Be the Kind of Person...

Do you ever you feel like you're hitting your head against a brick wall trying to teach your kids to be kind to each other?  I feel like a record player skipping over and over again...and I can't even use that analogy with my children because they have no clue what record player is!  The fighting in our house is unbearable at times and 75% is coming from one source.  I love my oldest but she insists on teasing and fighting with the younger kids...maybe it's a king of the hill type thing trying to maintain her dominance, maybe I'm not giving her enough attention, maybe there are a million reasons.  This morning I had had enough of the screeching, picking on and comments under the breath.  So, I had a very candid conversation with her.  I told her I wouldn't want to be friends with someone that was always putting me down.  I asked her how it would feel if she were on the other end always being put down.  Of course no comment from the offender.  I don't know if I've ever heard this anywhere but the phrase

Be the kind of person you would want to be friends with

came out of my mouth.  She looked at me and told me she didn't understand.  I repeated it 5 times so she could remember and told her when she got out of school we would sit down and discuss it.  She kept insisting she didn't know what it meant.  I told her you need to think about it during the day, heck, ask your friends if you need help but you need to tell me what the phrase means.  I told her if she didn't want to talk face to face she would then sit down and write an essay about explaining what the phrase meant before she did anything else when she got home.  I'm a mean mom, huh?  

I always wonder if anything is going to stick in their brains.  I guess repetition is the best teacher but I guess I won't know if things will actually stick until I see what kind of adults they become. Ugh, that's a long time to wait. 

Moments of Tenderness Digital Kit, Indigo Designs