Misbehaving

Yesterday I made Harrison cry.

Mind you, I make him cry several times a day when I take away something that we wants (e.g., markers), make him do something that he doesn't want to do (e.g., go inside), or ignore my ESP powers and unknowingly make a wrong choice (e.g., juice instead of milk).

This type of crying doesn't faze me.

But yesterday I made him cry because he I yelled at him, and I feel awful about it.

We had been playing cars in the living room for about 10 minutes when all of a sudden Harrison decided to bash his racecar into the back of my head. It hurt, so I said "Ow!" and then he did it again. I was angry. I briskly grabbed him up and yelled, "Do not hit people. That hurts!" and put him in one of the dining room chairs in the middle of the room for a time out. I kneeled down, took away his weapon/car, and said sternly (not yelling this time) "You cannot hit people. It is not nice. Now say that you're sorry."

Now, Harrison doesn't misbehave like this often. He's been in time-out maybe four times in his entire life, and usually he looks a little guilty, apologizes, and just sits quietly for the minute or two of his sentence.

But yesterday he looked terrified as I was chastising him, then his bottom lip started quivering, and he burst out in tears just as he was saying in his little Scooby Doo voice, "Raw-ry!" [Sorry!]

And oh, did my heart break. And oh, did I feel guilty. And I gave him the biggest hug and kissed his tears and calmed him down, and then two minutes later he was playing happily with a different toy and in his mind all was well.

I don't know whether he cried because he was scared by the yelling, because he felt bad for hurting me, or if it was a combination of the two.

And yes, logically I do realize that he did misbehave and that his time-out punishment was appropriate, and that him feeling bad for hurting me would be the correct response.

But next time I'm going try and count to ten before reacting with such anger.

I didn't like that this incident hurt my heart more than Harrison hurt my head.