I am in pain

soozievt
Sun, 19 Aug 2007 17:26:22 +0000

Mom1957,

I am very glad that this has been resolved in the way I had hoped it would for you. I felt all along that expressing your feelings about his reaction (or lack thereof) to your thoughtful gesture was something you needed to let him know, once calm, and in an email where he couldn’t “argue” with you. That way, you were “heard.” That was all that was needed. He needed to know. In fact, it seems he is apologetic, understands where you are coming from, and says it was inexcusable. Mission accomplished! I have used this type of approach with one D at college who once in a while does something of this nature (well, she definitely tells me when my birthday cake arrived…but I mean something else in this category of behavior), and she will acknowledge and apologize and recognize she shouldn’t have done whatever it was.

While I totally agree with others to not make a BIG DEAL out of this kind of thing, I also don’t think as parents that we should just let it go. I think we need to express our feelings and be heard and teach them what is acceptable or appropriate. Yes, we can expect teens and young adults to mess up sometimes and so it is not surprising to us that they do but that should not be an excuse “just a teen,” or “just a boy.” We know why they might act this way but our job is to effect change to learning good behavior. So, you cleared the air…you let him know…he acknowledged he was wrong…and hopefully next time he thinks first about ever doing that kind of thing again. Our job as parents is not over even if they are in college.

My comments much earlier in the thread about gender wasn’t to do with the young adult but to do with my observation that some dads on the thread came across as in the “let it go” camp and some moms were more bothered by the young adult’s behavior. Maybe my interpretation was affected by the fact that in my own nuclear family, this is also how it would play out. I’d be the parent more inclined to let the kid know, “this was not OK.” Again, while I can understand that kids mess up, it doesn’t mean we have to accept it, but rather we can use the moment to train them to not repeat such behavior. Once it is mentioned to the kid, then time to let it go.