i'm angry at the paper!

The little one wasn't charming at all to the people at mass today. So grumpy, till it wasn't cute anymore. He glared at smiling strangers, pushed chairs and even lashed out on a more little friend. In no time, he felt the firm hand of his dad who carried him out to the garden. When asked why he was so grumpy and rude, he simply said, "I'm angry at the paper!"
He was referring to that small piece of paper he was writing his name on. If you look at the paper, there's nothing in it that would justify all that temper. I then had a feeling it was because of something else.
True enough, when he was ready to go back and say sorry to his friend and titas, he confessed to one of them, "Someone destroyed the sticker in my doodle board at home. I cried."
I already had the inkling that the weird behavior was because of that. He did cry a few minutes before we went to church. But I didn't realize that it affected him very badly -- and that he was capable of displacing his anger on other things.

I learned from a psychologist friend a few months ago that children still have difficulty in articulating their feelings. That's why you have to help them say it by sometimes volunteering the words for them. Otherwise they displace it on other things or people.

But what I find to be so fascinating, and a bit worrying, is how things, events, words, can affect children as young as my little one in ways we can't fathom.

At least this gives us more reason to be kinder in admonishing them. Like every ordinary person, they are also fighting a hard battle deep within.