Raising Compassionate Boys: Healing Mistakes

“The wound is the place where the light enters you” ~Rumi (on parenting?)

One morning when my older son was 6 year old, he would not get out of bed until 7:45–30 minutes before school started. Then he wouldn’t eat his eggs since he was distracted by his Pokemon cards, so I threw the cards in the garbage. This is when his meltdown started.

It was 8 AM, so I handed him his clothes which he threw back in my face. This is when my meltdown started. I grabbed him and threw him in the car in his pajamas. Then I dragged him without shoes or a jacket in front of the whole school to his classroom. He was kicking and screaming the whole way, which is why I couldn’t put his shoes or jacket on.

The whole time I was seeing tunnel vision. I did not notice all the other kids laughing at my son or all the parents aghast at me dragging him across the rain drenched pavement without shoes. When we got to the classroom, some parents tried to comfort us.

“Jett, stop crying or the police will come,” said one parent.

“Are you trying to traumatize my son?” I thought as I gave this parent a dirty look–not realizing the irony in my thinking.

When the teacher opened the door, I shoved Jett into the classroom, but he came running back out. Jett’s first grade teacher has what I call “understanding eyes,” so when I looked up at her, I broke out of my spell.

I hugged my son to my chest and told Mrs. Tsai, “we are going to be late today.”

Jett was shivering both from the cold and the adrenaline and cortisol pulsing through his body. I could feel his heart racing like a Neil Pert drum solo.

As I carried him back to the car, I apologized, “I’m so sorry, son. Daddy, lost his cool.”

As the survivor of physical abuse, I speak from experience when I say that although the beatings hurt, they were not the cause of the deepest emotional scars. What really tore me up as a child was the lack of compassion from my step-father and mother AFTER the beatings. No one ever comforted me and explained to me why I was beaten. No one put an arm around my shoulder and told me that I was stilled loved even though I had made bad decisions.

So when we got home, I gently placed Jett on the toilet seat and washed his feet. I know that Jesus washed the feet of the disciples at the last supper, and I took as much care as I imagined Jesus did on that fateful night.  When he was cleaned up, I carried Jett into his bedroom and let him pick out his favorite clothes. Then I warmed up his half-eaten breakfast and sat with him while he ate.

I explained to him how sorry I was for taking him to school in his pajamas, but also how sad I was that he refused to listen to me. I told him that I loved him, but I needed his cooperation if we were going to get to school on time. I also told him how to handle any teasing that the other kids might dish out that day. (I later made sure to check in with him after school and honor any shame he felt in front of the other kids at school.)

When he finished his eggs, I asked Jett if he was ready to go to school. We were over a half an hour late to class that day, but right before he entered the classroom, Jett gave me a hug.

“I love you, Daddy,” he whispered.

“I love you too, son,” I said with tears in my eyes.

Since that day, something has changed between my son and I. It’s hard to articulate, but it is tangible–visceral.  We are still late for school, but we are living under a different story. The new story goes something like this: No matter what I do, how I act, or how late we are, my daddy loves me and will never abandon me.

Being a compassionate man is hard. Raising compassionate boys is even harder. Social conditioning and past scars take constant vigilance to overcome. The good news is that compassion is a skill that can be learned over time. We can heal ourselves and heal others in the process.

Although I am not proud of my actions that day, I am thankful for the opportunity to heal and heal others. Your reactions and experiences might not be as extreme as mine, but every parenting blunder offers opportunities for deep healing. In their book, Mindful Discipline, Shauna Shapiro and Chris White call events like this “mis-takes”: “It is often said that the wounds are where the gifts are. In no other place is this more true than in the parent-child relationship.”

Have you grown from mis-takes in parenting? What obstacles to compassion have you encountered? Please share in the comments below.

Related Posts

• Raising Compassionate Boys: An Experiment in Parenting

• Yes, You Can Teach Compassion to Your Son (and Yourself!)

Photo–Bar Fabella/Flickr