The other day I had a dramatic reminder of how emotion can cloud understanding. It was the end of a long day. Propelling the children through their school day had been exhausting. I'd spent the afternoon canning, then had to run to the store at dinnertime for more canning supplies, along with some deli chicken for dinner since I was too tired to cook.

When we'd washed sheets that day, I realized our new girls would need another blanket each on their beds soon. At WalMart I grabbed a couple of soft cotton ones along with the canning rings and chicken. I thought the girls would like these new ones better than the old army-green ones in the closet. At home I handed the girls the blankets, anticipating their pleasure.

Apparently one of the girls was as tired as I was, because the thought of adding another blanket to her bed left her muttering crankily in Amharic. Never mind that she hadn't even made her bed yet.

"No problem," I said, trying to be mellow. "You can wait til later to put another blanket on. But it would be easy to put on now while you're making your bed."

There was a flurry of Amharic between the two girls, and after a minute of heated conversation with her sister, the cranky girl flung the brand new blanket on the floor in disgust.

I felt like I'd been slapped in the face, not only by this action, but by her dibs and dabs of crankiness the entire day. And I could not for the life of me figure out why she was pitching a fit over a gift.

"No." I said sternly. "You don't treat mom like that. You need to be nice to mom. Tell me why you're so upset."

"No talk to mom!" she exclaimed heatedly. "I talk to (sister)!"

Great, I thought. Now she'd decided not to talk to me. I was really seeing red now. "No, talk to me! I can't know why you're mad unless you tell me why."

She repeated: "I no talk to you! Talk to (sister)!"

"OK, if you don't want the blanket, I'll give it to someone else." I tossed the blanket into the hall. "But you have to talk to me. Tell me why you are mad." Instead of being glad I'd pitched the apparently loathesome present, she lay down and buried her face in pillow crying.

I sat with her for awhile, scratching her back and trying to get her to talk to me. But even as she cried she radiated anger. I could tell she didn't want me to touch her. Finally I admitted defeat and hoped she'd be over it by morning, as usually happens when any of the kids goes to bed upset.

No dice. The next morning, she was more angry with me, not less, and I couldn't figure out why. Yes, I'd told her she needed to be respectful and not rude to me. But this is not really news around here. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was missing something about the previous day's interaction.

I sat down with both girls to sort it out. The first thing that came was an apology--out of my other daughter's mouth. It seems that she had been pushing her unhappy sister to put the blanket on her bed, and sis had gotten irritated at her for being insistent. The blanket had been thrown on the floor in reaction to the sister's coaxing, not as a rejection of my gift.

Wow. I wished I'd understood that last night.

Come to think of it, that put a whole new light on my daughter's repeated: "I no talk to you! Talk to (sister)."

She'd been trying to explain she'd been reacting to her sister's words, not to my gift. But I'd been too tired and upset to hear her.

With that new understanding I was able to get things patched up between us. But it would have been so much easier to understand her if I hadn't been so flooded with emotion myself that evening. It got me thinking how extremely difficult it must be for our newly arrived kids to hear and understand our words when they are in the heat of distress.

After all, I am a native English speaker, and my daughter was speaking fairly respectable English to me, and still I hadn't heard what she was trying so hard to tell me. How much more difficult it must be for our children to sort out our words in those early days when they are still learning the language?

Related links
Keeping Amharic
Learning English