How to avoid collisions in conversations?
Have you ever had an experience where the moment you said something and immediately regretted saying it?
You think to yourself, “I should have held my tongue,” or “I should have waited for a better moment to say that.”
You probably realized by now that these moments of regret usually happen when you feel negatively towards your children. When you are angry with them, or when you are disappointed or frustrated with them. Perhaps it’s your children ignoring your request for the 3rd time today, and you feel you have to say something. Or it could be that you feel your child is rude or disrespectful towards you.
But when you finally said something, it backfired. It led to more yelling, shouting, and more horrible examples of how your child treated you in the past. Then you hear a lot of “what about that time when you … “ You recall the times that your child has done something wrong. The fight builds and builds until you and your teen feel like there is no turning back. The fight only pauses when someone walks away, shuts the door, or screams in tears.
Parenting is hard. Perhaps this pattern repeats itself so often that you don’t know what else to do. You seemed to have hit a dead-end. You are afraid to mention something or use a certain word because you are afraid another fight will erupt between you and your teen.
If this is you, then you need a stop sign. A stop sign stops you in your tracks and allows you to make a quick assessment of the situation before continuing to drive. A stop sign prompts you to check your left and your right and see if some pedestrians or cars might be coming your way. The stop sign is also unmonitored, and it is really up to you to decide if you want to follow the sign or not.
Communication is a lot like traffic. Everyone is going somewhere with their communication. When two people have two different destinations, their paths may cross. Without a stop sign, you will collide with one another. Like traffic, when there is an intersection, follow the stop sign to pause and assess before proceeding.
What does a stop sign look like in a conversation?
When you are in a conversation, and you hear something that triggers you to respond, pause. That’s a great place to have a stop sign. Before you react and attempt to redirect traffic toward your direction, pause and assess if it is safe to cross. You can breathe and wait. Give yourself some space to pause and assess the mood in the air, the tension, where your teen is coming from and going, and where you are coming from and going. That 5 to 10 seconds would allow you to regulate your emotions and proceed when the road is clearer.
If you need more time, you can use phrases such as,
I am thinking about how to respond to you.
I need a few moments to process what you just shared.
Please give me a moment to think.
This is an important topic. Can we schedule a time later this week to talk it through?
Many conversations are important but not urgent. Giving yourself some time to pause would stop you from reacting, causing you to regret later on. It also gives your teen time to process, and your teen might come back with a different attitude or approach to the topic.
So to avoid collision in conversations put in a stop sign at the intersection.
