Tag Archives: problem solving

When Your Kids Fight: Entering The Triangle Zone

Nothing is more time consuming, frustrating, worrisome, and annoying than your children’s sibling rivalry. In an nano second, you fear they will never have any meaningful relationships of any kind. You don’t know what to do to change it, you yell at their behavior and maybe send one or both to their rooms. And it starts all over again. The drain on a parent’s psyche is palpable.

So let’s go through the process and make some changes that will not only get you out of the fray, but will give your children the most important life-long skills they can have.

What happens? You hear the inevitable coming from the other room. You immediately fall into step:

1) You think, When will this ever end, I can’t stand this fighting, Why can’t things ever be peaceful, and you assume, They’re going to grow up hating each other, Why can’t I teach them to get along? I don’t know how to handle this. I have to do stop it.

2) Then you go in to intervene fearing bloodshed or at least escalation Read more…

In Time of Tragedy, Look to Yourself First

Another tragedy has hit the airwaves and the school hallways. Again the question is raised, “What do I tell my kids?” I addressed this question the best I could—who can ever answer this well?—in my blog, “Look for the Helpers” after Sandy Hook.

This time I want to look at a different angle—one that may hit home a bit more.

When a crisis happens, we naturally express and project our feelings, make assumptions about our children’s experience, and react or respond accordingly. The first question to consider is, “How do you feel in the wake of the Boston marathon bombings?”

Most parents want their children to grow up able to trust most people and trust the world they are growing into—with discernment and good judgment. It seems to be getting harder and harder to trust our world, so how do we teach our children to trust—or should we?

We want our children to reach their potential, to get the most out of their lives, to experience all they can for their fulfillment and satisfaction. We want them to have open Read more…

Problem Solving 101

My husband and I were taking a walk with our 21 month old grandson. For a short distance we needed to walk in the road. I said,

“Hold my hand Sam. You have to hold my hand in the road.”

At first he did and then he had a different idea and pulled his hand away. I said,

“Sam you have to hold my hand.”

He did not want to comply. So I picked him up as he was working hard to wriggle away from me and said,

“Sam you have to hold a hand in the road. You can hold Poppy’s hand or my hand, which do you choose?”

He stopped wriggling. I could see him thinking. He then reached for Poppy and happily took his hand. Then he reached up for mine. For the rest of our walk he wanted to hold both our hands.

This is problem solving. Quite simple when you understand the principle. But impossible when you are stuck in the old reward and punishment mindset.

It worked because Sam wasn’t being forced to do Read more…