[] Reflection of the conflict I recently had with my mum! []

It was only just the pasted weekend, I actually had I conflict with my mum. It happened like this.

Last Friday night, I went straight to my friend’s place from school for a game of Mahjong. It ended around 4am in the morning so I was contemplating if I should stay over at my friend’s place or head home because before the game started, I texted my brother, informing him that I would be playing Mahjong but didn’t inform him if I was coming home after the game. It’s a common practice in my house to ledge the main door before the whole house goes to bed, so I was worried that when I reached home, I might be locked out of home. In the end, I decided to call my brother and when he picked up, he was all grumpy and all. He also said the ‘F’word and hung up. And with that, I thought that if the door is ledged, I will be looked out of home and so I stayed at my friend’s place.

The next morning (Saturday), my mum called me in the morning and was asking me where I was and if I was home that night. I told her the TRUTH that I was staying at my friend’s place and then she started rattling off and reprimanded me. She told me that she didn’t like the idea of me staying over at my friend’s place, that I was being too much, getting from bad to worst and she has to answer to my father. My relationship with my dad is not really a good one as such; the first which came to my mind was, “if that guy didn’t asked for me, you wouldn’t be bugging me now right? So are you venting your frustration on me?” she also claimed that the door was not ledged. However, I didn’t say a word and let her rattle on and on till she stopped and hung up.

That was my conflict with my mother.

And after reading through the LMS notes on conflict management, and reflecting upon what had happened, I feel that there were some similarities. Firstly, feel that it is a Relationship Conflict, (caused by poor or miscommunication, stereotyping, strong negative emotions or repetitive negative behaviour) There was definitely a miscommunication as I didn’t know that the door was not ledge and if I knew it, I would have gone home and I didn’t know if she was calling me if she was getting an answer for my dad or she calls because she really cared.

The concepts underlying the conflict is simple, our values. She feels that it is not nice staying over at other people’s places but I feel that it was fine. Furthermore my friend didn’t mind and his parents were not in town. From this experience I have actually found out that the grudge for my dad is very significant because I was really disturbed when my mum actually brought him up. It also promotes me creativity as I found a new way to “counter” my mum’s rattling. Because parents will always feel and think that they are having more say then us so I thought instead of arguing with them, which doesn’t make sense as I will still be the same, I will just listen blankly and pretend that I am listening. The constructive view here is that I found out a new creative method to my mum’s rattling however the negative view is that the problem will never be solved.