Psychology Today | 03.08.2026 21:53
Sitting in my office, Janice recounted the following scene. It was 6:40pm on a Tuesday. She was feeling frustrated that dinner was getting cold. She repeated, seemingly gently, the same thing she said the prior Tuesday to her nine-year-old son, Ejijah, without incident. "Five more minutes, then we eat," but this time, Elijah erupted. Janice kept running the tape repeatedly back, until I gently stopped her. You see, she was looking for what she said was "wrong". But she was looking in the wrong place.
