Sunday, March 5, 2017

bickering bickerers

Let me just put this out there to start with: no matter what I say in this blog, I love my children with my whole heart and love being their mom. I promise.

That being said, I don't always like my children nor do I always like being their mom! And I KNOW I'm not alone in feeling that way...

The current situation that has lead to the challenge of my sanity (this loss of sanity happens weekly, at the least!) is that my children are being the bickeringest bickerers that ever lived!  They cannot shut their mouths to each other. They are in a constant state of one or the other with their mouths open and the most unkind and/or irritating things are flying out of them! 

Oh. My. Stars. And Moons! Shut up!! Just shut up already!! I am ready to lock them each in their own rooms for a month with the hopes that maybe, just maybe they will start to miss each other enough to STOP BICKERING AT EACH OTHER FOR ONE ITTY-BITTY SECOND!!

(I'm slightly over this whole thing, can you tell?!)

So I spent some time on Pinterest, which is truly a place of sanity for me. It's like the world got together and solved all my problems for me with pretty pictures and ideas and things that make me smile. I searched for ideas on how to teach my kids to get along better and there were so many creative and awesome ideas! My favorite has always been the get along shirt: 
I mean seriously, how great is this? Put your stinkers together in this shirt until they figure out how to get along!

But I decided to go a different route. I came across a list of things for siblings to demonstrate love to each other. In my ideal world, this is what I want my kids to do! If they can't figure out how to love each other, are they prepared to go out into the world and love anyone else? (I talked with my boy about God's two greatest commands this past week and you should have seen his shock when I told him that yes, even his sister is his neighbor and he has to love her too. 😳)

So the idea is that when the kids are bickering, they have to pull a slip of paper out of a jar that has a way to demonstrate love to one another. Here are just a few ideas I came across (thank you,  kidspot.com):
- give each other a compliment
- make each other's bed
- draw something positive about your sibling
- read a storybook together, each person taking a turn on each page
- write a poem for the other person
- turn on music and dance for 5 minutes
- play Simon Says for 6 minutes, each person being Simon for 3 minutes
- make each other an "I'm sorry" card
- draw something together
- play Madlibs together
- create a secret handshake together
- give each other a big hug
- pick up each other's toys
- do a chore together (clean bathroom sinks, sweep the kitchen floor, get the mail...)
- tell each other a secret
- do 10 jumping jacks, 10 push ups, and 10 sit ups together
- ask your sibling to tell you one thing they would like you to do differently.

I have a feeling with the amount of bickering that has been going on lately, we are going to blow through this list preeeettttyyyy quickly. So give me some of your ideas! Share them in the comments and help stop the sibling bickering happening in the Cragin house!!! 
Please!!

KC


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