While thousands of people were reveling at the state fair or 10,000 Lakes Festival last weekend, I was solo-parenting at a very different festival: Bickerfest 2009. This included refereeing the ever-popular sideshows Whine-o-rama, Wrestlemania and Squabblejam.
For kids, summer means freedom, fun and a lot more togetherness with siblings. As August approaches, most parents I know are growing weary of the battles.
The scenarios that trigger sibling scraps are usually too-ridiculous to repeat. My favorite exchange this weekend found my son yelling down the steps, “Quit talking to me!” To which his younger brother responded in his loudest possible voice, “No!!! You quit talking to me first.”
In the peak of frustration with Bickerfest, I retreated briefly to my computer and hastily composed an email to my family chronicling the events of my aggravating morning and my not-so-graceful ways of handling it.
Later that day, when the kids and I arrived home from some errands, a beautiful vase of miniature roses greeted me at the door. A note in my mom’s script advised, “Spread happiness in a troubled world.”
My mom was famous for keeping her cool. When my siblings were young, we lived just one block from school, so they always came home for lunch. My mom set out the food family style and left them unsupervised to serve and eat lunch while she retreated to the piano.
Chaos usually ensued, as you would expect. But my mom was in her own happy place drowning out the noise with songs and scales. To this day, she insists she was trying to teach them to share.
For me, and I believe most parents, listening to my kids fight is difficult for reasons beyond just the noise or the inherent danger of two boys in a real brawl with light sabers. Remember Madlyn Primoff, the 45-year-old Park Avenue lawyer who became a nationwide news story this spring for kicking her 12 and 10-year-old quarreling daughters out of the car and driving away?
Their bickering was annoying I’m sure, but I doubt that’s what prompted her to make good on the most widely used threat of all time. “Stop fighting or I’ll stop the car.”
Ultimately, what eats away at parents like Primoff – and me -- is the fear that we are the cause of the sibling quarrels. That our combative kids are proof that we are failing as parents. What am I doing wrong and how can I fix this, we wonder?
Parenting experts offer a wide variety of tips and tricks. We’ve heard them before, but perhaps a few are worth repeating.
• Negotiate in advance solutions and penalties for common daily battles.
• Set ground rules for fair fighting, like teaching them to fight with words, not fists.
• Use natural consequences. For example, those who demand to get the first or the most, get the last and the least.
The one point on which all the experts agree is that fighting is both normal and essential for growing up. Somehow squabbling with siblings teaches kids how to solve problems and handle conflicts as adults.
To this end, my most trusted advisor (my mom) and the books, too, strongly advise that parents let kids work out their battles themselves.
So, I guess I can retire my whistle and striped shirt. Next time my kids are fighting, you can find me at the piano.
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