Maybe I Am Too Nice

Saying it like that sort of makes it sound like I'm an angel, and I am certainly not. Perhaps a better explanation is that I just don't feel comfortable confronting people. I fear people being angry at me, I fear criticism, and I absolutely can't handle making someone feel badly about themselves. This is actually quite different from being "too nice", but it does sort of give the appearance of niceness. I just don't like confrontation, fighting, hurting, and sadness. What does happen in return however is that my hurt feelings turn into resentment, and bottled anger. When all of this bubbles over, someone (usually my husband) gets blasted with months of pent-up feelings. Not good.

So I've been trying to work at being more "unkind" and confrontational. This is no easy task, and I have little to no success. I just can't do it. I can't make people feel bad - no matter HOW much they hurt me, I can't tell them. I get afraid that I will lose their friendship, they'll get mad at me and start spewing out at me all of MY faults (of which are gazillions), or something unknown that might be worse. In my world, all things should be lollipops and rainbows.

Anyway, today I had a very small breakthrough. Some of you will laugh at how mediocre this is, but really, it was therapeutic for me. I was in charge of our church Toddler Time today. Basically that just means I watch all the toddlers play in the special "Toddler Time" room in the church basement. Today there were four kids. Two girls, James, and another old boy whom I will call "Jim". I think Jim is probably about 4 years old. Jim was bored, and I don't blame him. The toys are actually almost kind of lame for even James. However, Jim decided that he was going to cure his boredom by kicking said lame toys around the room. Unacceptable - however, I even noticed that I had a hard time confronting HIM! But eventually his lack of obedience was enough to make me feel very unguilty for asking him to settle down. Over and over again, he would take short breaks from being distruptive and then start kicking toys, or trying to escape. I threatened a few times to take him back to his parents, which usually resulted in short bursts of obedience. At the end of the service, his mom came to get him and I overheard her asking him if he had a good time. I felt she needed to know. We can't correct our kids if we don't know what they are doing wrong, right? But I was scared to make her feel like she wasn't doing a good job with her son. I was also worried because very recently someone close to me got BLASTED for letting someone know that their kid needed help. So... I was not sure what to do. I decided that I better get proactive, and on the bright side, this woman wasn't a close friend so if she was mad it didn't really matter. I went up to her and said, "You know, Jim had a hard time listening in Toddler Time today. He was kicking toys, and it would be nice if he wouldn't do that again next time". The mom assured me that he would be reprimanded about it at home, and that it would hopefully not happen again. She then THANKED me for telling her, and mentioned how it helps to know how he is misbehaving so she can correct it. I felt good about that part. I felt bad knowing that Jim would get in trouble because I "told" on him! So I still have work to do, but at least I made some progress.