Parents come to us all the time asking for help with their kids who are rigid, have anger issues, are unforgiving, or unable too see another's point of view. We work with those kids to teach them to press that pause button, take a deep breath, accept that the other person may need to apologize and help them to accept that apology. We help them understand the "intent" of the other person so they know that the actions weren't meant to be nefarious.

So you can imagine how we feel when a parent of such a child becomes angry with us for something that was unintentional. It probably doesn't surprise loyal readers of our blog that we are not in this for the money. Social coaches are not known for the size of their yachts. We love what we do and we care very much about every child we meet. As much as we try to please all who come to us for social skills help, we know that occasionally we will make someone unhappy. It's part of owning a business and working with hundreds of people each month.

Our naive natures, though, are always surprised when adults exhibit red hot quick anger without a respectful dialogue. Some people's go-to response is a "I'll show you!" then proceed to create a great big, angry "harumpf!!" moment. We totally understand that people get angry when misunderstandings happen. That's normal and even expected, but we become thrown off our game when parents won't listen to another view or if they even refuse to accept an apology that they were rightly due. We are left thinking, "Wow, what was up with that?" We're also left thinking, "...but their child was learning and doing well and he was making friends!" It is beyond sad for us to have these moments, and thankfully, they happen very rarely.

There's nothing we can do to coach a parent in the ways that we would coach a child. We can only acknowledge that they are upset, restate our intention and apologize for whatever role we had in causing their upset feelings. We wish we could point out that such a parent is asking their child to do something that they, themselves, are unable to do.

It's important for everyone, kids and adults alike, to press the the pause button in those heated moments, consider another view, accept the repair and apology made and then make a positive move forward.