Saturday, November 22, 2008

Stuck in the Middle with You

Day 53 - Photo 53. This is Domenick, son 1 of 2 and child 2 of 3. The middle man. I was the first born and so I'm unable to appreciate the seemingly complex nature of being the guy in the middle. As the first born...it's all about us. And I won't even embarrass myself here trying to understand the nature of the middle child. Not that I haven't taken a shot or two at embarrassing myself on these posts before. But, I do know it often seems we spend a good deal of time with the oldest child, because that's the one we tend to make our mistakes on. Or we're spending time on the baby, the youngest, because they tend to need or want more attention. So here's Dom. In the middle.

Today I yelled at Domenick. And I felt like crap about it. When I yelled at him he was in the middle of owning responsibility for his actions, something we always want so desperately for our children to do. And I yelled at him. He already felt bad about what he'd done and instead of listening to him and letting him explain what he was going to do and how he was taking action for his responsibilities...well you've got the idea by now. I learned a long time ago to apologize to my children when I'm wrong, both in behavior and actions. We had a good chat. He accepted my apology and understood that it was about my "delivery" and not about what he'd done. He got to finish explaining what he'd done and the course of action he'd set in motion to correct things. We, my wife and I (it's always good to have back up, actually a mediator) listened and talked it out.

Dom, you're a good guy. And if I'm ever stuck in the middle of something and need help...I can always use a good middle man.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

On behalf of my "middle-man" sister, I have to say that you are doing a good job, Dad & Mom. Now that we are grown-ups, we enjoy sharing our memories of the same incidents/happenings and alway marvel at the differences in the way we remember things. She's a pretty good "middle-man", too, even with the added problems of not just one younger sister, but a brother and baby-sister, too.