Jim prefaced the discussion with "Remember back to when you were a kid living with your mom and dad. How did they resolve a fight?" After the kids stopped laughing, it was kind of nice to hear them say that they don't think we fight that often. We think that about ourselves, but it was reassuring to to hear it from the other people in our house.
We're participating in marriage enrichment program called Marriage Incubator. This week during our class time, we discussed 'rupture and repair.' Sometimes we fight. That's a rupture. Our attempts to make things better are the repair.
So we decided to talk to the kids about this at lunch the next day. What are some ways to work to repair a 'ruptured' relationship? They came up with this list:
1) Be nice to them
2) Say sorry
3) Give them something
4) Have dinner together
They decided that saying sorry was part of being nice to the person. But other examples of being nice were: to help them, give them complements or make them laugh.
The most amusing category (according to me) was "give them something." It was my favorite because their suggestions were: give them pie, bake them a cake, give them jewelry, ladies like chocolate and boys like sports cars. I think I would like to fight with them and see if i could get some pie, jewelery or chocolate out of the deal!
The topic of having dinner together led to a good conversation about discussing your problems and not using harsh words. Harsh words are definitely a struggle in our house and even more so is the issue of a harsh tone WITH your words. We talked about the fact that it's not just words that can hurt the other person but how you say those words.
What a great springboard into conversation with our kids. I hope we can use some of their insight next time we have a small rupture.
What a great idea, to discuss it like this. I usually am reactive, and not so much proactive.
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