Apologising to your child is no easy task – especially when you might have scarred him for life. That’s why Sam Wilson invented the Therapy Jar.
It’s not a real jar. It’s an imaginary jar. And, to be honest, after 15 years of parenting, it’s probably now more of an imaginary urn. A very, very big imaginary urn.
Whatever its current proportions, the Therapy Jar is one of my best parenting inventions.
You know those days when you’re just parenting badly? Or when you lose it at your kid, out of nowhere?
Let me give you an example. You come home from work, exhausted, and your child is sitting on your front stoep, mud up to his happy-to-see-you eyeballs.
‘Mom! Look!’ he exclaims with pride. ‘I’ve made a mud dinosaur on the stoep! I copied it from this book and…’
Parents? You know this moment. There are two options here. You could put your laptop bag down, sit and have a proper look at the mud dinosaur and ooh and aah over your kid’s creativity.
Then there’s the other option.
‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?’ you shriek at your flinching child. ‘YOU SPREAD MUD ALL OVER YOUR CLOTHES AND THE STOEP SO YOU COULD MAKE A CRAPPY DINOSAUR? IT DOESN’T EVEN LOOK LIKE A DINOSAUR!’
Yes.
Even as you’re saying it, your mind is wincing. Because that’s the stuff that kids take to therapy isn’t it? (It’s sure as shit the stuff YOU’RE talking about in therapy.)
This is where the Therapy Jar comes in.
It works like so:
As soon as you calm down – which is invariably as soon as you see the hurt and surprise on your child’s face – you say something like this.
‘I’m really sorry. That was a real Therapy Jar moment. What are you thinking… R20?’
Then rather than getting into a whole emotional exchange, you can reduce your parenting screw-up to something practical you can resolve together, i.e: how much money it’s going to cost in therapy for your kid to get over that moment.
It’s also funny, which helps a lot to break the mood.
‘I think R50,’ my son will say, now with a twinkle in his eye. ‘That was horrible.’
‘What about R25?’ I’ll respond. ‘I mean… you did make an unbelievable mess.’
And lo, responsibility taken and emotional showdown averted. And it hasn’t even cost me anything. (Unless I do actually have to pay for his therapy one day. But I’ll worry about that later.)
How fantastic is the Therapy Jar? I knew you’d like it too.
Wanna practice? Share one of your dodgy parenting moments in the comments, and then we can decide how much you should be slipping in your own family therapy jar. Or urn.
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