Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. So glad you could join us again this week. I've been having a few conversations with some parents as I've been doing some travelling in these last couple of weeks, doing some workshops and talks and such.
And one of the conversations in a workshop group turned to how to sort out sibling conflict, you know, when the kids are fighting, what do we do in those moments? Now, on one level, it's important to let kids sort this out for themselves. And we know that. On the other hand, we can't let it go on and on and escalate and just feel like it's going nowhere or it's not going anywhere good.
So what to do in situations when the kids are going at each other? Now, there's sort of three simple little steps here that I've used for years with my family and with my kids and many other parents. I've passed this on and many other parents have reported, you know, that's a really neat little tool to have in the toolkit. It's not the only one, you know, in dealing with sibling stuff, but it is a good one and you can reach for it often, I think.
So when you hear your kids starting to go at each other or you come in and they're really not in a good shape and they're arguing and such, one of the first things to do when you approach them is to ask them a simple question. The simple question is, you know, kids, do you need my help or are you sorting this out for yourselves? That asking a question immediately lifts them out of you giving a direction, you trying to intervene, you saying, cut it out, you know, and that's, hey, hey, hey, hey, stop, stop, stop, all that stuff. But asking them a question means they're a little bit, you know, you get their attention just that little bit more.
Um, it means that they'll look up, they'll break, often break out of the intensity of the backwards and forwards thing, you know, that they were doing and the, the escalating of their behavior. And that kind of question, it's genuine, you know, it really, it's not, it's not fake at all. It's a, it's a genuine question.
Now, when you, um, if they say, well, no, we can, we can work it out. Now it's saying, great, great. Okay.
So maybe just tell me what your plans are. How, how are you going to work it out? Is it another question? It's, it's still, you're, you're, you're asking them to, to problem solve. And they might say, I don't know.
And you say, okay, well, and if they do, if you get that, I don't know, my advice is to stay fairly close. They will. Okay.
Then, yeah, I get it. Sometimes it's hard to put into words. Well, I'm just going to be around, uh, until you, until you guys figure it out, but it sounds like you are.
Now, this is the, the, the, the key to it is to then, um, be a presence. Don't go, don't go far. Don't go far away because unless they can come up with a plan, it, there's a relatively good chance things will start on up again, but sometimes kids will come up with a plan and you can maybe even help them with a plan to say, well, okay, well, why don't we go and, and get some more scissors so that there's like two pair of scissors and why don't we, you know, we could get some more and, and you could help them, uh, basically enact their plan.
It's their plan and they've problem solved and you're just helping them carry out their plan. Other times when you ask them, you know, do you, do you need my help or are you working it out? A lot of kids will actually say, no, we need your help. This is, this is really dumb.
And then you say, okay, well, let's just see what we can do about this. And then you move in close and obviously then you can help. And that kind of way of problem solving gets a little bit, um, grooved in.
So when kids go at each other and you're, and you, you know, you, you, you, you're a presence. You just sort of walk into the room. They'll say, no, it's okay, dad.
It's okay. We're working it out. Say, well, it sounded pretty rowdy.
I know, but we can work it out or we need your help. Dad, you know, mom, we need your help. And they get kind of used to basically running the sort of just running it through and saying, do we need help? Do we can, do we need mom or dad? And over the years of doing this, what I've noticed is that more and more often kids will learn to reach out when they genuinely need help.
But you'll notice if you do this, uh, slowly, but surely increasing number of times when they'll say, let's just work this out. Can we just stop arguing? Let's work it out because you've basically built up that muscle. You've built up the muscle of them being able to problem solve together.
And the wonderful thing about that for me is that that's not just exclusively, you know, brother and sister or sister, sister, brother, brother. That's, uh, obviously that's a life skill that they can bring into any friendship, any marriage, partnership, close working relationship. That ability to problem solve is such a precious gift.
We can give our kids. Okay. Well, I sure hope that's helpful because you sure will be getting an opportunity to try it out.
Should this strike a chord for you? Okay. Bye bye for now.
