I raised my voice slightly, and explained again that I wasn’t yelling. She continued screaming, and started stomping a bit. I think I might have seen some smoke coming out of her nostrils. Trying to not let my buttons get pushed, I told her she needed to go up to her bedroom until she calmed down and could talk about this.
Liesl stomped her way up the stairs, yelling the entire time. Slamming her bedroom door shook the house.
I waited.
About five minutes later, Liesl came back downstairs, crying quietly,
“I’m sorry, Daddy! I don’t know why I did that."Life to the FullAdvertisement
I saw a window of opportunity and took a chance.
“Can I try to explain to you why I think you did that?” I asked.
With her permission, I talked to her about Jesus’ promise in
John 10:10 (“I have come to give you life, and life to the full”). I explained God wants her to have an awesome life, full of meaning and great experiences. To really experience that kind of life, we need to have a huge set of emotions to feel. I explained how little kids are limited in their emotional options, because their brains can’t handle them; but that she’s going through a change that God invented that is beginning to give her tons of additional emotions to experience. I talked about her lack of familiarity with these emotions, and how they’ll continue to surprise her for a few more years.
I reminded her that, while this change might feel kind of wacky at times, it’s all part of God’s great love for her, part of Jesus’ desire that she experience a full life.
I think she got it, at least in that moment. We’ll probably need to have this conversation many more times in the months and years to come.
This is the kind of explanation I’m trying to weave into my conversations and teaching with middle schoolers on a regular basis these days: to normalize their experience and help them see how good it is.