When I was a teenager, my siblings and I would sometimes vent to each other. Sound familiar? We liked to complain about people who, at times, made life a little less pleasant. Normally, one might feel a sense of satisfaction after a few complaints—that’s what “venting” is all about, right?—but every time my mom heard this, very gently and naturally, she would find a good thing to say about whomever we were complaining about.
It was an amazing strategy, and it’s a practice that has continued to work to this day, without fail. Naturally, we kids disliked this quality a lot, since it just didn’t fit with where we were in life. We wanted to complain, and that was that. But, my brain at the time was, of course, observing and making mental notes.
