Since the beginning of summer we have been exploring the topic of sibling rivalry and conflict resolution. By now your kids have some tools to utilize when they experience those inevitable times when they step on each other’s toes.
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Last week we talked about the Friendly Discussion approach to conflict resolution. It is, I believe, the approach we should be using most often in our families. A way of defusing anger and dealing with difficult behavior that “gives grace to those who hear”.
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And before we can teach our kids the tricky business of conflict resolution, we have to learn ourselves, don’t we?
I dare say most of us find conflict easier to avoid than to resolve.
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After several weeks talking about Sibling Rivalry, we’ve turned the discussion to how to handle conflict once it’s already reared its ugly head.
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Like many of you, I grew up in a home filled with good-hearted people who didn’t have a clue how to deal with conflict.
To both of my parents conflict was a naughty word, associated with immense personal pain that had never been faced or healed.
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It’s mid-summer now; routines have been abolished, boredom has set in. It’s too hot to play outside, you’re getting on each other’s nerves; the kids are squabbling.
Now what?
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Have you heard the seemingly tried and true advice given to parents of bickering brothers and sisters? It goes something like this: Don’t intervene! They have to learn how to work things out for themselves. Just let them.
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A few weeks ago I got an email from a woman, asking my advice about the constant conflict in her home between her two daughters. This woman had never had a sister herself, but she’d imagined how satisfying it would be to have a sister with whom she could share all the ups and downs of her life.
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Last week I wrote about… Peacemaking Skill #1: Apply Humility.
I wrote about humility first, even though this skill is listed last in this series of character qualities God urges us to apply in resolving conflict and living at peace with one another.
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Summer is almost here: sunshine, barbeques, swim parties, camping, farmer’s markets— and conflict between the kids.
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Just a couple of months ago our grandson, Duke, got baptized. He’d been talking about it for months, but his parents weren’t sure he was ready. At 7 years old, they knew he stood a possibility of not remembering.
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Do you know what to do when you get angry? Dealing with anger and teaching your kids to do the same is really, really important! James chapter one tells us why:
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My first child was born in 1980. The era of big hair, glitzy jewelry, slinky fashion— excess.
I’d been a follower of Jesus for about 6 years by that time John Marks was born. By then I had it down: I knew what was expected of me and I knew what I wasn’t supposed to do.
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One day the Holy Spirit told Philip to run up and join a man who was traveling along in his “chariot”, or carriage.
As he did, he heard the man reading from a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
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When a pediatrician assured me that two-year-old John Mark wouldn’t suffer any health effects if I allowed him to choose what and when he wanted to eat, I knew it was time to switch to a wiser doctor.
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I grew up in an era of socialized Christianity. If you were an American you were a Christian. I was a Christian because I wasn’t Buddhist or Muslim or Hindu or anything else.
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As Phil and I were studying and writing and preparing to teach our first Intentional conference, we asked God to give us a simple, memorable means of capturing the essence of the way the Father disciplines us, His children.
And thus The Box was born.
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It’s never too early to talk to your child about Jesus!
"And all the people would get up early in the morning to come to Him in the temple to listen to Him."
Luke 21:28
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