Restrain the Negative, Practice the Positive

Our neighbors have three children. Every time they come over, we notice the same thing — the way they include each other, help each other, defer to each other. They are a pleasure to have around.

I mentioned it to their mother once. I told her how sweetly her children interact, and she must be proud of the way they treat each other. She smiled and said, "A lot of people tell me that. They do — until they don't."

I hadn't seen the until they don't.

Since I have not seen what they are like when they do not get along, I can't speak to whether they get frustrated with each other, or impatient or unkind. What I can speak to is what's visible: they interact in a peaceful, kind way with each other, and it is fun for adults to have them around.

It brought to mind how my mother always used to tell us that she expected our best behavior when we had company. Some might take that as asking children to be inauthentic — to hide what they feel. But looking back, I can see what it actually taught us: restraint is a skill, not a personality trait. It has to be practiced somewhere before it can be relied on everywhere. Company was where we practiced it. For the neighbor's children, it seems to be almost everywhere.

Character isn't only what a child does. It's also what they choose not to do — the sharp word not said, the sibling not shoved.

Restraint keeps a child from harm. Practice makes it stick.

This capacity — knowing what to hold back — serves a child their whole life. In friendships and marriages, in workplaces and disagreements, in the small daily choices no one else sees. The child who learns to hold back the sharp word at seven is the adult who can hold back the sharp word at thirty.

I don't know what the neighbor's children are like when no one's watching. What I do know is that the version of them they choose to bring into our house is one we enjoy having around.

Restrain the negative. Practice the positive.