“Oh honey,” I said, “That’s because that’s just a hand gesture our family uses to repair relationships. It’s something mommy and daddy made up a long time ago when we needed something that would help us be friends again after we argue. Your friend doesn’t know KRAW because that’s just something our family does. But she probably knows other ways to apologize and be friends again after arguments.”
My daughter looked skeptical.
“Well, we DID apologize and play together again, so now she’s my best friend again. But for real life, other people don’t know how to KRAW?”
“Not exactly like your family does.” I said, “That’s just something mommy, daddy, and you do. But other kiddos know how to repair after they have fights with people they love because their families teach them how to talk to their friends about big feelings, apologize, and feel like friends again.”
“Okay. Can I have a cake pop for dinner now?”
I smiled.
But also denied her request for dessert before dinner.
The entire exchange reminded me that something I now take for granted in my little family – the way we repair our relationships after rupture – is something that wasn’t a skill I knew how or could safely practice with others earlier in my life.
Learning to Repair Relationships: What My Childhood Didn’t Teach Me
Growing up in a dysfunctional family system and enduring relational trauma, I learned many maladaptive beliefs about what arguments and conflicts with others mean, such as:
- Conflict equals danger.
- Arguments mean you will be disowned in the court system, defriended on Facebook, be estranged, given the cold shoulder, and have doors closed in your face.
- To get past an argument, just ignore it and then pretend it never happened.
- The way to get over conflict is to just give in.
- If you really love someone, there will never be arguments.
- There’s no point in telling someone how they hurt you because they won’t take responsibility for their part.
- It’s not safe to confront others about how they made you feel.
- Conflict means love will be withdrawn.
- And more.
My only example otherwise, the only healthy modeling about conflict I tangentially experienced, was from my high school best friend’s family. They were a close, connected, healthy family system that practiced non-violent communication. They were way ahead of their time for the 90s in Maine.
While I never saw them fight or argue, my friend would tell me about how her family would argue but then work through their arguments with each other, using non-violent communication.
This was so foreign to me.
But it was also a potent seed that was planted about what could be possible in healthy family systems.
