I may have scarred my relationship with my niece
Background: My nice (brother’s daughter) turns 7 next month. She has some minor behavior issues since her parents are going through a divorce right now, but nothing crazy. She just has trouble listening and hates being told no. Every Thursday, my family goes out to dinner just to hang out. My niece usually wants me to carry her to the car and put her in her car seat because I’ll swing her and make her laugh while we walk to the cars. I’ve had a particular stressful couple weeks- just life, work, home, etc., so I wasn’t in a grumpy mood, I was just stressed.
As we were walking to the car, my niece took my sunglasses off and put them on herself. No problem. She was being silly, putting them on upside down, just having fun. She does it all the time. I asked her not to smudge my sunglasses because she ALWAYS purposely smudges them and I’ll usually have to ask her not to a few times before I take them away from her. I’ve told her at least 20 times in the past not to get them dirty. They aren’t expensive sunglasses, I just have a pet peeve about them being dirty.
As I was putting her in the car, I took the sunglasses off her head and put them on. Right after I did that, she ran her fringed across the sunglasses. It looked like it was an accident, but I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure. After I finished buckling her in, she laughed and ran her finger across my sunglasses again.
I snapped. I took my sunglasses off and raised my voice and said something like “*full name*, I told you not to get my sunglasses dirty. I’ve asked you many time before” and she just looked at me and started laughing more, which made me more mad. So I added “it’s not funny. I’m not laughing. I asked you before not to smudge my sunglasses. Good bye. I love you.”
Then she started whining. Not crying, but the “ugh!” little kids do when they don’t get their way. Even my mom and neighbor who were there mentioned that she had made me mad and she has a problem listening.
As soon as I walked away, I started crying. I didn’t mean to yell at her like that. I’ve never yelled at her before. I usually just let her get away with being a stinker. I ment to be firm with her, but I didn’t mean to yell or be that mean.
I sounded so much like my dad. It scared me. I don’t have any kids, so I wasn’t used to it. My wife is a marriage family therapist and said that I didn’t yell, my voice maybe was just a little too loud.
When we were driving home, I thought about all the times my dad punished me and over reacted. All the times that he wouldn’t even remember, but that little me could remember and how afraid I was.
I didn’t like it. I hated it. The only forms of punishments I know are what I was raised with- yelling and spanking. I don’t know the “right” way to punish a child. My wife keeps telling me I did fine. She knew what she was doing when she ran her finger across my sunglasses and laughed at me.
I just hope so badly this isn’t one of those things that permanently affects my relationship with my niece…