My 12-Year Old Grandson Kicks A Hole In My Wall

If I could for a moment, say this: I would have given anything to have been a fly on the wall when he kicked the wall and his foot goes through it. That had to be a fearful moment. The adults from my childhood would have cut you no slack. It was his way of relieving his anger but little did he know the wall could not stand the impact of his angry release.

  

He didn’t tell us what he had done. I admit my first reaction was anger. Looking back I now know why they require children to go to school so when parents find out about stuff they are able to cool off before the child comes home.

My husband and I were in shock: “What could have possessed him to kick a hole in the wall.” We kept rehearsing over and over what we were going to do when he got home. My husband said, “I’ll make him fix it.” We discussed how to punish. This dialog went on for a few hours allowing us to get beyond “my emotions,” as the grandparent.

A game plan was put in place: let him get his school work finished first. Act normal, as if we didn’t see it. Once the school work was done my husband took one of his belts and placed it on the table and began asking in his usual calm way: “What happened to my wall?” The tears began to well up in his eyes. In my husband’s patient, probing way he got to the bottom of the fury that caused the wall to be the victim.

Our grandson thought my husband was going to use that belt on him but instead he was allowed to voice his anger.  He apologized (on his own) for kicking the hole in the wall. When asked what lessons he learned, he said, “that anger can get you into trouble and that was not the way to handle what I was feeling.”

We hugged each other. After it was over my husband handed him the plaster, the trowel, and assisted him in patching the hole.

Some things children do can make us angry but we must never deal with them in our anger, especially, if we are reacting to what they have done. It is better to give yourself a cooling off period where you can be the parent in control instead of out of control.

Since we are grand-parenting him there is a lot for each of us to learn so we take it one event at a time and ask God to help us to be good stewards over the blessing he has given us through this child

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