On Responses

One of the greatest lessons I have been learning this week, away from my
children is how to respond better to their sibling squabbling.


I can not react when I am away
I have no reason to change
All the good feelings I have in my moment, when the phone rings
Into my experience and there is one child complaining about the other child
invading their space somehow !

I see clearly how if I were in that room my emotions would attach themselves to
the feelings of my children and my responses would be more reactions to
that....and not responding to the source of the problem or the source of the
needs of my children

That's why they are behaving that way. There is something that needs to be worked out. It will keep occuring until I really help here.

And I am here as their teacher and mother- guide to help them in this moment

And find out how I can really help them.....because it usually is not by
punishing their sibling....its usually by empowering them to feel more
Confident or powerful to deal with their own situations.

Today it might be that they are ok while I am away, they need to take more control of their own personal space and walk away from conflicts that your siblings want to
create.

That conflict is also how your sibling is feeling.

Now some children are born with strong empathy for others...you must plant these
seeds all the time and you teach compasion.

I know, as a mother with so many children, it is hard to consider this type of thinking when you are driving the car home from a long trip and your children are fighting in the back of the car.

You want it to stop
So do they !

If you practice this type of thinking every time you RESPOND or REACT to your children, the times when you are in car and their is fighting in the back......it will come to you easier to insert a conversation between you and them that might actually last the whole rest of the ride home !