My grandchildren text me. A possible conversation evaporates into a single word. Or worse yet into OMGs and IDKs and LOLs. At the same time, I sense their stress levels have escalated; and with dancing lessons, soccer practice, games scheduled 2-hours away, homework, and rec-center basketball about to start, their idle moments have all but disappeared.
It used to be the TV remote was the center of power in the family room. Now everything is handheld. And much of what these devices deliver into their world is valueless. In the media, egos outshine ethics; celebrity ‘train wrecks’ subordinate real-life heroes; and no one wants to read about two 10- year-old boys raking lawns to raise $120 for wounded veterans when they can zero-in on how the Duggar family gets their haircuts.
And, outrage about all of this surges around us everywhere. For many, too much of the small stuff takes us from 0 to 60 in seconds. It feels like over the past three years, outrage has become our ‘default’ setting. We are equally outraged when the kid at the supermarket can’t make proper change as we are at child slavery in the cocoa farms in Western Africa.
Yes, perhaps outrage is appropriate when we’re stuck on the runway awaiting departure for 2 hours or when our elderly parent waits too long, yet again, for an aide in the nursing home. But, are we also outraged when our child doesn’t get enough playing time, when he or she isn’t invited to the birthday party, or when the teacher uses ‘principal’ instead of ‘principle’ in an email comment about a behavior problem?
This isn’t mine, but I’ve read it somewhere and I like it. There is a damaging cycle to outrage. Obviously it begins with the quick rise from 'perception of a wrong' to white-hot anger. It is followed by the piling on of more details and offences. Then, there is the sarcasm, accusations, attacks, and counter-attacks. There’s the contempt and the accompanying insults. There’s the Tweet and the Facebook post, making it easy to stoke the outrage from the car, the dinner table, and even the bed. Sometimes, outrage ends in chagrin and an apology; but more often, the storm of outrage just smolders out there in the world where we've left it until it eventually dies down of its own accord.
The same cycle takes place regardless of how big or how small is the impetus for the ‘outrage.’ If we could remember them and list all the things from January to now that have caused us outrage, how many of these things would cause us to wonder what was I thinking? And what do they then cause our children to wonder about? How are our kids supposed to filter what things in their world are worthy of outrage if everything is?
This past summer there was a picture that went viral of a drowned Syrian boy, a refugee, whose family was trying to reach Greece. It seemed that there was more outrage over the publication of the picture than there was over the circumstances that led to the drowning. How are we using our outrage? What lessons are we teaching through the media? Through our own example?
We need to remember that children are affected by the quality of the adult interactions that occur in their presence, even when they not the center of those interactions. Our emotional demeanor, (i.e. our content, happiness, and generosity … or our disgust, anger, and aggression) influences their feelings about their world. We become mirrors of the world -- and, when they look at adults do they see a wondrous place, or a wrathful one? Check any source, and you’ll find tension in adults is negatively linked to childhood development and esteem.Knowing what we know about our children's world – texts, snapchats, posts, sound-bites, emoticons – perhaps we can do more to make the real world they live in a place of interest and beauty. There’s no end to the quotes you can find about compassion and generosity of spirit, but recently we had an adult workshop with a fabulous guest speaker who also worked with students and staff at the high school. Calvin Terrell, the founder of Social Centric, left us with the message that our daily lives and our ‘Litchfield’ community can be better if stop making negative and judgmental assumptions about the people we encounter. If we just let today be the day we look for some good in the everyday people we meet and if we respect their journey. This isn’t to say we should ignore maliciousness when we see it -- just that maybe we should not see every mistake or misstep as evil and reserve our ‘outrage’ for the truly titanic issues our world is facing.
