Our oldest was not the easiest of infants. He didn’t sleep well from day one. He was impossible to keep on a schedule. While he was the sweetest little boy 95 percent of the time, that other 5 percent of the time was rough. When experts discuss the “terribles twos,” there is an expectation that around 3 years of age those episodes should be waning. We were not having that experience with our oldest. At nearly 4, while the tantrums were not a daily occurrence, when he did launch into one there was nothing we could do but let him rage until he ran out of steam. My mother regularly chided me for being too lenient, and we would feel so helpless when these tantrums reared in public. One time my son was acting up in a restaurant and a friend I was dining with reminded me of the biblical notion of, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” While I had no plans of hitting my child, having been subject to multiple “spankings” with a belt, a wooden spoon, and a hairbrush myself, I knew physical punishment could work to quell outbursts. I began reading parenting books and attending seminars, convinced something I was doing wrong was allowing these tantrums to persist and worsen. A book called Parenting with Love and Logic was suggested. One fix I had heard was, when the child is having a tantrum, put them in their room, close them in there, and let them tantrum without you. If necessary to make this happen, you could install a lock on the outside of the door so the child could not escape during these time outs. This seemed rather extreme to me, but nothing else we had tried had worked. I was fresh out of ideas.

One afternoon, for a reason I cannot recall, Joe launched into one of his screaming fits. I picked up my flailing child, told him that he was going in time out until he could calm down, and deposited him on his bedroom floor. I shut the door swiftly and stood there holding the handle firmly as he struggled to open it. I knew there was nothing in his room that could hurt him, so I was determined to win this battle and show him his poor behavior would get no audience from me. As I held the door, resolute this was the right thing to do, my son’s cries escalated. He pounded and he kicked the door. He screamed, “Mommy” repeatedly as I stood outside holding the door knob. His cries grew ever more frantic. An epic battle began between my well-meaning head and my momma’s heart. My head kept repeating comments my mother and others had said to me about how I was too lax and gave in too easily, which was why my child was ill-behaved. I repeated to myself that letting children “cry it out” was a time-honored practice. Meanwhile, my heart was bursting at the sound of my precious Joe so clearly sad and scared alone in his room. He was still calling my name through broken sobs when I looked down and saw his little fingers reaching under the door. My heart shattered.

I’d like to say I opened the door, picked him up, hugged him, and told him I was sorry for being cruel. I’d like to say I cradled him until he was calm and gave him the security he needed to know he was heard and understood. I can’t, though. I held on to the knob, quietly crying on the other side of that shitty, hollow-core, builder’s grade door until he was silent. Only then did I let go of the handle and nudge the door open to find him asleep, with a tear-stained, flushed face, on the floor where I had left him. I closed the door, sat down in the hallway and sobbed, afraid I had broken my child. Whether this event would cease the tantrums, I was not sure. What I was sure of, though, was that my son might not ever feel I was safe place for his emotions again.

Not long after that miserable afternoon, someone suggested that perhaps Joe wasn’t an ill-behaved child but a highly sensitive one. His tantrums might be growing worse not because he was becoming more intractable but because he was becoming more fearful. Perhaps Joe needed to be held tightly, reassured he was being heard, and given an opportunity to calm down while feeling secure. Once we started helping him to better handle his wild emotions, the tantrums ceased. I became a different mother than the one I grew up with. I stopped yelling at my sons when they acted unfavorably and started talking to them about why their behavior was not the best. We regularly discussed how you can be a good person and have bad moments. My husband and I pointed out times when we had meant well but acted poorly, and we apologized for them because we wanted the boys to know all human beings struggle emotionally on occasion and make less than optimal choices. And while I’m sure I did a dozen other things horribly wrong as a parent, one thing I did right was making it a point to talk with our children, not at them. I’ve apologized to Joe about a dozen times for that sobering afternoon when my actions were more cruel than my heart. He tells me he doesn’t remember it and it’s okay. I’ve forgiven myself for doing what I thought at the time might be the right thing, but I still can’t speak (or write) about it without the tears flowing.

Yesterday, Joe Facetimed us out of the blue. He’s a college senior and had been invited to a school banquet where he unexpectedly received an award for excellence in student leadership. And you know what? As proud of him as I am for being a kind and open-hearted person who sets a good example, I’m more proud that he’s the kind of person whose first action after winning an award is reaching out to his parents so we can share it with him. I mean, how cool was that?

Maybe it’s time to let go of the memory of those fingers reaching out to me under the door because he knows that door has never been closed once since.