to find some other tactic. Link and Patch volunteered to walk home, which removed them from the scene and gave me a little more leeway. I sorted through the damaged items to salvage what I could. I also hoped that the sorting would help Gleek shift into a “where do we go from here” mindset, but she remained stuck in the “I want this to not have happened” frame of mind. I needed to get her to shift. Our best chance of finding solutions was at home. Sorting through the salvage had not worked, so I was left with words.
I sat in the car and began to talk. I probably talk too much during conflicts. I suspect I hound my kids with words and they hate it. I think they hate it most if they can see I am right. Each linguistic foray was an attempt to get her to shift from denial into something else.
I mentioned how her behavior was over-the-top and unacceptable. (This earned more screaming.)
I told how I was frustrated because I wanted to be sympathetic about what had happened to her. She quieted down to listen to this, so I detailed exactly what I knew about why she was frustrated, that she’d looked forward to the gatorade, that the ruined notebook was a special one, and how it was awful that both were gone.
The silence was an improvement, but it still wasn’t getting us home. And she still yelled when I suggested leaving.
I expressed my frustration at managing her behavior and my embarrassment at having to do this in public with teachers and students who could over hear. To this she answered “Now you know how I feel. People are staring at me all the time.”
I replied that it wasn’t the same because she got stared at for things she did while I was being stared at for something someone else did.
We exchanged a couple more heated sentences until she was mad enough at me that she flounced into the car and said “Fine! We’ll just go home!”
I’d won the point about going home. Once at home, I left Gleek to fume by herself while I settled things and started washing out the soaked backpack. When I returned to Gleek I was all sympathy and she was ready to receive it. She’d really needed time alone to cool off, which I’d been completely unable to supply without getting home first. At home she quickly made peace with the loss of the notebook, threw out the remaining gatorade, and happily accepted replacement notebooks from me.
Getting home was the solution, but I don’t like that I had to provoke her to get her there. I worry that she will take to heart some of the things I said and use them as evidence that she is not a good person. I wish the conflict could have been resolved without resorting to adversarial maneuvering. I suppose I could have immediately offered to drive to a store and buy new gatorade and notebook, but would have set a precedent that I don’t want to maintain. Also I don’t think that answer would have ended the conflict any sooner. She didn’t want it fixed. She wanted it to not have happened.
The truth is that I can not avoid conflict with my children. Even if I turned myself into a doormat of a mother, they could still create a conflict by sheer irrational demands. All I can do is try to weather the conflicts with as little damage as possible and to talk them through afterward to make sure the right lessons are learned.