Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 22, 1993 TAG: 9311230395
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Joe Kennedy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Actually, only part of her showed up - her words. I recognized them as they were coming out of my mouth. They were prompted by one of those unwelcome developments that always seem to hit you just as you get home from work. In this case, it was a little test that had gone unadvertised and a little grade that didn't measure up.
When Mom found out about it, she really started raking my son over the coals. It had to be her, because I swore 35 years ago that I would never talk to my children that way. I knew then and know now that one grade in the life of a 10- year-old is nothing to raise the roof about.
But it was hard to get her to stop.
It would have been easier if my wife had been around. That way, I could have taken Mom outside while Sharon, the good cop, deftly employed reason. But Sharon was at a class, so it was just Mom and me, a couple of hotheads, reliving a drama from long ago.
I bet if you probed the memories of most adults, you'd find times when they, too, were lambasted over school work or some other mini-disaster. I bet they remember the hot burning in the face, the tears welling in the eyes, the sense of having failed in a monumental way, the desire for a passing bus that they could escape on, or that might, tragically, spring out of control and run over their screaming parent.
Thanks to scenes like that, most of us parents know how we ought to react in moments of stress. But put us in a real-life situation and what you'll get is a rerun from The Dark Side of Ozzie and Harriet, in which we holler at our children because that's what we learned to do.
``It happens,'' says Ken West, professor of counseling and human development at Lynchburg College, ``because, generally speaking, without education or intervention, we either parent the same way we were parented, or the opposite'' - particularly, he says, in a crisis situation. Or, as the case may be, in a false crisis situation.
Rarely, he says, are we truly able to behave in ways opposite from what our parents did.
People with low self-esteem have real trouble, because they react the most emotionally in times of stress. People who clashed with their parents on only a few issues are luckier, because generally, only those issues will set them off as adults.
My kids are lucky. Mom and I clashed over just one thing: School. She wanted perfection, and I wanted control. Eventually, we made our peace. But now, to my horror, I find that I want perfection. I actually told my son that: I WANT PERFECTION. Cool it, Mom.
Parent education can help those of us who find ourselves channeling, like Boopsie in ``Doonesbury,'' to the worst parts of our pasts. Help lies in books, in classes and support groups or, for serious cases, in counseling and therapy.
For those whose abuse is not constant or extreme, but is pretty obnoxious nevertheless, there is a way to put things right, once the crisis has passed: an apology.
No, not an apology from our child to us; an apology from us to our child. West does it all the time.
``The more I work with parents,'' he says, ``the more I realize some have this false belief that parents can't apologize because it's admitting you're imperfect. Children know that. We may as well just 'fess up.''
The other night, when the great storm was over, I 'fessed up, but not without throwing in the requisite lecture on responsibility, expectations and consequences. It was really something. Mario Cuomo never sounded so eloquent. Of course, I had help.
Thanks, Mom. Come back soon.
But, please, not on a school night.
by CNB