September 3, 2007

As I was out shopping recently, I was reminded of an incident from a couple of years ago involving my son, Nick.

One morning, as I was preparing to get ready to go to work, I reached into the cabinet to pull out a coffee cup only to be met with an avalanche of plastic bowls that came tumbling out of their resting spot. Angered that this had occurred one too many times before, I started gathering up the plastics and throwing them in the sink.

Opening the dishwasher, I discovered the dishes my son was supposed to have put away were still sitting in the dishwasher. Mind you, it is one of his daily chores to ensure the dishwasher is loaded and/or unloaded.

I started to put them away and, totally frustrated with him, casually dropped a plate onto the floor. A thunderous crash! boom! bah! permeated the otherwise still morning.

Nick came running into the kitchen - “Mom, what happened?” “Nothing, I dropped a plate,” I told him. “Oh.”

He left to get ready for school, then came back - and, in typical fashion, made a wisecrack. That just infuriated me even more.

I reached into the cabinet and started grabbing plates, and one by one - dropped them on the floor. At the same time, I angrily explained that I was making it easy on him - there’d be less dishes to put away. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a difficult thing anymore for him to do. I continued my tirade.

Flabbergasted, Nick got upset - telling me I was a crazy person, and begging me to stop. Did I? No. I dropped a couple of more plates.

Again, Nick left to get ready for school. He was visibly upset, and unable to do anything to make it better.

Once out of plates, I stopped. The floor was littered with shattered stoneware. I grabbed a broom and started sweeping the debris.

Aggression relief. It actually felt pretty good. I had a problem, and I found an - albeit - compromised solution. Nick had issues putting away the dishes, now there were less dishes. I had plenty of paper plates he could use instead. Problem solved. Besides, I wanted to buy new dishes.

Now, a couple of years later (with a new set of dishes), he still remembers that episode. And, we haven’t had any problems with putting the dishes away either. Go figure!

Cheers.

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