Cooperation isn’t the absence of conflict but a means of managing conflict. – Deborah Tannen
Robbie was pissed that I let our daughter ride her new recumbent bicycle to work yesterday. She thought we’d agreed it would be a mutual decision, since it’s a bit tricky learning to ride a recumbent in traffic. And I got mad when she implied that my motivation was mainly that I didn’t feel like driving. But it didn’t escalate. Some of it was a misunderstanding. And she quickly apologized for her accusation. It helped me to remind myself that I like it that she’s a safety conscious mother. And that in the past, I often DID make parental decisions on not wanting to go out of my way. I can’t say we have a perfect system for managing our conflicts, but we seem to have the hang of it.