As I was reading Chapter 11, I kept thinking, “This chapter should be required reading for parents prior to starting a family.”
Looking back, I far more often told my kids how they should resolve their differences than taught them how to do it themselves. The easier and quicker way for me was to hear each child out and then tell them what they needed to do to solve their differences. In addition, very often what I told them to do resulted from a judgment call of mine as to which child I considered had the better case. If I had more often taken the role of mediator and facilitated communication between the children who had a conflict, they would have learned a lot earlier how to solve their conflicts themselves, which would have taught them life skills and would have saved me a lot of time over the years!
Hello Lee,
ReplyDeleteThis makes absolute sense and you made a terrific connection with the reading- how wonderful! If more parents acted more in the role of a mediator than a lawyer or authoritative parent, more children would get along and understand how to solve conflicts later on. More states are implementing mediators into their justice system and as a result are helping the financial situation of those states. Divorce is one of the biggest reasons our state pays for public attorneys. Once a state connects mediators to a divorce the likelihood of it ever ending up in a courtroom is very slim. In the State of Massachusetts (I believe), they have done this and it has been successful.
I think that's really good advice. I have seen a situation recently with my sister's boyfriend and his sister where her parents got way too involved in their conflict that it ended up having a huge impact on their family life because his parents got involved rather than letting them figure out the problem for themselves, which should ALWAYS be the case when you're in you're 18 and 20 years old.
ReplyDeleteGreat perspective!
ReplyDeleteI can very easily picture the parent/chid scenario you write about. Although I have no kids of my own, I was once a child with younger siblings. We argued all the time, as siblings will, and often my parents would step in to break up the fight.
I can remember some days my dad acting more like a judge, hearing both sides of the story, then handing out the appropriate sentence to whomever was most guilty. My mother would often act more as a mediator, rather than a judge. Admittedly, this was often more time consuming and required a great deal more effort on everyones part, but I did feel that it helped us deal with conflicts better on our own.
-Ben
I agree that prospective parents could benefit from this information. However, as a parent, I know that there is no substitute for practice under fire. Even if we had studied mediation techniques prior to having children, the chaos of family life frequently does not allow us to stop and think about how to apply something we read in a book. And children are so indoctrinated into the competitive mindset through peer interaction, sports, and school activities that it can feel like an uphill battle to teach a different path. I believe for these techniques to be genuinely beneficial, hands on training similar to what our instructor discussed on her blog is necessary.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI thought your post had a lot of good insight. I think sometimes we would rather see conflicts resolved quicker even if it means being the one to solve others problems for them. I think it is a great idea to teach our children how to think and solve their own problems since they will be on their own someday and need to have the skill set to do this themselves. Being a mediator sounds like a job for the parents. I think mediating instead of coming up with the solution and telling the kids to implement it is a great way to help the children grow. I am sure there are many other parents out there that would agree that taking a course on how to be a mediator would be helpful if you plan to have more than one child.
Hi Lee,
ReplyDeleteI think you make a great point in that learning how to be an effective mediator would be very beneficial to successful parenting. Especially for parents that have multiple children who are frequently butting heads with one another. I am not yet a parent; however, I can imagine it must be very difficult to be put in the middle of your children’s battle and remain completely biased. Most often the resolution of a dispute results with one children walking away happy, while the other complains that the parent simply chose their sibling’s side on the matter. With having the proper tools on mediation, the parent can be more effective in helping their children find a solution that works well for everyone involved.
You bring up a really great point, if how much importance there is in parenting with mediation. I think thats just as the last comment says, it would be very hard when dealing with 2 children in a confrontation. I know personally about the fighting of two children, being that I lived in a house with two older sisters and them always bickering and arguing about clothes, accessories and things like that. My mom did a great job of playing the mediator role in those situations because she felt she had to do it in place of my father, being that he would never be able to chose between his daughters with favoritism from both ends. I felt that its very important in parenting because it allows you to show your children about what your doing, and also helping solve problems. Good Post!
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