May the kids always be open with us

Yang had a scary outburst on the evening of 22 October.

It was time to watch Fixing Fate, a Mediacorp drama series that found favour with the boys. Kai was holding the remote control and looked like he was going to pause the anime. Yang suddenly went for the remote control. Kai held on to it. Yang stormed off into his room and closed the door.

???

I quickly went after Yang but found the door locked. I knocked and asked him to open the door. He refused. I told him I had the key but I'd rather he open it. Nope. So I unlocked it from outside and went in.

Yang was hiding in his blanket. It was hot so I uncovered his legs. He refused to uncover his head. I could tell from his voice and actions that he was sobbing. Sayang-ed him a bit and told him I'd give him time to calm down.

Eventually, he let me see his face. He said it was Yu's fault. I was surprised coz the tussle was with Kai. But later when he emerged from his room, he went to play with Yu.

So the story goes like this... Earlier in the evening, they were all watching TV - MeWatch and YouTube - and choosing the video turn by turn. It was Yu's turn when we asked him to go shower so he ended his video and passed the remote control to Kai. So now it was Kai's turn, and it was during that when I said it was time for drama, which meant Yang wouldn't have his turn to choose a video as it would be bedtime by the end of the drama.

But Yang wanted to watch Yu's video too. His point was that he could have continued watching that video if Yu didn't end it. So he was upset and felt it was unfair.

So... my fault after all?? Um...

But yes, the whole fairness thing was at play again. And I also don't understand why they must do turn by turn when each of them likes different things sometimes and videos are of different lengths! Told them to all agree on videos to watch as I could stop them any time for meals etc.

Anyway, my point here is about the part where Yang suddenly stormed into his room. I still remember Na telling me about a student in her school who had an argument with his mother and suddenly turned and jumped out of his window. 

We do have grilles in the kids' bedrooms and the keys are all with me, used only during window cleaning. But it was still scary to see him storm off like that, locking his room some more. Having heard stories about the things that children could do to themselves thanks to my old job and boss and news of course, I was very worried. My poor Yang. My poor heart.

Really must instil in them that there's nothing they could not talk to us about. Nothing.