When Maria expressed her angry feelings to Benjamin in that last story, she did it in a particularly skillful way. She completely avoided the word you. She said, “When I see one child hurting another I get very upset!” What she didn’t say was, “When I see you hurting your sister . . .” When expressing annoyance, irritation, or anger, it’s important to banish the word you. The you is accusatory. As soon as a child hears you, he feels defensive. He may respond by arguing, laughing inappropriately, running away, or getting angry in return. If we can avoid you altogether, we’re much more likely to
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This example is kind of ridiculous to me. If my son hits my infant daughter it’s not better to avoid saying “you” in the correction. It’s just not. I want him to take ownership in his relationship with her. Not distance himself from his actions.
“Mama gets sad when she sees a child hit a baby” is not better than “Mama gets sad when you hit your sister.”
That’s HIS sister. It’s laughable to me that she’s teaching us to express our feelings to children but then simultaneously teaching us to distance our kids from those feelings by being indirect to avoid defensiveness.
