Holding Someone’s Difficult State
In our carpool, three kids around the age of seven were upset with a four-year-old because he wouldn’t play with them.
So they would tease him by singing a distorted version of a song they knew would bother him, or complain about him: “He never plays with us. He keeps sleeping all the time.”
It was clear as day to me that their behavior was not making it any more likely that the younger child would play with them. Quite the opposite. Their teasing and complaints were only pushing him further away.
I could also understand where this tendency came from: from us, the adults.
When children don’t behave the way we want them to, we become upset and tell them to be “good kids.” If they still don’t listen, we raise our voices.
Even when our intention is nice—for example, wanting them to treat their younger siblings kindly—we sometimes use a forceful tone to demand that they “be nice.”
And so they learn something from us without our realizing it: that a person with more power can be unkind while demanding kindness from someone with less power.
So when these older children behaved unkindly toward the younger one, I could see that this, too, was partly learned behavior. We, adults, had our role in it.
Since I was aware of our own role in it, I gently told the children that they could try being warmer toward him—make him laugh, play with him, and make him feel comfortable. Gradually, he would want to play with them himself.
I don’t think my advice made much difference. But at least I didn’t add to the negativity.
When the children were frustrated with the younger one, I didn’t become frustrated with them for being frustrated with him.
That, in itself, was satisfying.
Because if I hadn’t noticed my own part in the dynamic, I could easily have become irritated with the older children. And what would I have been doing then?
Becoming upset with them for being upset with someone else.
I am amazed by how often we make exactly the same mistake when trying to correct a mistake in our children.
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Today, I was a little off. I hadn’t accomplished much at work, and when I came home, I wasn’t really enjoying myself with the kids. I was quiet and straight-faced.
As the kids left the room, my spouse said, “Be a little nicer with the kids. Why are you so serious with them?”
I was already feeling off, and a part of me immediately wanted something different from her. I wanted her to notice that I wasn’t myself and ask me what was wrong. I wanted to be met with warmth rather than a request to change my behavior.
In other words, I wanted someone to hold me in my offness.
And then came the interesting part.
I felt like complaining to her for complaining to me.
“Can’t you be helpful? Can’t you see that I’m upset? Instead of helping me, you’re eager to complain.”
I could feel myself preparing the argument in my head.
But then I saw the pattern.
She was responding to something in me that she didn’t like. And my instinct was to respond to something in her that I didn’t like.
I was about to do exactly what I had just observed in the children.
They were upset that the younger child wouldn’t play with them, so they teased him. I was upset that my spouse had complained to me, so I wanted to complain about her complaint.
Different circumstances. Same pattern.
Someone is in a difficult state. We don’t know how to hold it, so we resist it. The other person then feels hurt or frustrated by our response, and responds in kind.
And before long, each person’s negativity is feeding the other’s.
I caught myself before adding another layer to it.
She has held me with warmth on many occasions, just as I have failed to do so on many occasions. We are both capable of getting caught in this pattern.
The worthwhile question for me is: can I become someone who doesn’t contribute to it?
Can I hold someone in their difficult state without immediately trying to correct it, resist it, or make them feel bad for being there?
That is what it means to develop a deep well of positivity.
And if we can become such people, our children will learn something far more powerful than any instruction to “be nice.”
When someone doesn’t want to play with them, they may not tease him or complain about him.
They may simply approach him with warmth and playfulness.
Not because we told them to.
But because that is what they have seen us do.
