Lines in the Sand

I grew up in a very.. lets say.. adversarial.. household.   Doing so definitely develops a set of conflict resolution skills.

How do you handle conflicts?

Growing up..  it wasn't uncommon for the whole family to get into yelling and fussing matches.  The picture of the 1980's dysfunctional family.   But, we managed to turn our dysfunction into something more functional.

Now that I'm a dad..  our house is a little more like Zen Garden.   We try to keep things chill, mellow.   We understand that words can leave bruises and we tend to err more on the side of touchy-feely.   Everyone tells everyone else they love them, often too much.   Aside from kids fighting or the rare occasion of a child reaching for something that could harm them, we don't really allow yelling.

Sounds almost Gene Roddenberry utopian, right?

Still, I wonder, as is sometimes the case, when I'm reintroduced into some adversarial situation, if I would have handled those as well without the 17 years of practice.   

Today, a rather insistent person saw the bright yellow "D800" strap and was quite determined that I would "sell" it to them.   I refused.. repeatedly .. and the situation seemed as if it could, potentially grow physical.   Fortunately for all-involved, it didn't.

So, I learned too lessons.   1) time to use a more discrete strap.  2) Thanks, mom and dad -- for the practice.

I fear my kids will be less practiced in those arts but hey, I'm okay with that.