Why Understanding Your Child’s Behavior Should Never Be One-Sided: Real Parenting Lessons
I’m leaning against the cinder block wall of my 11-year-old Lila’s middle school office, granola crumbs stuck to the cuff of my work jacket, trying not to sigh loud enough for the secretary to hear. It’s 9:17 a.m., I was supposed to be leading a client check-in 20 minutes ago, and Lila is staring at her scuffed sneakers, shoulders hunched, refusing to say anything more than “I don’t know” when I ask how she left her entire math workbook on the kitchen table. I grab the workbook from my bag, tell her to get to class, and she flinches when I reach for her arm to walk her down the hall.
I get back in my car to leave, she slams the passenger door so hard my reusable water bottle rolls under the seat. “You’re so stupid,” she mumbles, and that’s when I see the red, wet rim of her eyes. I was ready to lay into her about being irresponsible, about how I have to drop everything for her mistakes, but that quiet mumble stopped me. I turned off the engine, sat back, and waited for her to talk.
Turns out, a group of her friends were loitering by the office water fountain when I walked in. They’ve been teasing her for weeks because I still wait by the front gate instead of letting her walk into school alone. When they heard me huffing and snapping at her about forgetting the book, that was all the material they needed for the rest of recess. “They called me a baby all afternoon,” she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. For a minute, I wanted to brush it off: it’s just teasing, it’s not that big of a deal compared to me missing a critical work meeting. But then I remembered when I was 11, my mom brought my forgotten gym uniform to high school, stopped by my first period class to hand it to me, and I didn’t speak to her for three hours in the car. I was so humiliated I didn’t even care that she’d left an hour early from her own job to bring it.
That’s when the harsh reality hit me, the thing no parenting blog I’d read had spelled out plain: I always thought understanding as a parent meant I needed to work to understand my kid. I’d read all the posts about validating their feelings, meeting them where they are, all that. But I left out the other half. Understanding can never be one-sided. It’s not just my job to see where she’s coming from. She has to see where I’m coming from too. No one talks about that part. Everyone talks about how adults need to be more understanding of kids, but no one mentions that it doesn’t work if only one side is putting in the work.
Lila’s school counselor had suggested a simple trick a few months back, when we were fighting about homework every single night: when you’re both too mad to problem solve, each person gets one uninterrupted minute to say how they feel and lay out their side of the situation. No interrupting, no fixing anything in that minute, just talking. I suggested we try it that day in the parking lot.
I went first, because I was the one who’d already started snapping. I said “I’m frustrated because I had a meeting this morning that I can’t reschedule. My client has been waiting three weeks to talk to me, and I reminded you three times last night to check your bag before you went to bed. I was already stressed about being late, so I was short with you when I got here. That’s my side.” Then it was her turn. She repeated what she’d said about the teasing, added that she’d stopped to help a girl pick up dropped books that morning and forgot to double check her locker, that she was already flustered before anyone even mentioned the workbook.
I didn’t brush off her embarrassment. I just said “I didn’t know kids were teasing you about me walking in with you. That sucks. I wouldn’t want people making fun of me in front of my friends either. I get why you were mad.” Then she paused, and said “I didn’t know your meeting couldn’t be rescheduled. I just thought you didn’t have anything important to do today anyway. I’m sorry I forgot my book.” We didn’t do a big hug or a dramatic makeup. I drove back to work, logged into my meeting late, and we texted that afternoon that I’d start waiting for her by the street corner instead of walking into the building. That was it.
I volunteer once a week in a local first grade classroom, and I saw the same thing play out a few weeks back with a student and his teacher. The boy was throwing daily tantrums during reading time, refusing to sit still or participate. The teacher thought he was just acting out for attention, falling behind because he wouldn’t try. His mom thought the teacher didn’t like him and was picking on him, that she wasn’t giving him enough support. For a month, neither side asked the other what was actually going on. Once they finally both laid out their sides, it all made sense: Mom had just started two new jobs and hadn’t been able to do their nightly reading routine for a month, so the boy was way behind and scared of being called on and looking stupid. The teacher had 22 other kids to manage and couldn’t spend 10 minutes one-on-one with him every reading block without throwing the whole class off schedule. They worked out a simple plan: he gets a small pre-cue before he’s called on so he can get ready, and Mom does 5 minutes of reading with him before she leaves for work in the morning. It didn’t eliminate all tantrums, but it cut them down by more than half.
This isn’t some big fancy trick. Next time you’re in a fight with your kid or a student, try it: before you tell them what they did wrong, say what your side is, plain and simple. Don’t frame it as a guilt trip, just state what you’re feeling and what your context is. Then let them do the same, and don’t dismiss their context just because it seems unimportant to you. Embarrassment in front of friends is just as real to an 11-year-old as a missed work deadline is to you. You don’t even have to throw out your rules—if your kid forgets their book three times in a month, you can still make them do extra chores to pay for a new one. But you both walk away knowing the other person isn’t just being difficult on purpose.
It’s not perfect. We still have fights. Last week, Lila stayed up an hour past her curfew texting, I woke her up late for school, and we both walked out of the house slamming doors. We did the one-minute share after school, and we still ended the evening a little sore at each other. I still catch myself defaulting to “I’m the adult, my perspective is the one that matters” sometimes. Understanding being two-sided doesn’t mean everyone gets what they want every time. It just means you stop treating the other person like the problem, and start treating them like a person who has their own reasons for what they do. It’s messier than the one-sided version, but it sticks.
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