This afternoon while Laura was trying to play games with the kids she stopped and called me and Bex in (because we were already in the next room) and talked to the kids about the way they contribute to and perpetuate the very family culture that they regularly complain about. She came away thinking the conversation was fruitless. Bex expressed to me afterward that she thought it was fruitless as well. Not only that but Bex said that the message she heard was essentially gaslighting and saying that the family culture isn’t broken. I explained that this was the exact opposite of the message Mom was trying to convey. What Laura said, and what I explained to Bex, was that the broken culture did not need to remain unchanged but that we, including each of the kids, had the power to begin changing it.
Admittedly that one conversation might not have much effect in isolation but I felt that it was a critical first step to tell the kids unequivocally that they were actively contributing to the brokenness and that they had the power and responsibility to begin changing their own actions.
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