The Pain in Growth & The Pain of Forgiveness
By Marc Cameron
It’s Saturday night in the Cameron household and we are 20 minutes from leaving the house for the evening. My wife, Amy, and I have plans to pick up our friends and carpool to a Toby Mac concert, while my kids have plans to go to a high school dance. Then, right on schedule (now that we are in a time-crunch), the meltdown happens. My son, Carter, told my daughter, Kaytlin, earlier in the day she could borrow his khaki pants for the dance. Carter just realized the black pants he was planning on wearing no longer fit him. He now wants his pants back from Kaytlin, who is already dressed and wearing them! You guessed it … they both default into their reactivity patterns. Carter goes to demanding and blame, “They are my pants! You’ve done this to me before Kaytlin.” He then turns it on mom saying, “I’ve been telling you my clothes don’t fit and asking to get new clothes for a while now!” Kaytlin goes into defense and shut-down mode saying, “I’ve been wearing these pants all afternoon. If you had told me earlier I couldn’t wear them I would have done laundry … Fine … then I’m not going!”
As I come home from work I am unaware of the family drama playing out and walk into the house finding Amy playing referee. I see Amy struggling and defending herself from Carter’s attacks, and I go into mediator mode trying to understand what I just walked in to. As we try to redirect Carter’s blaming, his feelings get hurt, he starts to cry, and stomps upstairs. As I question Kaytlin to help her see how she is restricting herself to only going to the dance if she wears those particular pants, she asks to leave the house to go on a walk.
By now, both kids are overwhelmed and Amy and I have to choose how we are going to respond. Amy and I have a quick discussion of how we can offer clothing options from our closet and let them decide what they are going to do. Although my waist size is bigger than his, I go upstairs to try and comfort Carter and suggest some options from my closet. He’s not crazy about my options because they don’t fit as well, but he does calm down somewhat. He goes back to his bedroom to decide what to do. Just then, Kaytlin comes back from her walk. She goes to Carter’s room and apologizes to him, offering to give him back his pants. Carter, graciously tells her he has decided to wear another pair of jeans. All is resolved and the evening ultimately resumes on schedule. The only downside is we were late to pick up our friends, but it’s a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. I’m thankful my kids have both learned to identify “all-or-nothing” thinking.
In the past this type of interaction would have derailed the whole evening for all of us. We would have probably told Kaytlin that she has to come with us if she doesn’t go to the dance (that’s my own “all or-nothing” thinking). We know our kids learn to take their cues from us and, thankfully, over the last few years we have been doing the work to break free from our insecure attachment styles. Our kids have also learned phrases like “blaming”, “devaluing”, “defending”, “protesting” and “detachment.” They can identify and verbalize when they are feeling shame as well as other sad and hurt emotions that drive their anger. Amy and I feel a sense of both relief and pride as everyone forgives, repairs and reconnects. What a privilege it is to help my kids grow toward security. The journey has been incredibly challenging, but so worth it. We still have work to do, but no one ever gains security by accident!
40 Days of Forgiveness
As we enter this season of Lent I challenge you to consider “40 days of forgiveness.” During these 40 days, look for one opportunity each day to express forgiveness to another person. It may be for a minor infraction that happened recently, or maybe something big you are still carrying around. If forgiveness is hard for you, I encourage you to build up to forgiving others for larger wounds that may have occurred years ago that you still feel. I understand if that sounds hard, but remember … whatever we practice we get better at!
If you are unsure about your Love Style, check out the Love Style Quiz below.
