Apologies and Appreciations

The kids have been so crabby with each other these past few weeks (months?). I find myself saying time and again, “remember that you love each other!” Lex will bug and poke and annoy and Eve will scream and shriek. He calls her weird and she screams that she hates him. She tells her friends that she has a super annoying brother and he “accidentally” bumps into her as he passes by. All normal sibling stuff, I think, but totally annoying to everyone! Alan and I do our best to ignore, until we can’t any more, then we yell. No fun for anyone.

Last week I ended up yelling and sending them to separate rooms. While they were there, now pissed at me instead of each other, I fumed in the other room, trying to figure out what to do. I consider going back to making them write lines, but I couldn’t decide what they should write. Then I came up with the idea of making them write apologies. I brought each of them a piece of paper and a pencil and told them they could come out after they wrote a sincere apology to the other one. Eve took to it easily and wrote Lex a very sweet note, complete with pictures. Lex, on the other hand, needed much more time. His first attempt was vague and mostly blamed her for the problem, so I made him try again. His second attempt was much better. Once they were both done I had them exchange, read each other’s notes, and then, if they accepted the apology, write “I accept your apology” on the other person’s paper. I loved watching them read the other person’s note. They both smiled a little. When Eve wrote her acceptance she spelled apology wrong and that made Lex smile sweetly even more. I think the idea totally worked!

A few days later they ended up in a brawl and I ended up screaming and sending them to their corners. When I walked into Lex’s room with a pencil and paper he said, “Oh, not this again!” But he did it much quicker and more easily the second time. Now, the challenge is for me to get to that point before I scream at them!

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I appreciate...

Another idea I had was to hang up a central place to write appreciations. We say them each week at family meeting, but we have been missing meetings lately (busy summer, so far!) and getting a bit lax about the whole thing. I thought that having a place to write appreciations throughout the week, and see appreciations that others have written to you, would help the kids (all of us, really) remember how much we love each other and maybe be a little nicer to one another. I hung this paper up yesterday and wrote one appreciation. The idea seems to be catching on. :)

Here’s to a calmer, happier summer vacation going forward.

One thought on “Apologies and Appreciations

  1. Pingback: Apology Penguin | Calm and Chaos: Life with kids

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