Siblings – Page 5 – APtly Said

Sibling Cooperation

My kids are eight years old and five years old, and for the most part, I like to stay out of the their arguments. Personally, I think there is greater skill to be gained by learning to work out disagreements and learn to cooperate than by me stepping in to solve everything.

That being said, I don’t just leave the kids out to the wolves; my goal has been to give them the tools they need to solve disagreements on their own in a way that’s fair to both of them. (The fantastic book Siblings Without Rivalry was a great help to me in negotiating the potential trials of parenting siblings!)

I’ll make observations, (“Wow, this is a big problem! Brother wants to use the red marker, and Sister wants to use it too!”) I’ll listen to both sides of the story, (“Okay, I’ll listen to Sister first, and then when she’s done telling me all she wants to say about it, I’ll listen to Brother.”) and then I’ll leave them to it. (“This is a big problem, but I’m confident the two of you can work it out in a way that’s fair to both of you.”)

To be honest, saying the bit about “…that’s fair to both of you” seems to be a reminder to my kids that they need to cooperate.

There are a few rules I follow:

1.) If one person personally owns something that the other person wants to use, the owner always gets the final answer. (“Sister, so you want to listen to one of your brother’s cd’s, but you, Brother, says she can’t use it. It’s your choice, Brother, because it’s yours, and if you both want to work something out, it’s between the two of you.” In this case, it seems as long as I acknowledge and support the ownership of the item, then the owner is much more willing to share. I never demand the kids share personally owned items.)

2.) Physically hurting each other is not allowed, and I would immediately step in and separate them. Fortunately, my kids never really had a problem with this, so it never really comes up. In fact, the last time I had to deal with this was several years ago.

3.) If a problem is so big that they need help, I help them brainstorm different ideas. But I do not make the final choice. This I think, teaches them more than anything else, how to solve their own problems. Brainstorming involves asking both of them for ideas to solve the problem, and I write down every single idea that’s spoken. Silly or ridiculous or feasible. Then it’s up to the kids to choose the best idea and to implement it. I’ve done this so often over the years that the kids brainstorm all by themselves now, and come up with their own solutions.

An example of this is bathtime. The kids still bathe together. (Neither one has asked for their own bath, which would immediately be honored.) However, both kids like to sit up front where the water’s deeper and warmer! It got to be too much of a hassle at bathtime determining which one got to sit up front, so I told the kids that we need a better way to make the determination.

The kids talked about it, and came up with a surprisingly fair solution. If I could print out a monthly calendar, Brother would fill in each day with alternating the first initial of their names to indicate which person got to sit up front during bath. Then Sister would mark off each day by putting a sticker on the calendar each evening.

I was impressed. This was a big problem, and they came up with a solution that’s fair to both of them.

They’ve been doing this for about four months, and it’s worked perfectly! They both follow the schedule because they both came up with it. All I have to do is print out a calendar at the beginning of each month, and they take care of the rest.

The reason this is on my mind is because they found another use for the calendar a couple of days ago. I just recently set up an account for my daughter on my computer. My son has had one for a few years. The rule is they can use the computer just on weekends. However, with two kids now wanting turns instead of just one, I began to wonder what would happen.

I left the room for about a half hour, and then came back in. My daughter announced they they talked about that very problem and what they could do. They’re going to use the bath calendar, and whoever’s name is on the calendar gets to use the computer first. It works out well since the weekend days on the calendar alternate as well.

They discovered the problem themselves (“How will we decide who gets to use the computer first?”) and they talked it over and came up with a plan! And this was all before I had even voiced anything at all about it!

The kids then told me that it was my five-year-old daughter who came up with the idea of using the bath calendar for computer time as well!

I’m so pleased that they’re solving problems entirely on their own!

What are some other ways to foster cooperation between siblings?

photo credit: Joyseph

An Episode in Positive Discipline

The other night, my husband and I were talking in the kitchen, and Elia (5) & JJ (3) were in the living room when we heard Elia shriek, scream & start crying. It is instantly followed by “SOR-RY!” from JJ. We look over and Elia is getting up from the floor, holding her neck & crying and JJ has hidden himself between the ottoman and the couch, with his face buried on the floor. Elia said that JJ kicked her.

John comforted Elia, and I picked up JJ and carried him into the front room, intending to “deal with him” (oh, doesn’t that sound nice?). There, he flopped to the floor crying, and I said, “You hurt her!” I had been intending to continue yelling & berating, BUT… realized that I had Flipped My Lid; my prefrontal brain (where the logic & reasoning skills are) was no longer communicating effectively with my middle brain (where emotions are regulated, as is the “fight or flight” reflex). So I walked across the foyer into the office and stood there…the computer was right in front of me so I checked Facebook. This took all of about 20 seconds before I felt calmer and walked back into the room where JJ was still crying (and he could still see me this whole time).

I sat on the couch not knowing if I felt calm enough to say anything yet. But when I did that, he crawled right up next to me and laid his head down on my lap. He stopped crying & sucked his thumb, and I put my arm down on his shoulder. Then I was sure we both were calm, and our conversation went like this (I was trying to “Listen for Understanding”):

Me: Why were you mad?

JJ: I don’t know.

Me: Were you mad?

JJ: No

Me: Were you frustrated?

JJ: No

Me: Were you sad?

JJ: Yes!

Me: You were feeling sad about something?

JJ: Yes because Elia was making scary faces and I didn’t like that and I told her to stop and she didn’t!

Me: Ohhhh…..you were sad that she was ignoring you. You didn’t like the scary faces, and when you told her to stop and she didn’t stop, that hurt you; your feelings were hurt.

JJ: Yes

Me: Oh, OK. You know, Elia got hurt too. When you kicked her, that hurt her neck.

JJ: Mm-hm

Me: Right now she needs help feeling better. What could you do to help her feel better?

JJ: Give her a hug. But I don’t want to do that.

Me: OK. What else could you do?

JJ: I don’t know.

Me: I think you could either tell her that you’re sorry, or you could do something nice for her like color her a picture, or do something else she would like.

JJ: Yeah, I could color her a picture. Will you help me? (Just an aside here, coloring is something JJ rarely does. He never asks for me to get the crayons out, and even when crayons are out and Elia is coloring, he wanders away and does something else. He’s just not too interested.)

So I get out the crayons and paper, and help him get situated at the counter, and he decides to draw a fairy for Elia. He wanted to do it “right” so he kept asking how to do it…he drew a head, body, wings, and then colored it “pretty colors” like pink, yellow & orange. It was so sweet, because he was clearly thinking of her the whole time!

He gave it to Elia, and I was nervous that she would say something about how it didn’t really look like a fairy, but she didn’t. I asked her if that helped her feel better and she said, “Yes, a little bit.” I thanked JJ for helping Elia feel better and he went to sit down & watch basketball with John.

Well, then Elia sat right down at the counter and used the crayons to draw and color a picture of a tank for JJ! I think she realized that she was not so innocent in this whole situation; it was true that had JJ triggered the outburst, but she was the one who had been doing the “poking” all along. She gave him the picture, and he was surprised and said that he felt better too!

I couldn’t have been more proud of my kids, or pleased with the effectiveness of Positive Discipline. Throughout the ordeal, I had used 3 PD techniques: positive time-out (for myself), listening for understanding, and not forcing an apology. The whole encounter started out tense, but ended so sweetly! We all ended up in the living room playing Blokus, and I felt very thankful for my Positive Discipline skills!

Kelly is an API Leader and a Certified Positive Discipline Instructor in Portland, Oregon. She blogs at Parenting From Scratch.

Meeting the Needs of Multiple Children

When I was expecting my first child I worried about a lot of things. What kind of mother would I be? What would childbirth be like? Would breastfeeding work?

When I was expecting my second child, most of those questions had been answered. My children are 3 1/2 years apart, so by the time I was pregnant again I had some experience. I had honed a parenting philosophy and spent my time in the trenches. I still worried, of course, but I worried about different things.

This time my worries were about how I would meet the needs of a my preschool-aged daughter Hannah, my newborn and – dare I dream? – myself. Sometimes, when I was big and pregnant and my daughter wouldn’t sleep I panicked. How would I handle this with two little ones? I feared I would never sleep again.

My daughter Hannah meets her newborn baby brother Jacob

The good news is that second babies are almost always easier. At least it was that way for me. When baby Jacob arrived I had more perspective, and more experience in infant care. I didn’t sweat the newborn fussiness as much because I knew it would pass. After successfully breastfeeding one child I was able to avoid many of the struggles I’d encountered on my first go-around. I think many second-time parents share my experience.
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Practice Positive Discipline & Strive for Balance in Personal and Family Life

Following the Principles: Parts 7 & 8 in a series of 8

Baby Lazlo~ 1/6/10 ~ 11lbs~ 23"long ~ Born Safely at Home!

Now that we have finally welcomed our newest addition— an 11lb son named Lazlo who was born safely at our home — I can take the time to sit down and write again. The swelling and the restlessness of late pregnancy made computer time just one more form of torture in a sea of physical discomforts. Fortunately, those discomforts are behind me now (although I vow to never, ever forget the challenges of the third trimester, just in case I am ever stricken with Baby Fever again years from now) and my recovery has been a joyous time of healing, snuggling, nursing and marveling. Well…for the most part.

Our first tandem nursing session a few minutes after Lazlo's birth.

There, of course, is my sweet little 22-month-old T-Bird to deal with. While she is thrilled that there is breastmilk on the menu again, she is not as enthusiastic about her new little brother trying to enjoy that milk–with or without her. Nursing them together is a terrific way to get a worry-free 20-minute power-nap, but can also backfire and result in T-Bird’s numerous attempts to unlatch the baby, to poke him the eye, to cover his face with a blanket, to elbow him… fun times. So then, I will go with the other extreme and nurse T-Bird first, or nurse her in another room, or nurse her after I get Lazlo to sleep. She then proceeds to spend that time constantly unlatching and relatching asking “Where’s Lazlo? Baby wants nursie?” while pulling, scratching and patting the unoccupied breast…more fun times. Not to mention the all-new behaviors when we are not nursing—throwing, hitting, screeching, drawing on walls, stomping food into the carpets.
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How Do Your Kids Play?

Some of my favorite memories growing up were pretending and playing with my sisters and brother. Sometimes, we were inside playing with dolls, toy horses, or little ceramic animals – with each, playing out their family lives and school days. Sometimes, we were outside building forts in the hay barn or pretending we were part of a tribe of 19th Century Native Americans down in the pasture by the creek.

I don’t have a lot of memories of playing with either of my parents when I was younger. My mom liked to have tickle fights on occasion, and my dad would let us pretend he was a horse sometimes, but for the most part, their part in our play was to gave us the resources – and encourage the imagination – to allow us to come up with our own play games.

For example, I remember getting a toy tractor, a grain wagon and some running shoes (which I later learnt from shoe hero, were expensive for a kid) for a birthday one year. My mom had built a red- and white-painted barn out of wood, brought in a cup of corn, and showed me how to load up the toy wagon with corn and pull it behind the tractor to the animals in the barn. I had a lot of fun with that. I also fondly remember a playhouse my dad built for us and how my mom showed me how to pretend to cook the leaves of mallow weeds. I would spend hours picking mallow and shredding the leaves to make a salad to be enjoyed by my sister who would pretend to eat it.
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Following the Principles: Provide Consistent and Loving Care

Part 6 of a series of 8:

As we enter the last few (days? weeks?) of our pregnancy with LF#5, I have to admit that one of my biggest, most gigantic fears about having two nurslings under the age of two is “how will I EVER find a sitter for two completely attached, nursing babies AND my high-needs 6 year old???” Not that we have a need to spend a ton of time away from our kids, but having the option for some time together every few months seems like a marriage saving idea!

In the past, with the wide age spacing of the older children, it was really never a big deal. Everyone was always happy to have the older, experienced “helper” tag along to provide invaluable care-giving advice: “Oh, that cry means she wants her blankie! or “By this time, Mom always puts her in the sling!” And even when Bug came along with her higher-needs personality, we had my parents nearby to help out when she was very tiny. After we moved further away, she had her own personal favorite nanny to provide loving care when she was a toddler. When T-Bird arrived and I had to return to work much sooner than I would have liked, we got creative and rearranged our work schedule to ensure that either Sir Hubby or I could always take care of her (and yes, that’s our picture on page 189 of Attached at the Heart!)

TBird and MommaBelly — Saying Goodbye to T-Bird before our class

Since moving away from my parents, our beloved nanny, and my flexible job, I have been a full-time homeschooler, stay-at-home-parent, and very tired pregnant lady! But being at home has also allowed me to forge many wonderful friendships in our new hometown. I adore that we share so many of the same parenting values with our new circle of friends. But, like me, they also have very full lives and busy families. We can get together and have playgroups, and homeschool groups, and ladies nights…but leaving T-Bird with someone other than Sir Hubby or Big Sister Ella has not been territory that I have delved into yet.
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When Attachment Parenting Speaks for Itself

When my first child was born I often felt like I was swimming against the current. My decisions to exclusively breastfeed, co-sleep, wear my baby and practice gentle discipline often set me apart from other parents. For the most part, that was fine with me. I had carefully considered my decisions, and was comfortable with them. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t experience the occasional twinge of self-doubt.

From time to time, and particularly when I was having ‘one of those days’, I wondered if I was making a horrible mistake. What if I was really just being over-indulgent? What if all of the things I did to foster a secure connection ended up creating a monster? I know that all parents face these sorts of questions from time to time. I am no different, I’ll admit it.

My friends and family were very understanding, and accepted my parenting decisions without question. Their support meant a lot to me. As my daughter grew, though, I began to sense an undercurrent of doubt from them as well. Breastfeeding a 2-year-old is still very unusual in our culture. Foregoing the naughty chair is, too. I might have been projecting my own concerns, but I think they sometimes wondered how all of my wacky ideas would turn out in the end.

My attachment-parented children

By the time my daughter became a preschooler things turned around. She grew old enough to speak for herself. She weaned from the breast. She decided she wanted to walk instead of being carried. She grew into an outgoing and independent little girl. In short, she did all of those things that attachment parenting advocates said that she would.

Today my daughter is 4 1/2 and my son is 14 months old. They are both still very young children, relatively speaking. But as they’ve gotten older they have both silenced my self-doubt, and the doubts of others. It’s one thing to read about attachment theory, it’s quite another to see it play out in front of your eyes. There is no greater endorsement of attachment parenting than watching attachment-parented kids are grow into great little people.

If I could go back and tell myself one thing in the early days of parenting, it would be that it gets easier. As your little ones grow and develop and mature, you reach a point where you don’t need to explain your parenting choices anymore. This is even more true when you have another baby. Issues that generated a lot of discussion with my first child didn’t even merit a thought with my second. These days, for the most part, my attachment parenting choices speak for themselves. I’m so glad that I stuck with it when I was unsure, and that I’ve made it this far.

Letting Go

My little sister got married this past weekend and she moved to Texas. My brother got dumped by the girlfriend that he was going to ask to marry him. The ring is sitting on his desk. Our little community has been in emotional upheaval, to say the least.

Here are just a few of the emotions that have been flying around: joy, excitement, nerves, jealousy, sadness anger, fear and pain.

This past week I have watched as my son has run through a gamut of emotions himself. Continue reading “Letting Go”