The lessons we teach ourselves.

This morning, my daughter chatted energetically over breakfast. She chatters constantly. I was listening, but not quite fully, as she filled her face at the kitchen table and I moved from one task to another.

One sentence brought me fully back to her conversation. I asked her to repeat herself.

No one likes to hear their child has been mean, however inadvertently.

“You girls need to play nicer. You know that kind of behaviour isn’t ok. I understand you were all disappointed, but she didn’t do it on purpose and it’s not ok to be mean like that.” “I wasn’t the one being mean. I didn’t even want to be mean. I didn’t say the mean things...” “But you let the other girl be mean to her. You didn’t stand up for her. Would you have wanted to have been spoken to like that? Wouldn’t it have made you cry? Did you know at the time it was wrong for you girls to behave like that? That it wasn’t fair? You need to stand up for your friend if something like that happens again. I know you didn’t start it, and that’s good, but you can’t stand by and let someone be mean to your friend. That’s not ok, sweetheart... You ok? Want to talk about it a bit more or think about what I’ve said for a while? I'm proud you told me. I'm glad you wanted to talk about it with me.”

As I was finishing my speech, I felt a knot in my stomach. It’s fine me telling my daughter the lessons she needs to learn, but it occurred to me to question myself. Am I applying it to my own life?

If I saw it in the street or experienced it in a business meeting, if it was happening between friends, I would be calling it out. In the quietest and kindest way achievable, I would feel compelled to challenge that behaviour and not allow a person to stand alone. On the internet?

Since starting to write again, I’ve very deliberately shied away from confrontation. There is so much anger and people can be incredibly viscous and persistent in their attacks, particularly if your views do not match their own. At this point in my life, I felt I didn’t have the energy or the resilience to take that on.

I’ve never been the type to look for fights, and believe that it’s best not to feed a fire, but do I have the right balance or am I hiding behind my ability to switch off and walk away?

Today, as well as catching my daughter, I’ll be catching myself.

#highcroftwriting #words #bystanderapathy #consciousadvocacy #reflection #defense #wednesdaymotivation #wednesdaywisdom