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Training Instead of Micromanaging

 Talking to the therapist two days ago and he asked how the youngest three kids get along. I said that they get along great. Three seems like a good number. If one of them wants a break and time alone there are still two to play together. Or, three is a fun little group if they want to wreak havoc and do something wildly creative. Of course there are small squabbles but nothing lasts more than a few minutes. There are truly no issues I'm worried about in their relationship dynamic. 

The therapist was dumbfounded. Kept saying how rare this is. I hadn't really thought about it before. 

Now I've been pondering why we have so little squabbling (less fighting than our two boys did at certain stages of their lives) among them. First, I truly think they're all highly social and more interested in getting along than fighting. It works because they want it to work. We won the personality lottery there. 

Second, I do remember spending a lot of time when they were 2, 3, and 3 in training them how to manage conflict. Because the girls' first year here was hard. I remember distinctly training them in specific things to do and say when they were fighting over a toy. People talk about the terrible twos and three-nager years but that's because this is when parenting starts and most people have no idea how to explicitly instruct a child in correct behavior. They either over- or under-instruct; requiring too much or too little. The children are confused and the parents feel like failures. 

The other thing I did was choose to ignore some squabbling so they were forced to work it out for themselves. Or, as a consequence for not working it out on their own, they'd be separated. That taught them that I wasn't going to be a constant arbiter of all disputes. 

I think that's where we went wrong with our first two boys. Because they were 4 yrs apart I felt I had to be a buffer and translator between them. But since I was always there to manage the disputes...then I always had to be there to manage the disputes. They're okay now as teenagers but the middle years were pretty rough. 

Instruction in what to do and then intentionally leaving them to practice what I'd preached has paid off for the younger ones. I'm experiencing a summer with a 4, 5, and 5 yr old who certainly have their issues but getting along with each other isn't one of them. 

Not saying they'll always get along but right now it's pretty good.

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