Parenting
Perspectives on Parenting©
by Nancy Lambert Davenport
Nancy Davenport's Column:
For Richardson News 06-11-00
Copyright Nancy Lambert Davenport 2000
"Bbickering kids a challenge for caring parents"
Summer has always been a time which I have looked forward to and dreaded at the same time. Without fail our kids would be at odds from the starting gate because they had trouble adjusting to so much free time.
When they got bored, they bickered. My standard discipline for that behavior was to send everyone to his or her respective rooms for an hour.
There was always much moaning and groaning and whining and galumphing about as they slouched to their rooms, but inevitably each one found a project to work on independently and chose not to come out after they paid their penance.
Another great challenge of summer for me was the inevitable friend coming over--often a child from the neighborhood. Actually I enjoyed having extra kids around - except when they ended up in a bickering session with one of my kids.
If kids began bickering after having played nicely for a while, I usually let them work it out. How else will either of them learn how to deal with conflict?
Occasionally things got out of hand and I had to intervene and send everyone home and to their rooms. There was one neighborhood child though who never seemed to bring the best out in one of my children.
Whenever Peter came over, play would end in turmoil with my child usually being the one who got in trouble for doing or saying something inappropriate. I liked Peter and felt that there was potential in their relationship so decided to see if I could help them learn how to resolve conflict more constructively.
I set out a timer with ten minutes ticking away on it. I wrote a little chart out on a piece of paper with five blanks. Below the blanks I wrote: PLAYED TOGETHER 10 MINUTES WITHOUT FIGHTING. I told them that when the timer went off after 10 minutes and they had not fought about anything, I would put a star in one blank. If they could accumulate five stars, I would play board games with them for 15 minutes, something they loved probably because I required them both to learn to play by the rules.
When this was successful I started the timer again with 15-minute increments and a reward of more board games. After another visit with 20-minute intervals, I took them to the park because they were playing together so nicely. Clearly their conflict was not serious and both just needed reminding that there are better ways of handling conflict than bickering and fighting.
A note of caution, however: this method is not to be tempted to use food as a reward. No one wants to teach that food is a reward rather than a means of nourishment.
This method clearly beats dragging the neighborhood kid to his house by the ear and telling his mother what a brat he is.
One friend described how she disciplined her own child who was playing at a friend's house, as "hauling her child into the front yard and whaling the tar out of him." I am sure that makes my friend feel much better momentarily but doesn't really do much to teach the kids to get along.
She may have even inadvertently coached the other child how to manipulate his friend. He could say the next day, "If you don't play the way I want, I'll tell your mother and she'll be back to "whale the tar out of you.""
Every child has his or her own challenges of learning to get along with others. Our job as parents is to give our kids tools they can use to get along with a variety of people, not to fight the battles for them.
It's a worthy summer project.
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Nancy Lambert Davenport
EMAIL: ndavenport@ticnet.com
URL: http://www.nancyldavenport.com