When a certain occurrence regarding a person is narrated to us by someone, it is very normal for us to take it as the truth even before questioning if it were actually precise.

In a similar situation, if there was something mentioned about our kid, things would quickly escalate in our minds even before we could gather any relevant facts regarding this.

As we would have felt many times, the subsequent actions may not have been the best we could have done at that moment.

More often than not these conclusions will be based on one-sided facts which depict a situation inaccurately. Considering this, the person on the receiving end would feel victimised and it could end up keeping them from discussing things freely in the future.

These situations could be easily handled by an approach of ‘Responding’ as opposed to ‘Reacting’. This approach has been wonderfully explained by Sundar Pichai’s ‘Cockroach Theory’.
The approach of responding would help us in our personal as well as professional life. It cuts out all the unnecessary pain which is induced but not intended by any person involved in the situation. Just listening to people in need as opposed to advising them, giving people a chance to state their reasons or perspective will work better in any given situation and work wonders in our lives.