I guess you've never had two children of similar age in your home. You hear them punching and kicking and screaming and crying in their bedroom and you have to go in there and separate them before they hurt each other. I know some parents who think "Let them settle their own fights" is a great thing to do, but I don't think that's a good idea. I know other times it has been argued that "They only fight to get your attention" and I know that's true from time to time but not every time. Someone who doesn't want to limit this to "sometimes" but wants to apply it to their every argument, without exception, is smoking something. Or has found out that their kids don't really hurt each other, in contradistinction (woo, I'm eddicated when I can use that word...) to my kids, who seriously drew blood and created scars.
So anyway, you go into their room to stop the battle, and immediately they're both pointing at each other and howling, "He did it!" And then you've been pulled into an argument. You're expected to be jury, judge, referee, and executioner. You're supposed to stand there and listen to who said what and who did what. Their two stories vary terribly, and eventually you'll learn that one person said something, the other did something, each of them stepped on the other's boundaries and tried to act justified in doing it, and the two of them participated equally in elevating the hostilities.
Either one of them is lying, or both of them are lying, or both are telling the truth with a completely different point of view, and if you try to judge who was the bad kid you end up standing there listening to their stories, watching them accuse one another, listening to them work themselves up into a new fury as they relive the argument. There's no wonderful solution unless the kids aren't very angry in the first place.
If your mom yelled, "I don't care who started it!" she was putting up her own boundaries and keeping herself out of your argument. Sadly, the kids don't understand how justified she is in her demand that they not involve her. It's probably not the best solution but it's her idea of how to keep you kids from tying her up in their argument.
Let me know if you have a better idea.
I just don't know
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