Don't study the picture too close, as it is not the "official" family photo. The timer on my camera didn't work, so PaulaShawn, I need a copy of yours the minute you get home! I think that's your shadow in the grass, but that's not good enough. We need to see your not-ugly face. (You worried that would be on the blog, so there it is. Now you can relax, as you know I will now let it go and never mention it again. Ha!)
Apparently, I don't laugh enough because my cheek muscles were burning by Friday night. (No pain no gain!) I ate so much I thought I would pop. (You read that wrong. It's POP, as in explode.) My kids played so hard they were limping by Sunday. (Good thing this isn't the week for my Protective Services visit, or they'd be confiscating the children.) All in all, the family reunion gave me hope. Why?
Because as grown ups, my siblings and I actually like each other.
I'm the youngest of six. Let me say it again: YOUNGEST. Neiner neiner neiner. Yes, I'm immature. (Hello, didn't I just say I'm the youngest?) Since my oldest sister and two brothers were teens when I was born, I don't have a lot of memories of them before they got married and started their own families. But from stories I've heard, there is the smallest possibility that all the siblings didn't always get along. And from my faulty memory of growing up with PaulaShawn, my un-twin, we might have fought just a bit too. (Hopefully we will have a post on that later, won't we PaulaShawn?) Janice was right in the middle and I don't think she ever fought with anyone. We'll call her Sister Nice. (She doesn't wear a nun's habit, although she would look just as good in one as she looked in her ABBA costume.)
Anyway, back to my point: just a wild guess here, but I think that we kids drove our parents batty from time to time. And now we can't get enough of each other; plus all the cousins are kindred spirits and get along like bananas and peanut butter. Or like chocolate chips and peanut butter. Or EVEN BETTER: they get along like bananas, peanut butter, and chocolate chips. I bet it makes my parents go "Yay! We succeeded! We raised a happy family!"
Happiness on a plate. Please tell me you eat this too?
Let me tell you, there are times when I worry about this: (Not about the weirdness of eating bananas with peanut butter and chocolate chips. Worrying about family.) times like when we are leaving for said family reunion and one child refuses to get in the car. Anytime you take a bunch a different personalities and make them live together, you are going to have some disagreements. The difference between a family and a college dorm is that an unhappy family member doesn't have the option to move to a different place next semester. They are stuck together. Forever. That means you have to figure out a way for all those different personalities to get along. (If you thought that sounded pessimistic, let me re-phrase. Families GET to be together forever and always because they LOVE each other!!! Better? )
With my kids, we have five very different personality types:
1. Mr. Goes-with-the-flow
2. Mr. Goes-against-the-grain
3. Mr. Not-large-but-always-in-charge
4. Mr. Let-me-go-outside-and-no-one-gets-hurt
5. Mrs. Tough-as-nails-but-still-a-girly-girl
In case you couldn't figure it out, some of those personalities don't work well together. Add in a busy schedule and a mom who spends half her time in imaginary land and some days, you have a family that feels like it might self destruct. So how do I keep it together amidst the chaos?
I don't. I just fake it. That's one of my favorite words of wisdom. "Fake It 'Til You Make It." I cannot offer any advice on good parenting. But I can tell you what doesn't work:
1. Don't threaten to take away something you can't really take away. You can't say, "You be quiet or I'm going to come over there and remove your voice box." Nor can you threaten to take away your children's future happiness by saying something like, "If you don't shape up I'm going to take your college fund and travel across Europe."
2. Don't curse them and their posterity by saying, "I hope you have twelve kids just like you." Not only can you not control how many children they will have, you must also remember at some point they will ask grandma to babysit. Do you really want to babysit twelve miserable children? No.
3. Don't say things like, "We never should have bought you off those traveling Gypsies." It will hurt the Gypsies' feelings and then you won't be invited to one of their outlandish weddings.
4. When children are fighting with each other, don't tape them together on the time-out chair. I've heard of people doing this. I've even heard of people taping them together for an entire day so they are forced to do everything together. I tried it once (I was at my whit's end. And I used packaging tape, not duct tape, OK?) but the kids thought it was cool and wanted more tape, all over their bodies. In fact, child #4 still requests that I do it to him. "Remember that time you taped us together?" I really don't like how that one sounds. (My Protective Services officer doesn't like that one either. You know I'm totally kidding about CPS, right?)
Note: that was not taken at my home nor is it my child.
5. Don't send the kids outside with a box of matches and tell them, "Whatever you do, don't start the forest on fire." (That one is not based on experience. It's just based on common sense.)
So here's the burning question: how do you get all those different personalities to be happy at least most of the time and how do you help them learn to be friends? This is me asking for advice. What works in your family? How did/do your parents keep you from fighting? What do you do with your own kids? Help me or I might not survive the summer!
15 comments:
Honestly, my siblings and I were TERRIBLE. We fought so bad that we chased off babysitter after babysitter. Now that we're older, I get along well with both of my siblings but the younger two still fight really bad. When we would fight, my dad use to make use sit there and hold hands, which we hated. And I've heard of it working, but for us, it never did. We were still mad at each other when we got up. And I don't have my own kids to practice on so.... I don't have a lot of ideas! Sorry!
My best piece of advice is one that I picked up from a friend of mine just last month, and it's been very hope-inducing. I love it when I remember to do it: "If you have time to fight/tease, then you have time to clean." That's our new rule for this summer! There's no end to possible "extra chores", and they know that, so when they get in that mode, THEY GET TO DO AN EXTRA CHORE. They know the rule because we presented it to them during Family Home Evening, as part of our new summer plan (in other words, we chose a more effective time to present it than in the middle of one of their fights), so now when I try to enforce it, they know I'm not kidding, and they just think "aw, man, I forgot!" and then they get to work : ). Yay! Vacuum the stairs, sweep the kitchen, pick up 30 pieces of clutter, etc.
My siblings and I did a fair amount of teasing and fighting, and I think what my parents did was just send us to our rooms. I think we spent a lot of time in our rooms. Now, we couldn't be closer. My siblings are my favorite friends (and their spouses, too). My favorite thing was going camping with my two brothers and their families every summer. I hope we can do that again soon. You're making me miss my family...
Good luck with the teasing time = chore time rule, I hope it works for you!
With 8 kids at home, there were never a shortage of fights going on. My brother and I were only 13 months apart and hated everything about each other until we hit HS. Now I get along with him better than anyone. I dont have any tips for you...but I like JazznJenna's chore time idea. Ive also heard letting the kids sit down and talk it out teaches conflict resolution and sounds like a good idea in theory but Ive never actually tried it, having only one at the moment!
And I LOVE the Rowley Reunion. I am so amazed at how well everyone gets along and really like each other. My family's reunions are always filled with drama. Haha.
I love that family. As the oldest of 7 children, we had our bicker moments in childhood as well as our "drag you across the floor by your 2nd toe even though you are 18 years old" moments. Now, we just love to get together. As a mother, I pretty much have 2 "only" children as they are over 7 years apart. The best way to build a happy family, do things together. You can't just do entertaining things either. Do hard things together, support each other, and respect differences.
In our household we to do the time to fight, time to clean rule. It is a blessing in our home. There are those moments when the fight requires more than a cleaning. It is when we resort to love letters...
Yep, they have to write 10 things they love about their sibling. I have found that it tends to bring out the humor in the situation. We end with giggles! Yes I do proof them before they are given to the sibling. "I love that you are a mean, rotten brother." doesn't work for me.
We do the additional chore thing too. It seems to work. I also tell them if they can't play nice with each other they can't play with friends. It usually works pretty good for my social butterfly child but not so good for my I'd rather be reading child. It does seem to help if we are all spending time together. Friday night movies nights are our favorite and I think its the time everyone gets along best.
One of the ladies I work with in church has a tile in her house that says " As far as anyone else knows... we are a perfectly normal, happy family" So... fake it till you make it is all you can do sometimes :)
Okay, well I usually don't have reprecussions because I've learned how to work the system; If the door's closed, they can't see if the room's a mess. If there's no one home, no one can catch you eating outside the kitchen. If you did what they ask then hide out, they can't randomly pick you for things like taking out the trash or folding laundry. You know. (Don't tell my mom or I'll never trust you guys again!) But my brothers have NOT figured out the system so they get grounded from electronics a lot. However, they can do chores to make heir sentence shorter. And if you're just plain cranky because you didn't go to sleep at an appropriate hour, you can get reprecussions as well. I'm trying to be a good child by doing all my jobs really well so karma doesn't get me but I was a pretty rotten youngster so it might not work. We'll see. :) Oh and I got my prize yesterday in the mail so thank you Lori!
Nicole: You guys turned out so well! Again, you give me hope! I like how you said "practice" on your own kids. That's all parenting is--practice for grandparenting. I hope I do it right the second time around.
JazznJenna: You always have the best ideas. I'm doing it! (Oh how my kids love me.)
Rowley's: I LOVE that you love the Rowley Reunions! The talk it out idea is a good one: but what about just letting them smack it out? (And then kiss and make up of course.)
Lott: I have missed you! Where have you been all year? :) Good advice. Sometimes I think the answer to a happy family is sending them all over to friends houses to play!
Edgertons: Great idea about the love notes. You are one smart momma to proof read. If they can't think of something nice, do they just write "I do not hate my brother" 100 times?
Anne: you've got to hit them where it hurts. Have you ever taken away reading privileges? That one just never seems right to me. (No, you can't let your brain grow!) I need that tile!
Devree: You whippersnapper you! Do you give your brothers tips on how to work the system, or do you like to watch them suffer? :)
I love my family. All 100's of them.(or so it seems) I love Rowley Reunions for the simple reasons...we all get along, and want to, and my kids get to see cousins they havn't seen in 2 years. My husband and I were talking on the way home about how unique and special it is that the whole family does get along, that we can get together and have so much fun. Not many families can say they have such awsomness in thier genes.
Growing up, I remember TONS of arguing, teasing and down out cat fights. I honestly think that growing up in a big family teaches you a bit more about unconditional love.
My kids have been cooped up in thier room because of illness in our area and have done pritty well together, but they deffentatly have had thier moments of contrast, like yestorday morning they wanted to kill one another. The only thing I could think of was to have them sit down with me and read the BOM. They are slow readers and only read twenty verses between the two of them, but as a family we got a chapter in. And when all was said and done, they had forgotten about their squabble.
I can't believe you hung Jaynie to the wall with duct tape when I entrusted her to your care! I am extrememly offended by this. I need some time to know how to handle this situation...
Bakerfam:Yes, our family is unique and special--but in a good way! I can't believe you and your siblings fought. I never witnessed that!
PaulaShawn: um... Jaynie never had blonde hair and blue eyes. Nice try. And you have never left her in my care.(You are a smart lady! A much older smart lady.)
We started the "bad behavior=work" rule around here right after school got out. It's great, I've got clean windows, dusted baseboards and all sorts of other little clean spots!
I remember sitting in the bathroom for timeouts as a child. Nothing to play with in there, right? Wrong, tried that here a time or two but quickly gave that up since "B" always found something to dump or dip.
bigskyboys: I don't think your house needs extra cleaning. How about you send then to my house to clean next time they get in trouble: THAT would be a serious punishment. And I'm guessing the dipping "B" did wasn't in the sink or the tub, right? Ew.
I remember reading a quote from some famous person that went something like this: "As parents, we just do the best we can, and then hope that we have enough money to pay for our kid's therapy." I have no parenting expertise to offer, but there seems to be something to be learned from everyone's comments. Most people mentioned fighting with siblings when they were younger, but getting along great now that they are older. Maybe we shouldn't sweat the small stuff, even though it drives us nuts. Maybe that's just part of learning how to get along with and live with others. Although, duct taping children to the wall does seem appealing!
Janice: thanks for putting it in perspective. I guess as long as there's no sharp metal objects involved, it doesn't matter if the kids fight. :) I'm more tempted to duct tape mouthes shut sometimes.
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