Dealing with Grumbling and Complaining

In volume 5, page 49, Mason gives a little scenario to illustrate the correct path to take with a child who casts a dark shadow on the whole family through her indulgence in making her displeasure known to the whole family when she feels slighted. Mason has the mother explaining to quite a young child, that the whole family has had a very hard and sad day, that they all feel as though they have been cast into the dark by somebody pulling a heavy, dark curtain over all the windows and shutting out the sunshine. When you recall that she is writing at a time when there was no electric light available at the cast of a switch, this image is even more powerful.  

Then the mother says, ""And do you know who has put us all out in the dark and the cold? Our little girl drew the curtain, because she would not speak to any of us, or be kind to any of us, or love any of us all the day long; so we could not get into the sunshine, and have been shivering and sad in the cold."

This sounds rather shocking, even a bit disturbing to many, but there is a context for it.  Possibly it is most strange to western ears, because we are so individualistic in our culture.

But children are part of a family unit.  They are valued members of that family unit and contribute towards the good or harm to that family.  They matter.  Since they are important members of a family, it is more than reasonable and acceptable and supported by Mason herself, to point out that every member of a household contributes toward the joy and pleasant atmosphere in that family- or towards its unpleasant atmosphere.  They have power to ruin your day and everybody else's or to make it pleasant, and they have a responsibility to use that power well.   As their parents, we also have a responsibility to help them understand this, because it will help your family now, and it will help them when they are adults, whether you are around or not.  Making the family atmosphere fractious and unpleasant is a fault that should be faced and addressed.  As Mason also says, no childhood fault left to itself does anything but grow *stronger.* (page 34, volume 5)  Our words and attitudes matter, and can hinder or help our family whether we are two or ten, or thirty.

We all carry things people say to us around with us like a backpack on a hiking trip. Some words are light, encouraging, and lift us up.  When we receive or give those words, it's like adding padding to the straps, or helping somebody carry their backpack over a tough spot, or taking some of the weight out of the backpack. But some words are like adding bricks to that pack.  They are burdensome, heavy, and make your life hard. It is okay to let children know that griping and complaining is like piling rocks on your back. It sucks your joy and makes your life sadder and harder. I am not saying they have to fake it and hide their feelings and act like little giddy, chirpy birds. However. It is one thing to have an opinion. It's another to let that opinion and the voicing of it ruin somebody's day all day and every day. 

Explain this to them. Use the rocks in your backpack analogy or something else that works for you. We told our kids that kind, encouraging words are like beautiful blocks to build a lovely structure, and discouraging, grumbling, complaints, griping, or mean words were like knocking over somebody else's building. (we got the idea from somewhere else, but I don't remember where) Once you've explained the power of their own attitudes and words, Tell them something like, "You don't have to love this. You do have to do it. And once you've already told me you don't love it, you do not get to keep complaining and griping about it the rest of the day."  If you want, give them three tokens at the start of the day, and that's how many times they can complain.  Each time they grumble, they give you a token.  That's it, you don't listen to any grumbling past the third complaint. Of course, you, too, should guard your own words and attitude and limit your complaining as well.  Make it a family effort to all contribute toward lightness in the family atmosphere.

Letting the children know the power of their own words and attitudes toward the happiness of the family is not a guilt trip, it is a blessing to them, a gift.

In volume 5, Mason says it is appropriate, even desirable for good parenting, to "let the young people feel that the happiness of home is a trust which every member of it has in charge; that the child who sits down to table with a sullen face destroys for the time the happiness of his whole family, just as a hand's-breadth held close to the eyes will shut out the whole light of the sun. What is it that makes the happiness of every day––great treats, great successes, great delights? No, but constant friendly looks and tones in those about us, their interest and help in our pursuits, their service and pity when we are in difficulty and trouble. No home can be happy if a single member of it allow himself in ugly tempers and bad behaviour. By degrees, great sensitiveness to the moral atmosphere of the home will be acquired; the happiness of a single day will come to be regarded as a costly vase which any clumsy touch may overthrow. Now, the attention is taken off self and its claims, and fixed upon brother and sister, father and mother, servants and neighbours; so slight a thing as a friendly look can add to the happiness of every one of these." (page 206-7)


"Affection flows naturally towards those to whom we can give happiness. A boy who feels himself of little account in his family will give all his heart to his dog; he is necessary to Puck's happiness, at any rate; and, as for the dog,––"I think it is wrong to let children have dogs. It spoils them for mankind," said the late Lord Lytton. Let the boy have his dog, but let him know to how many others even a pleasant word from him gives happiness for the moment. Benevolence, the delight in giving happiness, is a stream which swells as it flows. The boy who finds he really can make a difference to his home is on the look-out for chances. A hint as to what father or sister would like is not thrown away. Considerate obliging behavour is no hardship to him when he is not "bothered" into it, but produces it of his own free will. Like begets like. The kindliness he shows is returned to him, and, by him, returned again, full measure, pressed down, and running over. He looks, not on his own things, but on the things of others."

See also the tale of inconstant Kitty and sullen Agnes in volume 5, pages 24-41 (online here)  

And remember this all is balanced by your own careful attention to your words, your tone, and your attitude.  Correction, even discipline, is at times your weighty responsibility, but take care to fill their little hearts with the tender knowledge that you are on their side, that you love them and cherish them and want what is for their best good always.