As this story was told to me, I blurted out, “You missed a great
training opportunity.” Much to my surprise, several women standing around said, “Where? Tell us what she could have done.”
First off, whenever a mom thinks, “too bad for you” there is training that could be done. Whenever mom feels irritated by her child, she can ask, “What could be trained here so I wasn’t annoyed?”
Did junior respond in an appropriate way? No. Training to be done. ESP
Did junior respond to mom’s explanation well? No. Training to be
done. ESP
Did both parties walk away loving each other? No. Training to be
done. ESP
Yes, mom has to take the effort to figure out what would be the
appropriate way to respond when someone does something to you that you don’t like, but then she can guide her child through role playing, right there, right now, so he knows what to do next time.
The training could just be a quick redo, or if the child insists
on keeping the bad attitude it could include discipline. But walking away without addressing the disrespect, lack of self-control and zero patience would be a total missed opportunity.