One of the hardest things about being a mother was, for me, the fact that my children would argue with each other. These were often not calm disagreements, rather interchanges that escalated in tone and volume until finally I would have to intervene to save my own sanity. Sometimes I would send the children to their rooms. Sometimes I would send them outside. Sometimes we would discuss what was happening and try to problem solve by clarifying who did what and how some resolution could come about. What I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do was give them any clues as to how to resolve disputes in a more productive way,<\/p>\n
What I should have done is to sit individually with them and ask them to tell me how they saw the situation and then how they thought their sibling saw it. If they were unable to supply the sibling\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s point of view, I should have tried to guess what it was and then ask the child to rephrase it to ensure that the child had heard and understood. Next, I should have asked the child to try and think of what he or she could have done differently in light of what their sibling was thinking and feeling. Could he or she have found some common ground, a compromise, a trade-off?<\/p>\n
I should have taught my children that the least likely way to get what you want is by name-calling, yelling, screaming, hitting, kicking, and threats. I should have taught them that a smile, a nod, a real concern for the other and their point of view all go a long way toward resolving a conflict. I should have taught them to find out what the other one really wanted and to see if there was a way that both of them could get what they wanted. I should have taught them that respecting the other person is a prerequisite for coming to a satisfactory resolution. I should have done that not only for my sanity\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sake, but to help facilitate their effectiveness as adults.<\/p>\n
I like to think that they learned those skills in part by watching what their parents did. Sometimes, if we are lucky, the message gets through even if we are not consciously transmitting it. However, with all of the anger and pain and violence in the world, actively teaching children the art of conflict resolution might just be a priority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the hardest things about being a mother was, for me, the fact that my children would argue with each other. These were often not calm disagreements, rather interchanges that escalated in tone and volume until finally I would have to intervene to save my own sanity. Sometimes I would send the children to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-life","category-parenting","category-interpersonal-relationships","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}