Recently, a 5-year-old boy took his parents SUV and made it a few miles down a Utah highway before getting pulled over by the police.
Apparently, the parents were at work and the boy was being watched by an older sibling. The boy took the vehicle because he’d had an argument with his mom.
When my kids were five, I never worried they would drive off in a car. Thank goodness.
This story did make me think about the importance of cooling-off and processing. We often expect our kids to immediately accept and incorporate constructive criticism. I mean, really – it’s obvious that we’re right… but that means they’re wrong. And being wrong isn’t a comfortable place.
It may help to consider this through the perspective of employee relations. If you’ve ever received an employee review that had any hint of criticism, you may relate to this:
No matter how many good things I’m told in an evaluation, I tend to fixate on what was mentioned (however briefly) as an area that needed improvement. I nod and smile, then slink off to nurse a grudge for at least a few hours before deciding that maybe my supervisor had a point.
For those of you more evolved than me and able to integrate negative feedback immediately – good for you! Me? I’m not so evolved.
The good thing about my need for processing time? I (usually) understand when my kids don’t immediately agree with negative feedback, no matter how diplomatically I’ve tried to word it. Like me, they need time to process and integrate. Allowing them to do this is healthy and hopefully, with age, they will mature (more than me) and require less processing time.
On the other hand, you don’t want your five-year-old processing while driving down I-15 in Utah. So, if you’ve just told him you’re not buying him a Lamborghini, you might want to hide the car keys… true story.
