I knew this would be an interesting one, as this is involves a difficult situation for anyone to go through. I also thought it would be at least a few weeks before I encountered something like this. Boy was I wrong.
The day started off nicely enough. After doing some work for my business, Mom and I decided to take the kids to the play area at our mall. The kids were having fun, when all of a sudden a little boy tried to push my son off of one of the play structures and then pulled his hair. A few more instances like that followed, including one where the boy purposely smacked my broken finger. This all culminated into a potentially bad situation. I had left the play area for a few minutes. When I came back, the other mother approached me and accused my mom of slapping the boy in the face. The other moms next to us came straight to her defense, telling the other mom that my mom had simply picked up the boy and set him on the ground from the play structure after that boy had purposely stepped on my son. The situation could've escalated quickly. The other mother called her son over, who admitted that he lied when he told his mom that my mom had slapped him. She sat him down for a timeout.
She was berating him and explaining how lying is always bad, it is never ok to lie. Mom and I exchanged a look. We could both see the frustration clearly written on her face. This was not a one day occurrence. This was obviously something that goes on probably daily. I turned to her and said, "My kids can definitely be handfuls and challenging." She gave us a sad smile and started talking to us about the struggles she was having. The more she talked and we responded, the more she delved deeper into the ongoing struggles. And the less stressed she looked. We sat and talked with her for a half hour before realizing we did need to go. As we left, we reminded her that it does get better, just hang in there, she's strong, she's a mom. She smiled gratefully and looked so much more relaxed. As we started to leave the play area, the other boy ran up and gave us each a hug.
When faced with a difficult or tense situation, it's a natural human reaction to bristle and defend ourselves and our family. The more the other person defends themselves, the more we feel we need to be on both the offensive and defensive, and the more tense everything gets. It's never a win-win situation, but it really is human nature. But in this situation, I happened to remember this one deed, and I responded with compassion instead of going on the offensive. I appreciate what the other mothers did in defending my mom, but that's a perfect example of how most people handle that type of situation. It made all the difference. You will always face difficult people in your life. How you handle that situation and that person often shows who you are as well.
As Ellen Degeneres says, a person I admire immensely, “be kind to one another”.
Have you ever handled a situation with compassion or kindness instead of offense? What happened? Post in the comments!
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