Sunday, October 28, 2012

Patience, respect, and not taking things personally

I feel I need to write about this because it keeps coming up in my life. It's come up in my personal life, in my local homeschool group, in online blogs and forums I read, and in family issues the past few weeks. 

Here it is. 

The things that people do and say usually have nothing to do with you.

Here is an example: When you tell someone that you homeschool and they take it as a negative judgement of their own choices to school their kids. They become defensive, and that reaction comes from their own personal fears and doubts. Your decision to homeschool has nothing to do with that person and (most likely) your telling them about it is not meant to be a negative commentary on them. Why is it, then, that so many people will hear these things and feel they are being personally attacked?

If I speak to someone about how my daughter is reading way above her grade level and I'm having trouble finding appropriate reading material, I am not speaking of it because I think my kids are better than yours and I want you to feel inferior. I'm actually expressing my own frustrations and hoping to plumb other peoples experiences and ideas to find solutions. I'm not engaging in a one-up game. Really, I am not. A child like that is a double-edged sword, yet some people will persist in feeling angry and threatened by this. I've learned not to mention certain problems until I know the person I am talking to well, to avoid this particular misunderstanding.  

All too often we take upon ourselves or place upon others blame for things without really understanding what that person is going through or understanding that those things probably, at the root, have nothing to do with us. 

If I make a decision about how I am going to live, it's because it is what is right for ME and MY family. I understand that you might not make the same decisions and you might also come to different conclusions... and that is OK.

Maybe it's this election season. It seems that people are getting more and more strident about the issues and what they believe, and less patient with each other. 

My plea is just this... take a moment before you react and try to put yourself in the other person's shoes. 

Take a moment and consider that the thing that person just said that you consider to be hurtful might not have been meant that way, and if it was, it might not really have been aimed at you at all. It's especially easy to misread something written online or, conversely, to hit the "send" button without considering the ramifications of a few hasty words. People do all sorts of things when they are hurting physically and emotionally, and most of the time it was something not meant to hurt you, or was not meant in the way you just took it. 

I am guilty of reacting this way as well, but it is a lesson worth repeating.

Patience with each other... human kindness and mutual respect... striving for understanding. 

Don't just react, and don't let your own fears and insecurities color your perceptions of things. I'd love to see a little more of this this season... and I'll get off my soapbox for now.

4 comments:

  1. A wonderful post. I have stopped talking to most people about my DD because of this. DD is working multiple grades above level, and I sometimes express the difficulty in reading material or another issue we are having and people go on the defensive. I am sure i have been guilty of the same in other things. This is such a good thing to remember.

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  2. Absolutely love this post and wholeheartedly agree.

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  3. I totally agree. But sometimes, we need to watch how we say something as much as what we say. I am guilt of that all the time. Mom

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