Soapbox

So I’ve got this kid… and every time I come downstairs I find her in front of the TV again. Today I walked in and shooed her and her brother upstairs.
“What are you, a bunch of moles, down here in the dark watching TV? Go upstairs. Go outside. It’s summer, for crying out loud! Go do something fun!” They dutifuly turned off the TV, walked upstairs and immediately begin to fight .
“Stephen, stop that! I’m not playing that game!
“No Katie, you don’t understand. I have to have this piece for the thing I’m making…”
“Give that back to me! I had it first..”
“Mommm!”
And like all mothers who are working hard to try to instill a sense of justice and fairplay in her children, I lean in the general direction of the room the kids are in and, without looking up from my book, I bellow,
“If I have to come in there to sort this problem out, I’m not taking you to the park this afternoon!”

This is a totally empty threat, because if there is anything these kids clearly need today, it is to get out of the house. But the kids don’t know this.
“But Mom, she won’t…”
“YOU work it out, guys. I don’t want to hear about it.”

Is this to teach my children to resolve conflicts on their own, or to cater to my own laziness? Probably both. But it’s true that I discovered that if I go in and settle their squabbles and try to come to a fair resolution, I scarcely get out of the room before they’re yelling for me again.

One morning they were fighting furiously because Katie was trying to throw Stephen out of her room and he wanted to play with something that was in there. I settled it by shouting, “Alright, everybody to your own room! If you can’t play together, you’ll have to play by yourselves.!” Seemed sensible to me, but Katie burst into tears.
“Goodbye, Stephen! Oh Mommy, can’t I ever play with him again? When can he come back to my room?” This is the kid who was trying to slam her brother’s fingers in the door 10 seconds ago!
That’s how I found a new form of blackmail/leverage over them.
“If I hear any more fighting, you can’t play together!” often does the trick. And truthfully, left to themselves, they usually manage to work it out on their own. Usually not the way that I would have settled it, but the fight ends and I can go back to my book for a few minutes.
Just another reminder that sometimes the best mothering is sitting back and letting them handle it themselves.