We never need to “blow up” to teach a child a lesson
"I
t was a buildup. My 17-year-old daughter Dahlia is not the most organized person to begin with. On Tuesday, she was supposed to catch a train to take her back to seminary. The train was leaving at 1:30, so I agreed to pick her up from the house on my lunch break and take her to the station, which is about 20 minutes away. I called Dahlia around 11 a.m. to make sure she was awake and all packed up, and told her I’d be there at about 12:45. She immediately protested, ‘That’s way too early! I don’t want to wait around. Come at 1:10.’
“I didn’t have time to argue, so I agreed and hung up. I swung by the house promptly at 1:10 and we headed toward the station. But it turned out that there was construction going on and traffic was crawling. There was no way we were going to make it to the station in time. I was starting to sweat.
“Hoping to expedite matters, I suggested Dahlia get her train ticket ready.
“ ‘I don’t have a ticket,’ she told me. ‘I can buy one there.’ I started to get really mad, but I controlled myself and told her to get her money ready. ‘I don’t have any cash,’ she tells me. ‘Do you have some you can lend me?’
“At this point I lost it. I told her that she was irresponsible and disorganized and immature and selfish and then went on to give her a very loud, extremely emotional lecture on the importance of planning ahead. She didn’t say a word and we drove the rest of the way in silence. Of course we were late. I put her ticket on my credit card and then left her to wait for a couple of hours. As you can imagine, we parted on very unpleasant terms. I feel absolutely horrible about it.”
Preventing Meltdowns
Mom was understandably frustrated with her daughter’s behavior — and her own. However, she could have easily prevented her angry meltdown. To begin with, Mom needed to recognize that Dahlia was the one who had to catch a train — not her. This means that Dahlia, not Mom, needed to be concerned about getting to the station on time and plan accordingly. Mom needed to ensure that only her daughter would suffer the negative consequences of her behavior — and that she herself wouldn’t be inconvenienced.
This would start with Mom refusing to drive Dahlia under any unnecessary time pressure — the kind that would be induced by leaving no margin for error on the trip. Mom knew that leaving early would prevent stress; she should have told Dahlia that she will only drive her to the station if she’s ready to leave at 12:45. If Dahlia agreed and then wasn’t ready on time, Mom should have refused to drive her altogether. Dahlia would have been forced to find and pay for her own way to the station.
Step Back and Relax
Even if Mom had agreed to leave after 1:00, she could still have done so without stress by refusing to worry about whether or not they’d arrive on time. If they were late, Mom could simply say “Oh, dear. Looks like you won’t make it on time.” She would then have dropped Dahlia off at the station to wait for the next train. This way, Dahlia would be the one to experience the discomfort of her situation — and maybe even learn to plan better in the future as a result.
Now let’s suppose that they had arrived on time, but Dahlia had neither a train ticket nor cash on her. Mom would have a couple of cucumber-cool options here as well. She could drive Dahlia home to get her cash. In that case, Dahlia would have to make her own arrangements to get back to the station, as Mom would have to return to work. (“Sorry, honey. I can’t help anymore today — I’ve got to get back to work.”)
Or, if Mom had cash with her, she could lend her daughter the fare and deduct the amount from the allowance that she would soon be sending (assuming it was Dahlia’s responsibility to purchase train tickets out of her own budget).
Mom never needs to “blow up” in order to teach her daughter a lesson. She just needs to step back and relax.
