When are they not children?

Being a parent is dramatic! See them happy and you can be happy. When they are ill or unhappy your first instinct is to want to fix it. It doesn't matter if their issue can be fixed with a tissue, a parent's task is never finished. It can get complicated, though, when your child is having a poor reaction to an innocent situation.

In our house, Party A gets ticked because parties B and C are teasing her or threatening to do something stupid that Party A doesn't like. Party A can have such a cow that they actually get into trouble for screaming and not having an appropriate reaction. The older they get the more imaginative they are, both in instigation and in misinterpretation.

I had an interesting experience this week with said scenario. Party B was sharing her perspective with Party C when Party A began to be insensed by what B and C were discussing (tenuously it did involve Party A). Normally I would say, "If you have an issue, get a tissue." In this case, however, not listening to the conversation and keeping out of it was the best decision. I could give my opinion about the best approach, but I would simply be disrupting a very important part of a child's mental growth- learning discretion.

You see, sometimes my opinion doesn't matter. For the sake of Party A, B, and C's maturation, the best decision is to let them navigate their own emotions and defend their own opinions and life choices. Having not had my experiences in life, they will not have the same perspective. Likewise, should a similar situation come up again, I will be less needed because a precedent will have been set that they are old enough to natigate their own interpersonal communication and their own socioemotional development. "They also serve who stand and wait," wins again. One can only hope that no amount of projection or hormones will inhibit the growth of a person who has chosen to react poorly. It reminds me of the joke about the bone in Alice and Wonderland.

"Take a bone from a dog. What remains?"

1. The bone does not remain since you took it

2. The dog does not remain because he will surely chase after you with indignation

All that remains is the dog's temper- the snarling and suspicious temper that does him more harm than it creates profit. And in the end, the bone will still be gone; the pooch will be exhausted and still frustrated; and he will have only served to lose face.

So the next time A, B, and C are experimenting with socioemotional development, will the same results occur? Or will Party A have grown in respect and understanding? Time will tell. Either way, our job as a parent is to simply love and nurture and serve in hopes that our labor will refine the goodness and love that God intended His creation to have.