Social Mirror: In Your Face

One of the many things that we try to teach our children is how to make a good decision.  Sometimes the problem can be that we may not always make good decisions ourselves or we may allow emotions to influence our choices.  I found this to be true in a recent argument I had with my older son and a latter discussion about an important choice he wanted to make.

The argument was about his last-minute decision to back out of his promise to come skiing with me over Winter Break, preferring instead to stay home with his friends (and girlfriend). I got angry as he made this decision days before we were supposed to leave, thus leaving me high and dry with little time to find a friend to come in his place.  My wife and other son were already scheduled to go on a very special trip to Japan and Hong Kong.

So, like the mature parent I always am, I pouted like a child, I yelled, and otherwise berated him.  The truth was he never really wanted to go, as he’s just not that into skiing (or snowboarding, in his case), but he was afraid to tell me that truth.  Once I got over my initial hurt over being spurned in favor of his friends and girlfriend (he’s 16, Dad – who do you think he prefers to hang out with?), we talked about a better way to have handled the situation.

The upshot is that he knows that he shouldn’t wait until the last minute because of fear of disappointing me (or anyone), fear of my reaction, and he should “man up” and tell the truth vs. procrastinating.  I needed to “hear” him better when he was hesitant to go and not railroad him to the decision I wanted.

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