Resolving the Conflicts Among Your Kids

Everybody dreams of a serene family. When we enter a married life, we have a lot of anticipations which are mostly driven by our dreams. There is a vast difference between planning and dreaming. A dream is in our thoughts and when we make a strategy to fulfill those dreams, it becomes planning. Same goes with parenthood. Parents can plan many things but the execution of the plan depends upon the prevailing situation. Therefore it is wise for parents not to dream of the future but to plan it, before arrival of the first child. Planning is necessary for the future of the child.
However, lots of things happen when you have kids. Most of your planning goes off in the air and all your wisdom fails when you hit the reality of having kids. Imagine this common situation where, while you are preparing your dinner, the elder one comes with a difficulty in solving a math problem. At the same time the phone rings and the younger one starts crying because he/she is hungry. At this points the elder one starts an argument on who needs your attention first and both start shouting at the top of their voice. Now, what will you choose to do? This is a tricky situation where all incidences needed priority.

Is it possible for kids to manage just one night without making chaos in the house? A pediatrician Brian Orr wrote in the January 2009 issue of Washington Family Magazine that all parents want peaceful home. It is not possible to expect home without quarrels among children. It is also very true that kids always sense what type of behavioral pattern will make their parents happy and they are happy to oblige them in the same way.

It is a well proven fact that children always follow their elders. If the adult at home pick up fights or arguments at every point, they observe it and develop the same tendency in their habits. As a parent, our attention is always targeted on our kids. It becomes the soul motive of the lives of most of the parents to groom their children in best of the ways. In many cases I have observed that how to raise the children in the right way becomes one of the major conflicts between the two parents. The funny part here is that the parents start fighting with each other on this issue like immature kids.

Most of the families have two or more kids. In such families' conflicts among the kids is a common occurrence. The typical situation that arises due to these conflicts is that each child tries to pull the parents on their sides. Each of them tries to prove how he/she is right. Dr. Orr has said that siblings are always competitive and such a behavior is absolutely normal to a limit. The thing that has to be taken care by the parents is to teach their children to solve the differences, what so ever, within themselves. Running to parents for resolving every small conflict make them dependent and incapable of taking decisions on their own.

Here are a few tips to teach your kids how to resolve their conflicts successfully:
Do not try to be rule enforcers for your kids. Parents teach their children nothing when they act as an enforcer. By laying series of does and don't and strict laws to reinforce those rules make parents very unapproachable to kids. Conflicts and battles are bound to be there among children. Nobody can prevent conflicts and it is not healthy to be over preventive about it. Let them argue and fight for a while and settle the matter themselves.

There should be disciplinary rules for battles and conflicts with the help of children to be laid in the home. The rules should not permit any hyper activities as hitting, biting throwing objects at people. Prepare a chart of rules to paste on fridge, near mirror, in study and bedroom. This might sound a bit contradictory to my previous point. But what is different here is the degree of conflict. Some rules are definitely needed to define a line of control beyond which the kids of the family are not allowed to go.

You should not be a mediator unless somebody breaks a rule. It might be very difficult for the parents not to get involved with fighting or shouting kids but remember your intervention will arouse expectation among your children as to whose side you will take. This will develop a habit in your kids to come to you for every small argument that they pick up. This is not good for them as well as you.

Parents should not be biased. Dr. Orr states that parents always take the side of a younger child. This develops tendency of taking advantage and raise fights with siblings. It is important to be a fair judge to all your kids. If you have been approached for the resolution of a fight or an argument, you have to listen to all the parties patiently. Give everybody a fair chance to present their side.

Parents should take action on breaking the rules after finding out the cause of fighting. Take out the route cause of the fighting. Remove the object of fighting without allowing anybody to win.

Parents have to punish the physical misbehavior of the child which they have witnessed. Any kind of physical violence should not be allowed in the family. Do not ignore it because if you ignore this once, the child may get encouraged to repeat this action again. Never hit a child physically but try to hit your words in his/her mind.
Good parenting is a challenge. It will be always advisable to read books on parenting, take counseling before having child. There is no harm in taking advice from your elders. But at the end of the day it is your wisdom, patience and affection for your children is the force that guides you towards the ways to bring up your children in a nice and healthy manner.