All the FEELS

Identifying and naming emotions, making it easier to manage them and make good decisions, is a life skill that younger generations take for granted. But it doesn't come so easily for us older people.

- By Ronelle Havenga

MY grandson, who is 10, is being (I think) a drama queen. 'When I try to talk, everyone just ignores me,' he sobs. 'It makes me sad and frustrated, and it makes me feel like I don't matter.' Looking more devastated (again, I think) than the situation warrants, he dashes away his tears. His mother – my daughter – who is 35, is (yet again, I think) enabling him: 'I'm so sorry, my darling. We didn't realise. Those are big feelings. You go ahead and feel them, and when you're ready to talk, we're ready to listen.'

It's all I can do not to roll my eyes, but my daughter is sensitive to criticism about her parenting, so I stare fixedly out of the window with a studied lack of facial expression.

All that's happened is that there had been a lively discussion going on around the dinner table – there are eight of us gathered, all family members – with quite a bit of overlapping voices and excitable interrupting. My grandson, the youngest present, had tried to contribute several times and failed to be heard, and had finally burst into tears. That's when his mother had halted all chat, demanding silence, and given her son the floor. The child had tearfully – but, it can't be denied, very eloquently – expressed himself, and his mother had sympathetically acknowledged his feelings.

What I want to say is, 'Come on! Everyone gets ignored occasionally! I've tried to get a word in several times this evening and been talked over, and you don't see me crying and making everyone acknowledge my poor little hurt feelings. You're going to get interrupted often in life, so you may as well learn how to deal with it now!'

Because, let's face it, that's what our parents would have said.