I think both approaches, your "I told you not to stand there." and your wife's comforting are bad ones.
You and your wife take opposite actions when something bad happens. You do not cooperate rather anticipate the partner's actions.
Your reaction is completely cold and repulsive. There is no e...
One of the policies here is that an answer should not disagree with the premise; another is that it must answer the question. Your answer violates both; you have not answered the fundamental question, "How can I be more sympathetic towards my children when they are injured?"
@anongoodnurse What premise I disagree with? The one that OP is cold "I told you" comentator? And my answer lies within "laugh it off", which means do neither show them it is their fault neither it is special case.
I'll repeat: where have you answered the fundamental question, "How can I be more sympathetic towards my children when they are injured?" (The question is not, "How should I act when my child gets hurt?")
@anongoodnurse Do you mean the difference between "How can I feel sympathy towards [anyone] when they are injured" or "How can I show sympathy toward [anyone] when they are injured"? Because I think I have answered the second meaning. I had to search OED, since english is not my mother tongue and I am still slightly clumsy with precious meanings of word. By the way, can you, please, move all this to chat room?
Moving this to chat will remove my objection to this answer. The objection is valid. If you think it is not, please flag my comments for (other) moderator attention.
It won't remove either your objection either the vote. I just want to know how to improve my answer to deliver what I want to say in the form it can be understood the way I wanted to be understood. I think my last question hits the issue there.
You said "both approaches are bad". That was enough for me to think the answer wasn't helpful. No one ever takes criticism if it is delivered with any sort of put down -- real or imagined. I think that if you reword your post to be positive -- you will have made a point that might help. example: 1) If you and your wife take different approaches it might be confusing to your boy. I suggest you find a way to compromise and cooperate with each other, and present a more united approach.
@Crowley You're welcome. I think it works to explain and anongoodnurse was trying to help. I think you have a pov that may work for the OP (Original Poster), but that you should delete the post (so that no one else downvotes you) and resubmit it written from a positive pov. It takes a while to get used to this site, but it's worth the effort.
Hi @Crowley. Have a look around the site and see how many answers disagree with the premise (this is just a fancy way of saying "you're wrong"). Look at meta; search disagree premise to see how the community has voted to deal with this issue.
Since the OP asks about empathy, let's imagine one for you. Let's say your child comes down with an illness that will keep him in bed for a few weeks, and you ask for recommendations for fun games that don't require much exertion and can be played with your son in bed.
Someone answers you this way:
"It's not your job to entertain your sick son. He should be able to entertain himself without any parental involvement."
Do you think that answers the question 'you' asked? Do you think it's a kind answer?
My take on it is that it is neither helpful nor kind. Someone is feeling bad and wants to help their son. You give them an answer that not only doesn't help, but adds insult to injury.
If someone in pain asks for help; the decent thing to do is to help them, not tell them what they are doing incorrectly according to you.
If you think they are doing the wrong thing, the best option is to skip answering the question altogether.
Yes, you've re-written your answer, but you have not understood the problem, I'm sorry to say.
You have some interesting things to say. Unfortunately they don't answer the question asked. Asides are fine if the main part of the answer addresses the question asked.
I'm not sure I know what else to say.
Why do you want the comments removed from beneath your answer, may I ask?
@Crowley Sorry, your answer will still not get my upvote. I think it might be a language barrier -- forgive me if I am wrong. The way we word our answers is meant to help, not criticize the OP. Anongoodnurse's advice is right on. I was new here not so long ago. It is not at all like other forums. We don't say what we think about the person or the problem. No -- how/why did you do something like that? We are meant to share our point of view in an encouraging way.
I would like to encourage OP that his goals, have more empathetic relationship with his kid and let his kid to learn a valuable lesson, are worth pursuing. I think that only a part of his behavior deserves his dislike.
He also sound like he regrets his behaviour only. This is not the way how, in my humble opinion, parental issues shall be treated. I thing both of them need to change and I would like to encourage both of them to do so.
Also I think there are more issues than just "unempahtetic" father in there and I think it is best to try to solve them all at once. I would like to encourage them to face the bitter phase.
@anongoodnurse In your answer you state: Don't blame the victim for their pain.
The opposite of comfort to someone in pain is the statement, "If you had listened to me, you wouldn't be hurting right now." It adds an element of insult to injury, even if it's true. Even if it's true, it is not an empathetic response. Pain requests empathy, not blame.
Which I copy. In my answer I try to suggest HOW to not insult the kid and how to fade the urge to do so.
I think OP is more rational based than empathy based, I hope my suggestions can help him to find a way to be more sympathetic. In the begining to be less unsympathetic.
I personally value the emotionless rationale over empathy as well - once the problem/danger is solved there is time to show emotions.
I and people around me had many serious accidents and my mom acted like emotionless robot sorting everyting out the most effective way. No unnecessary words, actions. Regrdless whether it was my friend coked by his own tongue, me when I fell down from a roof. She flushed all the emotions aft…
@Willow The word critique in my dictionary stand for pointing out both the good and the bad. Both with the goal of to show the features that can be revisited (the bad ones) and kept (the good ones) so the next attempt will be, in my PoW, better. In my eyes this sort of critique helps both to idetify what can be improved, how, and why. I cannot see how can I help someone by not pointing out where I can see issues.
Sorry for typos: My friend choked his tongue because he fell of the bike, landed on his nack and fell unconcious. My mom sorted this, any all the others accidents, without unnecessary words and unnecessary actions; she didn't let anyone to distract her.
@Crowley there are two different definitions for the word critiicize. Yours is the secondary definition. I would link it, but am not on a PC, and it is too difficult. I will be happy to do so tomorrow.
Discussion on answer by Crowley: How …
Discussion on answer by Crowley: How …