Conflicts within ourselves

 Recently, I had an interpersonal conflict with my son. He thinks he (was 13 years old) has grown up enough to decide what to do or not. However, as a mother, I found him to behave very childishly. He wanted to play games on the computer all day long, and if I didn’t stop him, he wouldn’t even sleep for 24 hours and keep playing.

My son believes I don’t understand him. He may also think I lack the knowledge of modern technology to understand him. We may have a huge generation gap. He thinks he needs more freedom to do whatever he likes.

“Implicit Personal Theory” works here because my son and I are guessing about each other’s behaviour and having a conflict. Our role play is like friends. We are making assumptions about each other’s behaviour.

When conflict starts

 Someone said the big conflict started from a tiny spark.

Maybe it's true. But I think problems generally keep piling up inside our hearts. We don't want to hurt anyone, so we don't talk about it. Then, one day, from a small spark, we take the final call. The outsiders will ask why they are reacting to a simple act. They have no idea how much has already piled up inside the mind.