May 1, 2004 - Friday
This evening a little before dinner I walked into a room and happened to see Harry hit Jeremy with a closed fist. Jeremy was on the floor, more or less on all fours, and Harry's fist came down on his back. Harry says he was frustrated that Jeremy wasn't listening to him and not doing what he was asking.

Of course, I didn't hear that explanation until several minutes later after Harry had spent time in his room. He called out an apology to Jeremy on the way, seemingly knowing that he had done wrong, but it seemed to me that this was definitely a time when actions needed consequences. I talked to him about it before I let him come out of his room and pretty much said the obvious, "hitting is not OK," to start. I asked about his frustration and talked about how everyone gets frustrated sometimes, but that one has to be especially careful when they're frustrated because frustration can make us not think so well. Who knows whether he understood that, but he was clearly pained by what he had done.

Yet, somehow just saying "you should never hit" didn't really do it for me. Harry's a smart boy and even at this age teaching him that the world is black and white seems too shallow. Someday not too far away Harry will be in school with other kids and maybe that moral imperative will break down too easily. Heck, it wouldn't stand if he watch much television today. I don't know if this were the right thing to say, but in that moment I found myself saying the opposite: that there may be times in his life when he'll decide he does need to hit someone. It's a discussion I think I can build on later and I think it got his attention. I told him it would be a very serious decision and one that he best not make out of frustration, because there will be consequences. I said that there will probably be punishment and chances are that when you hit someone they'll try to hit you back and you'd better be ready, not frustrated. Here's the thing that really seemed to get his attention: for better or worse I told him that I had made that decision to hit someone twice in my life. (That isn't completely accurate, but it's the number I came up with on the spot. I was in two schoolyard fights, only one that actually involved hitting, and I conveniently ignored any hitting of siblings, which certainly did occur at times.) I tried to explain that at those times I really felt I had to stand up to someone, that someone was doing something I thought was very bad and I decided I had to do something about it, but it was a very big decision. I didn't say directly, maybe I should have, that hitting Jeremy because he wasn't listening is NOT one of those times. I'm hoping that it was clear to Harry. Probably the impression of getting sent to his room will last longer than this little talk anyway, but that was what I said.


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