Letter writing

Yoshi has trouble dealing with emotions, no doubt because of her parents. While Tom and I both have made pretty good improvements individually, Yoshi still struggles a fair bit. Granted, she's only ten.

Today she and her classmates went to Golden Gate Park for a end-of-the-school year picnic. If you know Yoshi, you know she's an extremely picky eater, and would rather go hungry than eat something foul-tasting to her. Nothing appealed to her palette at the picnic, so she refused to eat. And when she's hungry she gets ill-tempered to the extreme. Today she flipped out and started screaming at Tom in front of everyone at the picnic. "Thanks for ruining my life! I hate you!" I took that as my cue to get the hell out of Dodge, so I did. There was nothing I could do at that point. Plus, I had to get back to work. Perfect timing! (see? lazy parenting.)

Apparently it was a downward spiral from there because by the time I picked Yoshi up this evening, her dad was a wreck. He looked sad and defeated. On the walk back to my place, I had the rare moment of not being annoyed with the kid. Instead I expressed my disappointment that she couldn't properly express her anger and resorted to verbal cruelty. "It's okay to be angry and to say you are. It's not okay to say you hate Daddy. That's hurtful and mean. You need to be careful what you say. You may not always get a chance to say you're sorry and take it back." We talked about her feelings. I did my best to validate her anger and sadness. I think we had a good talk.

When we got home, I told her to write an apology letter. Now, along with the pains of getting her to eat balanced meals, in general it's like pulling teeth sans novocaine to get her to write anything. But this time? She didn't put up a fight, immediately sat down with paper and pencil, and wrote this, which is the most I've ever seen her write in one sitting:

Dear Daddy, 

I feel really bad about yelling in front of everybody that I hate you. I am really SORRY and I am trying to control my anger it is just hard for me. I hope you know that I don't really hate you even though I say it a lot. The reason I was upset was that you said you would take me home but you didn't and that Joie and Amaya did not go to after school. Another reason I think I was upset was because I am nervous about promotion and going to middle school. It was not right for me to take my anger out on you or anyone else. I am sorry that I embarassed [sic] you in front of everyone. I will always L♥ve you! 

Love,
Yoshi

I could tell she felt a lot better when she finished. And maybe she learned that writing isn't so bad. And I learned that my kid is more expressive and thoughtful than I give her credit for.