Yet again, I was thankful this morning for remembering that when kids are arguing, the best solution is most likely to come from them.
Darwin (9), Forest (7) and I were reading a choose your own adventure book, and the plan we had was that they could take turns making the choice at each choice point. It got tricky pretty fast though because we started running into the same choices we had already seen, so the kid who had the "choice" at that choice point didn't really have a choice unless they wanted to read the same part we had read again. I tried to manage it by giving out extra choices when I thought it was fair.
Surprise, surprise... they weren't satisfied with my decisions.
"That's not fair!"
"That's cheating!"
Luckily, I remembered: Describe the problem, then invite the kids to help solve it. In this case, it sounded like this: "Guys, it looks like I'm not doing a very good job figuring out what's fair with these choices. What should we do so that you both feel good about the choices?"
As is typical when we express confidence in our kids' ability to look for a win-win solution, they thought carefully but quickly, and came up with an idea that worked for both of them.
D: "How about I do what you want for this one and then I go next time. And then after that you get the next turn?
F: "Okay. And then we'll do the same thing if it happens to me."
D: "Yeah."
F: "Okay."
Me: "Do you both feel good about this plan?"
D: "Yeah."
F: "Yes. Keep reading!"
Darwin (9), Forest (7) and I were reading a choose your own adventure book, and the plan we had was that they could take turns making the choice at each choice point. It got tricky pretty fast though because we started running into the same choices we had already seen, so the kid who had the "choice" at that choice point didn't really have a choice unless they wanted to read the same part we had read again. I tried to manage it by giving out extra choices when I thought it was fair.
Surprise, surprise... they weren't satisfied with my decisions.
"That's not fair!"
"That's cheating!"
Luckily, I remembered: Describe the problem, then invite the kids to help solve it. In this case, it sounded like this: "Guys, it looks like I'm not doing a very good job figuring out what's fair with these choices. What should we do so that you both feel good about the choices?"
As is typical when we express confidence in our kids' ability to look for a win-win solution, they thought carefully but quickly, and came up with an idea that worked for both of them.
D: "How about I do what you want for this one and then I go next time. And then after that you get the next turn?
F: "Okay. And then we'll do the same thing if it happens to me."
D: "Yeah."
F: "Okay."
Me: "Do you both feel good about this plan?"
D: "Yeah."
F: "Yes. Keep reading!"