PEARL 17

Fighting

It never seems to fail. We can buy our sons enough toy trucks to start

their own freight line, but when push comes to shove, one specific truck
becomes the heart’s desire of both boys. They tug and shove and shriek.
They won’t back down no matter what. It’s a maddening phenomenon.
Normal parents who have normal kids have kids who fight. That’s one
of the things kids do. It’s part of growing up. Unfortunately, many of us
tell ourselves we’re not good parents if our children fight. However, if
that were the measure of good parenting, there wouldn’t be a single good
parent on the face of the earth.
The thing to remember about dealing with our kids’ fights is to butt out
of them. Expect them to handle their squabbles themselves. This may be
the toughest parenting principle to follow because kids desperately want
our intervention. In fact, our intervention makes it safe for them to fight.
They know we’ll step in before anyone gets hurt, so they have no qualms
about putting up their dukes.
Our involvement in these spats should involve making sure they occur
somewhere far away from us. As soon as the bickering starts to invade
our ears, our kids are out of our area with a simple “Hey, guys, take it
outside.”
Of course we must step in if life and limb are in danger. If a big kid
continually terrorizes a little kid — showing relentless anger toward him
or her — then we need to stop it. Most of the time, however, we must
remember that it takes two to tangle. Even the smallest and frailest of
kids has ways to get to big brother or sister. They will submit to hours of