Learning to Walk Away

It's interesting, I can usually tell if one my children is being dishonest by the amount of energy they put into denying whatever wrongdoing has been perpetrated. For instance, when the child believes that they innocent, and I mean truly believes they are being falsely accused, they get extremely upset, there are tears and sobbing, the voice goes up an octave or two. Usually hysterics are involved.

However the effort put forth when they are guilty, you couldn't power the front porch light with what they expend. A lightly stated "It wasn't me" with some kind of righteous indignation follows. Sometimes there's a foot stamp or alligator tears, it all depends on the child but their heart simply isn't into it.

So we know.

Let me repeat that for my kids, we know when you're lying. I think instinctively they know it's not worth the effort trying to disprove something they know their guilty of.

However, when they're trying to get a sibling nailed for a crime, oh the energy expended goes through the roof. It's unreal how invested they become, especially when they feel wronged.

I don't know how to break it to them, that even as adults, they'll still experience that feeling of being wronged.

The fact remains we are imperfect mortals doing the best we can and sometimes people make mistakes that hurt others, sometimes people are selfish and don't care who they hurt. Sometimes things happen that don't really matter. Sometimes we have to weigh the situation and figure out if it really actually matters. And if it doesn't we have to walk away.

Walk away.

I know my children don't understand that. I can't say, I simply can't count the number of times, I've had a child in hysterics over something a siblings done and I've had to repeat over and over again, that it doesn't matter. See, the upset child sees a wrong and that's all they see. They don't know that it's been dealt with, or there's a more serious problem that needs immediate attention. They haven't learned to see past the here and now.

Being an adult doesn't give us a free pass either. I mean, ask yourself, do you really know what's of worth?

Which is why, the past month especially I've had to make some choices and decide when to walk away. I've had to ask myself, is this really worth it? What would I gain in fighting? What would I gain by spending energy on stuff that simply doesn't matter if I look beyond the here and now.

This isn't easy for me. I like to explain myself. I double check to make sure all is right with people I know. If I can't for whatever reason, fix what is wrong, I spend more energy then I should over analyzing experiences and conversations for hours on end. I dwell. I can't seem to help myself. I'm trying to get better.

I'm sure my friends get sick of me, going over stuff half a dozen times.

I had an epiphany. I've realized that I can't teach my children to walk away if I fail to do so myself. I can't dwell. I have to move on. I have to look at my priorities and ask myself if it truly matters. Sometimes that involves biting my tongue.

But enough personal analyzing and onto a story for giggles and kicks. Last week at the park Kate came over extremely upset. She said her friend had dumped apple juice on her head so we called her friend over and immediately the tween started accusing Kate of dumping juice first which led to Kate denying vigorously, with tears down her face.

I announced, that those girls were awful lucky because juice in the hair happens to be one thing that is extremely easy to prove fibbing on.

Kate's friend's eyes got extremely big.

A little hair probing showed that indeed, Kate had juice in her hair and her friend did not, which led to an immediate time out.

Unfortunately it takes a week for Kate to let go and while her friend was wrong, both in the choice to dump juice and in the choice to blame Kate for starting it, I had to ask her if this was really worth being so upset over (we're talking a week later!).

According to Kate, it is. So apparently I have more work to do.