I have two boys, ages 5 and 4 (By the way, happy birthday, Clark!! Juuuust for the record, we did celebrate his birthday, even though I posted absolutely nothing about it on my blog. Does that make me a bad mom? Or maybe just a bad mommy blogger. But then again, I already knew that... I have yet to have a themed party for any of my family members, take a picture of some thrifted item that I made look awesome, OR write a detailed week-by-week description of my child's skills and talents.....sigh. I am a bad mommy blogger.).
Anyways, now that my tangential parenthetical guilt trip is over, let me talk about what I originally came for.
My two boys (whose ages I previously discussed before getting distracted by my own self-loathing) love love LOVE to fight, argue, wrestle, debate, and any other synonym you can come up with for fighting.
Seriously, they love it. Jack is bigger and taller, which would seem to give him an enormous advantage, but Clark is scrappy and stubborn, so they're pretty evenly matched. I know it's built into boys to need to wrestle with each other (why is that? Can anyone explain it to me?), so I usually don't intervene too much (in fact, sometimes Steve and I take bets on who we think will come out the winner), but when it's someone being genuinely rude or hurtful to someone else, I usually intervene and have them do The Apology.
The Apology is something I learned about when a friend posted this article on Facebook, and I actually not only read it but implemented it (Yeah, big day, I know). Basically, it teaches that when having one child apologize to the other, the child should use this basic script: "I'm sorry for __________. It was wrong because ____________. Will you forgive me?"
I love it because it teaches empathy and genuine repentance (rather than a forced "I'm sorry," the child is forced to figure out why they're expected to apologize and what was wrong with their behavior), and it also empowers the hurt person in the situation to choose whether or not they will forgive the offender.
I've actually used this for several months now, and it's been quite effective for our family. While there has been the occasional hurt experience where the victim refuses to forgive the offender (probably only happened once or twice in the time I've used it with them), usually the boys end up smiling and hugging and moving on rather quickly.
However, the other day, Clark offended Jack--he used his new Thomas the Train toy to hit Jack on the top of the head. Jack, of course, was hysterical, and so I intervened, but unlike the norm, when I asked Clark to apologize to his brother, he became sullen and refused.
(Now, folks, this kid is stubborn. If he refuses something, there is little to nothing you can do to get him to change his mind. Threats and bribery rarely if ever work, and unless he makes up the decision to obey you in the first place, you know you're in for a loooong experience any time you try to get him to do something he doesn't want to do. I keep telling myself that his strong will will get him far, but I have to make sure that he somehow survives toddlerhood first. Because that is going to be a feat, lemme tell ya).
Because this particular interaction happened to occur at the end of a very long day with my husband gone and me being the one to try to get the kids to do something, I used a parental tactic I rarely revert to....I made an empty threat.
"Clark, if you don't apologize, then Jack gets to hit you on your head with your Thomas toy!"
I genuinely thought he'd apologize at that point, but he still stubbornly refused, and, feeling like a horrible person, but knowing that I had to follow through (also recognizing that my tenderhearted Jack hits like a sissy), I handed the toy over to Jack.
Clark, upon realizing that I was serious, began screaming in terror, trying to get away from Jack, but Jack, having the longer arms, reached over Clark's flailing limbs and thunked him gently on the head.
*Thunk*
I could immediately tell that Jack had barely hit Clark, but Clark continued screaming anyways, dramatically yelling, "That didn't even huuurt!" before bursting into tears.
I had to leave the room at that point. It's hard to be taken seriously as a disciplinarian when you're laughing so hard you can't breathe.
Anyways, now that my tangential parenthetical guilt trip is over, let me talk about what I originally came for.
My two boys (whose ages I previously discussed before getting distracted by my own self-loathing) love love LOVE to fight, argue, wrestle, debate, and any other synonym you can come up with for fighting.
Seriously, they love it. Jack is bigger and taller, which would seem to give him an enormous advantage, but Clark is scrappy and stubborn, so they're pretty evenly matched. I know it's built into boys to need to wrestle with each other (why is that? Can anyone explain it to me?), so I usually don't intervene too much (in fact, sometimes Steve and I take bets on who we think will come out the winner), but when it's someone being genuinely rude or hurtful to someone else, I usually intervene and have them do The Apology.
The Apology is something I learned about when a friend posted this article on Facebook, and I actually not only read it but implemented it (Yeah, big day, I know). Basically, it teaches that when having one child apologize to the other, the child should use this basic script: "I'm sorry for __________. It was wrong because ____________. Will you forgive me?"
I love it because it teaches empathy and genuine repentance (rather than a forced "I'm sorry," the child is forced to figure out why they're expected to apologize and what was wrong with their behavior), and it also empowers the hurt person in the situation to choose whether or not they will forgive the offender.
I've actually used this for several months now, and it's been quite effective for our family. While there has been the occasional hurt experience where the victim refuses to forgive the offender (probably only happened once or twice in the time I've used it with them), usually the boys end up smiling and hugging and moving on rather quickly.
However, the other day, Clark offended Jack--he used his new Thomas the Train toy to hit Jack on the top of the head. Jack, of course, was hysterical, and so I intervened, but unlike the norm, when I asked Clark to apologize to his brother, he became sullen and refused.
(Now, folks, this kid is stubborn. If he refuses something, there is little to nothing you can do to get him to change his mind. Threats and bribery rarely if ever work, and unless he makes up the decision to obey you in the first place, you know you're in for a loooong experience any time you try to get him to do something he doesn't want to do. I keep telling myself that his strong will will get him far, but I have to make sure that he somehow survives toddlerhood first. Because that is going to be a feat, lemme tell ya).
Because this particular interaction happened to occur at the end of a very long day with my husband gone and me being the one to try to get the kids to do something, I used a parental tactic I rarely revert to....I made an empty threat.
"Clark, if you don't apologize, then Jack gets to hit you on your head with your Thomas toy!"
I genuinely thought he'd apologize at that point, but he still stubbornly refused, and, feeling like a horrible person, but knowing that I had to follow through (also recognizing that my tenderhearted Jack hits like a sissy), I handed the toy over to Jack.
Clark, upon realizing that I was serious, began screaming in terror, trying to get away from Jack, but Jack, having the longer arms, reached over Clark's flailing limbs and thunked him gently on the head.
*Thunk*
I could immediately tell that Jack had barely hit Clark, but Clark continued screaming anyways, dramatically yelling, "That didn't even huuurt!" before bursting into tears.
I had to leave the room at that point. It's hard to be taken seriously as a disciplinarian when you're laughing so hard you can't breathe.
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