Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John-Payne. This is the second part of a series that I'm doing on sibling issues, sibling rivalry, sibling tensions, problematic sibling relationships. And in this second part, I wanted to address the question of how to actually start to build a base, a value base, so that when sibling issues do come up, you've got a place to go to that's really clear for everyone, that eases the tension and gives you a place to go to as a family, where there's a familiarity in what you're doing.
Now, this is, for me, this is all about perspectives. So much of sibling issues are when one sibling claims to be right, or that it's his or hers or theirs, and that the other brother or sister is fighting to actually have control over an object or a space or so on. And they're both or all of them, you know, there could be more than just two are in there really struggling for, for supremacy, really, and you get that feeling.
Now, one of the ways in which this can be eased is to back this on up, kind of reverse engineer it really know that sibling issues are going to come up. It's normal, right? However, if you can build a basis that it's in our family, someone having a different way of seeing it is normal, it's, it's just okay. It's okay to see something differently.
If someone sees something differently, or wants something different, wants it done in a different way, that actually in our family is okay. If someone sees something differently, it's not a lie. You know, we don't accuse each other of that.
It's just a different way of seeing it. It's a differing perspective. Like, really, can you imagine a world really on a larger scale, where we taught our kids that, that a differing perspective is not an opposing opinion that needs to be fought.
Imagine the world would be a pretty wonderful place, right? It'd be a much more respectful place, much less fighting, much less arguing. If someone sees something differently, then that's, they do, that's their reality. It doesn't mean that one, that one child's reality and way of seeing it needs to desperately be fought over and dominated and proven that he or she or they are right about it.
Now, if we can introduce this in all that we do in, in the house, you know, if, if just little things are going on and like we're going someplace and one child wants to go one way and see the horses in the field, if they're little children, they want to see the horsies and the other one doesn't. He's, he's, he does, he's tired of seeing those horsies. He's grumpy about it.
Well, there you go. But his, his wishes are not the only wishes. That's not the only way of seeing it.
And if, if right there is a, is a training up point and just turn to a child and say, I know you don't want to see those horsies today. You, I know you're feeling a little bit grumpy. Well, you don't really have to love.
We'll just drive on by and you can look out the window if you want to or not. But your sister wants to see them today. And that's, that's, that's just perfectly fine.
Or they're fighting over something about who is right and who is wrong or, and just to be able to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No kids, hang on. You know, tell me, tell me how you see it.
And by the way, if you, this is a tip, but it's an important one. If you ask a child to tell me the way you see it, it, it is really best to do that. If it's a fiery kind of conflict, if there's a bit of, there's a bit of force behind it, is to do that separately to say, okay, I'm going to hear your way of seeing it today first.
And, and then you turn to the other child and say, and I'll hear yours in just a moment. Cause do you remember last time I heard yours first? It's important that the kids sense fairness in that. But what I've found is it's also important actually to, um, to in, in, in a little more steamy and flame situations is to actually take the kids off and hear their stories.
One tells you their story, the other one tells you their story. And if you do this a lot, the kids won't worry about you believing one person's story over another and then bring them back together again and say, okay, here are the two stories. Here are the two perspectives.
Here are the two ways of seeing it. You know, saying way of seeing it is more for little kids. For older ones, teenagers, you can talk very plainly about perspectives and use that term, of course, but then bring them back together again and say, here are the two different ways of seeing it.
And no one is right and no one is wrong. It's just the way you see it. And I'm going to tell you the way you both see it now, and then we'll work on how to sort it out.
When you speak to children like that, when they're not desperately trying, number one, to prove that they're right. And number two, that, that they are trying to recruit you. You see, when, when, um, kids are fighting and they don't respect each other's perspectives and they want to win the argument, a lot of the energy, um, a lot of the, um, the, the sort of, um, forcefulness behind their arguing is that they're trying to, to recruit you as the adult, because really you're the most powerful thing in the room at that moment.
And they're trying to recruit you to their side and it can get desperate. And, and one will say, that's not true. Oh, ha ha.
That's, you're such a liar. They'll say, you're the liar. It's not true, mum.
What he said was, and you know, and off you go. We all know it. But if you, in your family, just over and over say, say, Hey, hey kids, um, you know, it's okay to see things differently.
And you know that I'm going to listen to you both, then they don't have to recruit you anymore. And you take out one of the major components of what kids are doing when they fight. They no longer have to win you over to their side.
And if you can, um, all through the day, just point out different ways of seeing things. It's, it's really, it's really interesting. You know, uh, I have a teenage daughter, she's 18.
And I was just, um, we went to see a movie together. Yeah, it was, which was really nice. And, uh, uh, she came out of the cinema, we were walking away.
And I said to her, wow, did you see that actress? She so reminded me of Wendy, you know, one of, one of her friends that so reminded me of her. She looked just like her. And my daughter said, Oh, I didn't see that at all.
That just really was not my perspective. Huh? What? And then she asked, you know, what, what reminded you? And so I said, Oh, it was a little bit the way she looked, but mainly her way of speaking. And we had a great conversation coming home in the car.
But that conversation really was based on years and years in our family of being interested in each other's perspectives. You know, what my 18 year old didn't say was, Oh, well, I don't know. No, no, she's nothing like Wendy.
That's weird. It's nothing like her. That wasn't the response.
The response was interest. Like, what did I see? How, why did I even think that? And, and it was a great conversation. Now I'm not a perfect dad, but, but the, but the, um, the seeds of that, um, have been scattered on the ground over and over and over through the years that are valuing each other's perspectives.
And again, just in closing now, it's going to be a different world. It's going to be a different family when you do that. But if enough parents do that, my secret hope is we start to change the world because there's no longer differing.
There's only differing perspectives. They're not these opposing opinions. And that's, I don't know, there's not many things we can do to change the world, but that might be one of them.
Okay. Bye-bye for now.
