Respecting Disgust
Ratnesh Mathur
The other day I was walking towards my car in an apartment complex, when I saw a mother with her four year old son walk out of another block all set to catch the bus to go to school. Suddenly the child started puking right on the steps in front of the building. The mother, for some reason, got rather agitated with this and started retorting, “Oh shit! …. Oh Shit! “What are you doing? Oh Shit!” The child simply kept on vomiting and the mother kept on showing her disgust by repeating “Oh shit”. Finally she even snapped, “What did you have today? (as if somebody else had served him breakfast!).
My first reaction was “What kind of mother is she?’ and a desire to reach out to the child and comfort him. But having learned not to interfere in other’s business, I just walked on pondering over the whole incidence.
How often we react to what we see (or is visible) – and what we see can often be disgusting - the vomit. However, what was visible was neither the cause, nor the real area of concern. It was churning inside his stomach that was the real trouble. The puke needed no response, but the feeling he was having in the stomach was what needed to be addressed.
So this is what is happening here:
Visible: Disgusting Behavior - Response: Caustic
But if we add a third dimension here – see how the response changes
Respect: Child’s feelings - Visible: Disgusting Behavior - Response: Empathetic
Many of us will say, “But, I would never respond like this mother did".
Okay, so lets consider some more examples of disgusting behavior to check out our pattern of response:
> Small child pulls sister’s hair - how do you respond?
> Young Teenager says, “That uncle is so horrible” - how do you respond?
> In his temper a six year old smashes his toy on the floor - how do you respond?
> A ten year old says, “I hate this homework” - how do you respond?
> Your middle school daughter says about her friend, “She is such a pig” - how do you respond?
Do we want our children to grow up as emotionally balanced individuals? Do we agree that being emotionally balanced is important to lead a successful happy life?
In which case, first of all, are we exhibiting an emotionally balanced response? Two and more importantly, are we respecting their emotional being, the feelings within? Three, are we emotionally empowering them by showing them how to manage their feelings.
Somewhere our own emotional immaturity first shows up (just like the mothers response to puking). More importantly, by discounting the child's feelings we are leading the child to disregard himself, to loads of negative self talk, suppressing emotions, blaming others, and having no clue how to handle these emotions.
What we really need is to empower the child emotionally.
If you are wondering HOW?
may we invite you to an online workshop - this saturday, 10th Jan 2015 - on children and emotions
Workshop done online on webex web conferencing - you can attend via comp or a smart phone
Timings - 2:30pm to 4:30pm
Your Contribution Rs. 300/- or AKSD - that is Apni khusi se doh)
Interested? - register using the this form (You can pay using options mentioned at the bottom of the reg form).
Questions or want to organise these in your company / school / apartment - Call Ratnesh 98450-45833
Warm Regards