The feel- how is part of it

"All of this is very fine! But isn't it a little too much to expect us parents to keep up sympathetic understanding when we find ourselves bearing the brunt of most of our children's gripings?"

"How can we be expected never to get insulted or mad?"

You're not.

You're bound to get mad at times. You're bound to get insulted at times. You're bound to get angry at times. And if you do, it's better to show it than to act one way while feeling another.

If you try out your new-learned "acceptance" business feeling artificially sweet, it will never work.

"My mother," says one girl, "she never hollers. She smiles. But her hollerings are stamped all over her face."

"My father," says another, "it would be better if he cussed out loud rather than to himself. He acts all controlled and quiet. But he makes me feel he's hating me inside."

"My mom's gotten this new technique," confides another. "She's supposed to mirror your feelings. I looked in the book.

So she says sweetly, 'You're feeling angry!' But I know mighty well that underneath she's muttering to herself, 'You're a brat!''

It doesn't work to accept with words and reject underneath. Better to let your own anger out and later, if you really feel like going back over what's happened, to approach it with sincere humility or contrition or belated sympathy or whatever it is that you do honestly feel.

"I got mad. But now that that's over, I do see how you were feeling. I'm mad at myself that I had to explode."

Ask yourself:

When I'm angry, am I ashamed to show it?

Am I perhaps steering away from letting my children show anger because I'm afraid of angry feelings in myself?

Does it make sense to me, the whole idea of letting these children of mine come out with their troubled feelings--not here, there and everywhere, but alone in the intimate course of our living together?

Am I still afraid that they may get the habit of splashing out at everyone if I let them splash out at us? Or can I see that rather the reverse is true--that they actually splash less at others when they have chances to get out their feelings at us? And in the end they have more room for love!

Do I, by now, sense the hang of it?

Am I ready to learn how to do it?

If you feel you are ready, there's only one way really to learn how: that's to TRY.