The other day we were out driving and the car next to us started drifting into our lane. My quick toot of the horn to alert the driver was met with one loud, long blast that lasted a couple of hundred metres. Just in case we didn’t get the message, the front passenger gestured a two-handed ‘bird’ all the way to the next set of traffic lights.
We seem to have lost the ability to take responsibility for our actions – to smile, wave and say ‘oops sorry, my bad!’
As parents, in situations like this, do we retaliate and escalate? Or do we use this as an opportunity to talk to our kids about tolerance and taking responsibility for our actions? Thankfully Cath was sitting beside me and I chose the latter and we turned the whole thing into one of those priceless teaching moments with our three kids.
None of us gets it right 100% of the time. When we don’t, it’s helpful for our kids to hear us admit it. If we don’t model it for them, where will they learn it?
