By Andrea Mabey
Joseph, age 17, was very upset. He saw his little sister eating cold cereal on Saturday night and immediately felt threatened. We usually have cold cereal only on Sundays and he likes eating something different after a week of plain old oatmeal. He doesn’t like to wake up early and sometimes it’s gone by the time he gets up. He tried to tell Charlotte when she can eat cereal which she didn’t appreciate at all. When she didn’t agree with him, he came to me to complain.
When Joseph complained, I immediately seized the opportunity to talk about his Cold Cereal Mindset. As I questioned him, I found that he still feels bad about past times when the cereal he wanted was gone. He also feels compelled to “protect” himself from a future loss.
I suggested that anger is a choice. If he wants to, he can choose to let it go and make toast on Sunday morning when the cereal is gone. He can also choose to wake up at 6 am and eat before everyone else and then go back to bed. He didn’t like that option.
There are no choices he can make to change the past. The choice he has is in the present. I asked him if he thought I would buy an item he requested of me. He remembered that I had done so in the past, and agreed that I probably would do that for him. However, he doubted I would go to the store at ten o’clock in the evening on Saturday night. I assured him that I would go immediately if he asked.
He thought about it. I had offered to buy cereal for him so that there would be an abundance of cereal the next morning. All he had to do was pick a cereal. He didn’t have anything particular in mind. Finally he picked Vanilla Honey Bunches of Oats.
Joseph learned that he needs to take responsibility and make a proactive choice instead of just getting mad about what “might” happen. He found out that abundance is “just an idea away”. He knows I care about him but not about the cereal. Charlotte was not punished but Joseph chose to let it go. Take every chance you can to say to your teens, “I love you.”
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