Every family has its fair share of conflicts among its respective family members and my family isn’t any exception. Occasionally, my mum, tired after a day’s work, returns home and feels that the house is in an unsatisfactory state. Deeming either one or all of her three sons to have failed in fulfilling our job in helping out, she would tend to vent her frustrations at us. Usually, we would choose to just let her words fly by us.
Not too long ago, I returned home to find that the clothes that were hung outside had not been brought in. The clothes were drenched in rainwater. As I was the only one at home at that time, I brought the clothes in before continuing on with my own activities. Not long after, my mum came home from work. Seeing the wet clothes and she flew into a rage and started to scold me for not bringing it in when it rained. Being an innocent party, I quickly defended myself by saying that the clothes were already wet when I came home. Unfortunately, it did not seem to work and the scolding continued. Out of pure frustration, I shouted back that it wasn’t my fault. The scolding stopped and silence broke out.
My mum and I did not speak to each other for two days after that. Curiously, the event seemed to have been forgotten after that and things went back to normal.
Thinking back to the event, I admit that I could have handled the situation in a better manner. It was obvious that at that point of time, my mum was tired from work and totally disappointed that her workload was increased by the drenched clothes. As such, her emotions probably got the better of her and resulted in her “losing it”. On the other hand, I was also tired from school and got irritated that I was interrupted from resting and even accused of something which wasn’t my fault.
It isn’t easy bringing up children and I love my mum for the fact that she is so successful in bringing up me and my brothers. It was the first and only time I ever shouted at my mum and it left me feeling awful after it had happened. How could I have handled the situation in a better way? Would exercising better EQ and placing myself in my mum’s shoes lead to a better solution to the conflict?
In my opinion, interpersonal conflicts tends to occur more often with people you are close with (due to the larger amount of time spent together). When it occurs, it never fails to erode the strength of your relationship with the other party. Hence, it is important that we learn how to react and manage our emotions to prevent such conflicts from occurring.
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I recognise this sort of flashpoint very well and it's hard to avoid if both parties are tired and off guard.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you could have averted the argument if you had brought the wet clothes to your mum's attention as soon as she got home and explained that you had done the best thing on the circumstances. In this way, you would have pre-empted her angry reaction. That is, if you foresee a bad reaction, present it to the other before they get a chance to erupt.
Mrs Richardson
Hi Hong Quan,
ReplyDeleteI am almost 100% sure that everyone has been in a similar situation like yours. However, I do not think that all would have handled the situation like you.The fact that you feel awful after shouting back at her even when you were not in the wrong shows your maturity level.
The way that I would have handled the situation would be to explained to my mother that the clothes were already wet when I came home. If she continues to yell, then I would just walk away because once hurtful words come out of your mouth, they can never be taken back. What you did was a natural reaction since you were tired but maybe you could have apologised to her after both of you have 'cooled down' or if 'I'm sorry' is too difficult to say, then show it through your actions by helping her to iron the clothes maybe?
It is always good to place yourself into your love one's shoes but do note that you did explain the situation to her and brought in the clothes on top of that. I doubt a 'win-win' solution would be necessary as 'setting aside personalities and focusing on the conflict...' would be too formal since she is not your colleague nor friend, but someone even more special,your mother:)
I do agree that interpersonal conflicts tends to occur more often with people you are close with. I feel that we tend to become insensitive with each other's feelings especially when we are close with each other. We start overlooking the way we treat our love ones because we somehow get too comfortable with them and we know they are the only ones who accepts us for who we are.
ReplyDeleteAs what Trina recommended, to keep quiet and walk away from the situation. It helps when you get too frustrated and you can't get your message across. Silence is bliss.
I would like to focus a little more on the communication aspect of the problem.
ReplyDeleteI have a list of questions and would like everyone to ask yourself how of them are true for you.
1. Do you find it hard to say sorry to your parents?
2. Do you find it hard to say Thank You to your parents?
3. (not quite relevant) Do you find it hard to say "I love you" to my parents?
I would not be surprised if there are any of you who agree to all 3. I think that its not that we do not love our parents, not that we are not thankful or not sorry. It is just that we find it awkward to say it out.
I also agree that interpersonal conflicts occur more frequently among people who are close, especially in the family. With these two factors together, it comes as no surprise that situations such as the one described above may happen.
P.S. If you said yes to any of the above questions, why not try saying it at home, when the situation arises. It may be awkward, but I am sure that you will be pleased with the result.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteTo answer Jackson's questions, I do have to admit that I will answer no for all three questions (maybe yes to Qn 2 at times).
Most of the time, we do not usually say those words to our parents, not even siblings sometimes. But we can say those words to our friends easily. So a probable reason is that we usually take our family members for granted. We keep having the idea that they are our family members, they should know us the best. We do not need to spell that out explicitly since they should understand our thoughts and feelings well.
I do agree that those words can help to solve conflict, but I also believe that it is only applicable when they are said in the right time, in an appropriate amount. If they are abused by saying too many times and too easily, they will lose their meaning.
To answer to Hong Quan, if this were to happen to me, I will inform my mom (as soon as she reach home) that it was raining jus now and when I got home, the clothes were already drenched. By doing so, that will certainly minimize the chances of her getting angry and scolding at me. However, if she is still not very happy, I would offer to help her put them into the washing machine again or hang them up.
Hi Hong Quan,
ReplyDeleteif I were in your shoes, I would have gotten the scolding too because I would forget to tell her about the clothes too. I will try to explain the situation in a very polite manner but it doesn't work, I will keep quiet while she vent her stress and her anger.
Communicating with our parents is quite an art. Most of the rules of communication that we practice outside are not very applicable at times. Perhaps its just a way of respecting and loving our parents too.
Familiarity breeds contempt. I always find it very interesting that the more familiar we are with someone, the less likely we are to treat them with respect. Let me illustrate this with an example. Suppose we are on board a very crowded bus or MRT and we accidentally banged or knocked into a stranger. I believe most of us would be very quick to apologize since somehow, we recognized that it is our fault. But when we are at home, even when we are at fault, we like to justify our actions as well as expect our family members to somehow understand the way that we are behaving. Not only that, sometimes when they correct something that we have done wrong, we always try to correct them back on something else that they did wrong. The point to note is that when we are at home, we tend to act a little more selfishly. But whenever we are outside of home, we "magically" will be able to behave better and treat others with more respect. I find it quite ironic that we can sometimes treat strangers with more respect than our own family members.
ReplyDelete