Why I Struggle to Follow My Own Advice: “You Can’t Control People, Only How You React”
“Stop tapping the pencil.”
My daughter kept tapping. We were one math problem into homework, and I could feel my jaw tightening. “You’re going to miss the problem if you keep tapping.” Tap. Tap. “Seriously, I need you to focus.”
She looked at me with that sideways look she gets when she’s deciding whether to cry or argue. Then she tapped the pencil once more, slowly, right in the center of the table.
I have said the sentence “You can’t control people, you can only control how you react to them” to parents in my classroom more times than I can count. I’ve said it during parent-teacher conferences when a mom is frustrated that her son won’t put on his jacket. I’ve said it in the hallway when a dad wants to force his daughter to apologize to a classmate. I believe it. It is one of those things that is clearly, obviously true in the abstract.
In my own kitchen, with a damp pencil and a stubborn eight-year-old, I forgot it completely.
My reaction to her tapping was not a reaction. It was an attempt at control. I wanted her to stop. I wanted her to feel the urgency I felt. I thought if I said the right thing in the right tone, I could make her cooperate. When that didn’t work, I added a consequence: “If you don’t finish this before dinner, no tablet tonight.”
She pushed the paper away. “I don’t care.”
That was a lie, but she needed me to believe it. And I did. I felt the frustration spike. I heard my own voice getting louder. “You do care, you just don’t want to do the work—”
It wasn’t the worst fight we’ve ever had, but it was the kind that leaves both of us quieter afterward. She finished the problem with tears. I sat on the couch feeling like the worst person in the house.
Later, after she was in bed, I realized what I had done. I had not controlled my reaction. I had tried to control her. That is the thing the advice doesn’t prepare you for: “control your reaction” sounds like a small thing. But when you actually try to do it, you realize how much of what you call “reacting” is really “trying to make the other person behave.”
At school, I watch myself do the same thing with students. A kid refuses to start writing. I say, “Come on, you know what to write.” They don’t move. I say, “If you don’t start now, you’ll finish at recess.” They look at me with the same face my daughter made. The more I push, the more they dig in. It’s like my reaction is a wall they can push against. As long as I’m trying to make them do something, they have something to resist.
What does it actually look like to control your reaction instead of the other person?
I’m still figuring that out. But I’ve found a few things that help, and they are not grand or heroic.
First, I name the feeling in my own head. “I am frustrated because I want her to finish this and she won’t.” Just saying that to myself keeps me from pretending my frustration is her fault. It doesn’t fix the problem, but it stops me from saying something I’ll regret.
Second, I move my body. I get up from the table. I fill my water glass. I stand by the window for twenty seconds. This sounds too simple, but it changes the field. When I am standing instead of leaning over her paper, I am no longer hovering. I am not in her space. It’s harder to control someone from across the room.
Third, I say what I can and cannot do. “I can’t make you do this right now. But I’m not going to fight about it.” That sentence is honest. It also takes away the power struggle. If I say “You need to finish this,” she argues. If I say “I’m not going to fight about it,” there is no one to argue with.
A few nights after the pencil fight, we were back at the table. Reading log this time. She was tired, and she started to complain before I even handed her the sheet. I felt the familiar pull to lecture her. Instead, I said, “I know. This is annoying. I’m going to sit here and read my book. You can tell me if you need help.”
She frowned. She wrote one sentence. Then she stopped. She looked at me. I kept my eyes on my book. She wrote another sentence. It took her twenty minutes. She did not do it happily. But she did it without me standing over her, and she even asked me how to spell “because” without sighing at me.
Is that a success? Partly. It is a success in the sense that nobody cried and the reading log got done. But I don’t want to pretend I have cracked the code. The next day, she had to practice her spelling words, and I was back to saying “Can you just write the word three times?” in a voice that was already tight.
This advice is true: you cannot control people, only your reactions. But I think the advice leaves out how much practice it takes. Your reaction is not just what you say. It’s your instinct to lean forward, your need to fix the problem, your belief that if the child is upset, you have failed. Untangling that is not a single choice. It’s a re-doing, every time.
What helps me is remembering that a reaction doesn’t have to be dramatic to be controlling. Sighing loudly is a reaction. Turning around and standing at the counter is a reaction. The point isn’t to become a robot. The point is to notice when I’m trying to make her feel something, and then stop.
I don’t always notice in time. Last week she spent ten minutes putting her shoes on, and I said “Why are you so slow?” before I even thought about it. That is not what I want to do. But I said it out loud, and I could hear it, and the next time she took a while, I just sat on the step and waited. She looked at me, surprised, and then she put her shoes on.
Maybe that’s what it means: not controlling them, but also not pretending to be someone I’m not. I still get annoyed. I still want her to move faster, work harder, tap less. But I’m slowly learning to keep some of that inside, or move my body, or say a true thing like “I’m frustrated too” instead of making her the problem.
I don’t know if this will ever feel natural. The other day she tapped her pencil again during homework. I didn’t say anything about it. I just waited. After a minute, she stopped on her own. I was surprised. Maybe she simply got bored of it. Or maybe she felt that I was not going to chase her anymore. I can’t tell which. I’m not sure it matters. Both of us are still learning.
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