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Yes­ter­day morn­ing I yelled at my son.

He had a baby molar that had broke in two and needed to come out. It had been loose for weeks, but because it was broke it stung when wig­gled. A visit to the den­tist showed that it was prob­a­bly suction-cupped to the gums. I told him he had 30 min­utes to try to get it out or I was pulling it with den­tal floss. He imme­di­ately started freak­ing out.

The fear of the unknown.

I told him, through his wail­ing, “Don’t let the fear of the unknown take over.” But he was past the point of lis­ten­ing. He was hys­ter­i­cal. I know what that’s like because at the age of 38 I still get hys­ter­i­cal if ANY­one comes near me with a syringe. :-\

I yelled.

I yelled for him to stop talk­ing so I could get the floss around the tooth. I tied it quickly and before he could fin­ish another beg­ging sen­tence I yanked.

Then he really wahooped! Not because it hurt. Not because there was a lit­tle blood. But because I yelled at him.

Once he calmed down, I hugged him and explained that once a per­son, young or old, gets to that point, there’s no logic and all rea­son­ing is gone. I told him that most peo­ple have to deal with fear at some point or many times in their lives. He under­stood, but I still think he didn’t care for the yelling part. Nei­ther did I.

I thought about it all day…did he really under­stand why I had to just plow through his fear. I don’t expect him to com­pletely under­stand it, but on his level, did he under­stand enough?

Later that evening, he came run­ning in the house with sweat run­ning down his face, beam­ing from ear to ear…“MOM! I did it!!! I con­quered my fear of heights!” He had been try­ing to get past the first branch from a huge tree in our back­yard for a year. And he did it.

He got it.  Maybe just this time, but he got it.

Tuesday’s Unwrapped