Angry people are not always wise.
– Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

When we first started sheltering-in-place last year, the kids fought more than usual. During one post-argument family discussion, we came upon a helpful analogy: every time you start arguing, I told them, it’s like you enter a building on the ground floor. In this building, there are many, many floors, all connected with escalators that go up and down between each floor (they liked that image, because they love going up and down escalators). 

In this building, though, going up a floor is bad. Going up means the argument becomes more destructive and intense. People are more likely to be hurt. Go up far enough, and sometimes you reach a level where damage to the relationship is permanent or very difficult to repair. And you travel up and down these floors together. If the person you’re in the building/argument with goes up a floor, they tend to take you with them, and vice versa. 

As soon as you enter the building, you have a choice: you can take an escalator up a floor, or not. What are the escalators going up? We brainstormed a list:

• raising our voices

• talking more quickly

• rolling our eyes

• physical aggression (pushing, kicking)

• throwing something

• words like “always” or “never”

• bringing in something from the past

• a certain tone of voice (annoyed, disgusted)

• slamming a door

Similarly, you can choose to take an escalator down a floor. Escalators going down might include:

• leaving the room for a while

• distracting your thoughts (reading a book, drawing)

• expressing feelings in a way that doesn’t hurt someone else (write a note, punch a pillow)

• lowering your voice

• taking deep breaths

• a nice physical touch (hug, gentle touch)

• being quiet (not saying something back right away)

• saying something that starts with “I . . .” instead of “you . . .”

• eventually saying sorry

Here’s the thing, I told them: it’s always good to talk out a disagreement, to voice a hurt, to feel your feelings. It’s okay to be in that building. But you have to learn how to be in it without taking escalators up, because the higher you go, the less you’re actually able to do all those good things that arguments help you do. The more you risk hurting a relationship, and your relationships with your siblings are precious things that are capable of being broken.

The gravity in this building works backwards: you will always feel the pull of going up a floor or two, like an invisible and irresistible force. It takes practice, and lots of messing up sometimes, to learn how to take escalators down instead. This went without saying (because they’ve all seen me mess up and heard me apologize), but it’s something adults work on all the time too. And usually, it’s the people we love most, or spend the most time with, who give us the most opportunities to practice.