Listening and the Stupid Co-worker

"Do not say that again."

Have you ever said those words to your child? How would you like it if someone said them to you?

Children are developing adults, and their mental and physical abilities often clash. For instance, the cognitive abilities of their brains develop much sooner than their speech abilities. So they can understand a whole lot more than they can verbalize.

Likewise emotions. As a child, basic emotions form the nucleus of every other emotion. Children may have all the more difficult feelings in their repertoire, but they've only got a limited number to describe them. I believe four of those are: happy, sad, mad, and scared (though scared could be a combination of sad and mad). I think nearly all emotions can be described, to a degree, as portions of those four.

If your child yells at you or says he's not going to do something you tell him to do, should you command him never to utter those words again? Sure, if you want him to be afraid to tell you how he feels, or if you want him to know that what he feels is wrong, bad, unimportant, and stupid.

When I hear those words (which I did yesterday from a 250-pound skinhead to a 30-pound kid who was obviously repeating sentences he'd heard at home), I want to ask if that's how the adult treats co-workers or friends. We've all had to put up with them at some time or another. But how many of us have told them to shut up, grabbed them by the arm and dragged them upstairs to their room, smacked their bottoms, made them take a time-out?

What if the baby could have said: "Oh Father, I'm feeling jealous of my baby brother because you and Mother coo and ah over him, making me feel unimportant. Every time he poops himself, you stop what you're doing and change his diaper. And now, all I want to do is play on the playground a while longer; yet you don't seem to care. I'm feeling just a bit insecure in my dealing with you at this moment."

Would Dad have said, "Don't you say that again"? I think not. Unfortunately, the child didn't have jealousy, insecurity, or self-worth in his vocabulary. He was just mad. Whatever the conversation between father and son, the son left pouting and defeated, unable to speak his mind.

My chest fills with parental pride at how my son fearlessly approaches kids and asks them to play, thanks them for playing when they leave or he leaves, treats younger and older kids with the same respect and gleam in his eye. No, he's not perfect all the time, but I never discount what he says or feels and always get to the bottom of negative emotions he displays. We don't always solve them, but at least we understand them.

I'd do the same for any stupid co-worker.