It’s summer vacation, and this year we decided to enjoy the time we have together as a family, without busy schedules or classes, with just the time to really do anything or nothing for once! Last summer we did no less than 3 trips, and in-between I enrolled the kids in summer classes (N did a reading workshop, O an art class), so you can imagine how the holiday went amazingly quickly and not without stress! This summer we wanted to do the opposite, so aside from a 2-week trip to visit Grandpa P, we had NOTHING else planned.
Great?! Well, yes, aside from one small detail. My kids have been fighting like cats and dogs (ok, worse!) on a daily basis. Maybe it’s because we are at our beach house and there are no other kids around, maybe its because the beach hasn’t really been swimmable so they’ve been pushed with things to do…maybe they just have serious personality clashes?….
Luckily, the truth is that siblings WILL fight and there really isn’t much we parents can do about it (other than scream and make threats). But I did find this very useful bit of advice from Positive Parenting, which said:
“Instead of reacting to the fighting, parents can choose to be pro-active. They can stay out of the fights in a nonjudgmental way. Children need to be able to settle things for themselves. Parents can teach negotiation skills later during a calm period. Teach your child to say “I’ll give you these blocks for those.” This will help them learn win-win skills that will be there when they are needed now and useful in the future.”
I’ll be giving this a try in about 30 seconds….
Photo via kafkan
Originally posted on July 27, 2009 @ 1:32 pm