Jealousy

My older son wrote a school paper that was all about how stupid he thinks his brother is. I discovered it as I looked for a ruler with his brother and I quickly moved it so he wouldn't see it. I was absolutely devastated that he would write such things. My older son at first said I shouldn't have been looking at it. But then I pointed out that he left it out on the desk and his brother could have seen it. I said those were very hurtful words and his younger brother would be very hurt if he saw them. He said his brother wasn't meant to see them and that it was a school assignment based on a book about a pesky younger brother and all the kids were writing about the same thing. "Since when do you care what other kids are doing?" i asked. "I do care," he said.

I came into his room before he went to sleep to talk to him some more. "Were you jealous of Will last weekend?" He nodded. "Were you feeling a little bit mad?" He nodded again. "I understand that," I said. "But you have to remember the power of words. When you write it down, it's very powerful." But then I started to think that maybe writing it down makes him feel better. I don't know. The whole incident left me feeling very sad and we had just been putting up our Christmas tree.