I did not let my kids argue much when they were growing up. I could not tolerate constant bickering. I did a few things to help eliminate it. The first was that we did "Kid of the Day". I had 3 kids so each one had 2 days a week and the extra day was mine. Kid of the day got to choose afternoon TV programs and got to sit in the favored seat in the minivan, etc. This worked well for some things but for most disputes, I just taught them to negotiate from a young age. They'd get in an argument and I would discuss with them ways they could solve it, (each kid gets the toy for 5 minutes or something like that), then I'd leave them to discuss it, and then if they hadn't worked it out pretty quickly, I'd step in and solve the problem. My way of solving the problem was always the worst. For example, if they were fighting over a toy, I would always take it away so no one could play with it. If they were fighting over the TV, then the TV would go off for the day. After a while, they caught on to me (it didn't take long) and when they'd come to me with a dispute, I'd say "Do you really want me to come in there and solve this or do you want to negotiate?" They decided that they always wanted to negotiate and they never wanted to involve me. So they almost never fought.
The other day, the 2 who live here were trying to get the sofa slipcover on. It is very difficult and they were bickering slightly during the process. I let it go on for a few minutes, then said for them to stop it. They looked at me and my daughter said "We weren't really fighting. We almost never argue." and my son said "Yeah, be thankful we're not normal kids."
Yeah.
I am.
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| We had an Easter egg hunt yesterday at church with an accompanying party which I planned and the kids helped with. After a while, the big kids started playing with the blocks and this happened. :-) |
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