Stop Asking Who Started It

"Who started it?" is the question I keep promising myself I won't ask, and on Wednesday I asked it anyway, about ten minutes after I'd walked in from recipe testing with a foil-covered plate of the day's attempt still in my hand.

Caleb had the Lego fire station spread over the dining table, the one from his birthday in February, and Lily wanted the ladder piece for a barn she was building on the living room floor. She took it. He said she'd bent it. She said ladders are supposed to bend and he said something about her horses that I won't repeat, and she swung her fist, full of little gray bricks, at his arm. Ben, who turns three at the end of the month, wandered through the middle of it carrying a tiny black fireman's helmet on his way to the dog's water bowl. Both of them answered me at once and both started the story somewhere different, Caleb at the ladder and Lily at Sunday. I taught third grade for five years and I still asked.

What do you do in the moment when siblings are fighting?

Look for blood first and then for broken things, and if someone is hurt or something is flying I step in right away with my voice kept low. The Church's Strengthening the Family instructor's guide, in its session on resolving conflict, quotes President Faust saying that any reproving should be done gently. It also cites a parent educator whose research found that children tend to cooperate when a parent stays calm, empathetic and direct even while the children are being outrageous.

Then comes one sentence, always the same one: "I'm not deciding who started it. You two need ten minutes." They go to separate rooms, close enough that I can hear if something goes wrong. They can read or draw or lie on the floor, and nothing has a screen. I try not to say the ten minutes like a punishment.

No ruling.

A ruling backfires whichever way it goes, because if I decide the younger one started it, the older one has won something I don't want him to win and she has a grievance with a date on it. If I tell the older one to be the bigger person, he has heard that sentence so often it makes him angrier than the fight did. Either way the next argument opens with "you always take his side."

The same guide says children sometimes argue to get a parent to take their side, which means a ruling is exactly what some fights are for.

H. Wallace Goddard wrote in Meridian Magazine in 2018 (not an official Church publication) that separating or punishing children interrupts a fight without solving the problem, and that lecturing "generally insults and demoralizes children." That's one author's view. I separate mine anyway, but he's right that separation by itself only pauses things.

When should you stay out of it?

Most of what goes on between an eleven-year-old and an eight-year-old isn't an emergency. It's the window seat, the bigger half of the brownie, who is breathing too loud. I stay where I am unless someone is hurt, something is breaking or one of them is winning by being bigger or louder, because a parent who jumps in every time teaches them that settling things is somebody else's job.

Staying out has a limit, though, and the guide warns that "the stronger child may abuse the weaker child emotionally and physically," and with three years between them that's no theory. So I don't send two kids outside to work it out alone.

When one of them does come to me, I ask what they'd like me to do. I wrote in "Don't Call the Other Mother First" about asking a child what she needs instead of handing her a speech, and it carries over to home. Usually what they want is for me to say they're right. I can't, and saying so plainly takes the air out of it faster than a speech would.

What about the toddler who grabs?

A two-year-old can't repair much, so I don't make the older two pay for what he does. When he grabs a piece I take it back calmly, hand it to its owner without commentary and put something else in his hand right then. He wants whatever the big kids are holding because they're holding it, and an empty hand sends him looking.

Toddlers also tend to grab hardest in the middle of a fight, since that's where the noise is, and I take that as a reason to separate the big two sooner. I don't take it as a reason to lecture the small one.

The older children get a real kind of protection from me, which is a high shelf, a door that closes and a table the toddler can't reach. I say plainly that this isn't a lesson in sharing. Their things are theirs, and he's the one who has to grow into that.

What happens after the ten minutes?

I wrote in August about the order I follow after a shove and I won't run through it again, since siblings differ in one way that matters, which is that they'll be at the same table in an hour, so the fix has to be settled before supper and not left to drift.

The guide mentions consequences agreed upon in advance. My own view, which is mine and not something the guide says, is that this beats anything I come up with on the spot, because on the spot I'm tired and the penalty only grows. When the fix is known before the fight, it's just the next step and nobody is being come down on.

Matthew 5 sends the person who remembers he has wronged someone to go first, which is a different order from the one siblings fight in.

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;

Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
— Matthew 5:23-24

The Dunfords, writing in the Ensign in October 1984, say "Forgiveness is our responsibility," and I take that seriously. I don't take it to mean the hurt child has to say "it's okay" on the spot. Forgiveness can be slow. What it can't be is held back as a weapon, so if the answer is "I'm still mad," the right reply is to let that stand and check again after supper.

The other direction needs watching too. The February 2019 Ensign piece "10 Tips for Teaching Repentance" says that if a child feels unworthy or hopeless even after repenting, shame may be the culprit. A child who has fixed the damage and keeps calling himself terrible doesn't need more enforcement. At that point I stop enforcing anything and sit with him.

What I still don't like about this

Ten minutes apart can land on the younger child as a sentence even when I mean it as a pause, and I haven't found words that fix that. The older child is nearly always handed the most repair, because bigger usually means more able, and the arithmetic feels unfair even when it's correct.

All of it also asks for a calm parent at the hour of the day when parents are least calm. The Family Proclamation says parents are to teach their children to love and serve one another, and I believe that.

I just wish it were faster.

Most of all I dislike the advice that says siblings fighting is character building and you can leave them to it. The guide's warning about the stronger child is the reason I don't buy it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should the separation last?

Ten minutes works for the ages I have, but I'd start the clock when a child is quiet and not when he walks into the room. For little ones I'd go shorter, maybe five. If a child is calm early, I let him out early.

What if one child always seems to start it?

Look at when the fights happen before you look at who. Fights tend to cluster around hunger and tiredness, and a child who always "starts" it is often the one who runs out of patience first. Then talk to that child alone, at a calm time, because nobody learns anything mid-fight.

What if they won't talk after the ten minutes?

Then it isn't over, and I add a few more minutes instead of forcing the conversation. The repair can wait until after supper, but I'd keep it on the same day so it doesn't turn into something they carry to bed.

What about fights in the car?

You can't separate rooms in a car, so I decide the seating before we leave and I pull over only for blood or flying objects. Everything else waits until we're parked and the ten minutes can start.

with love, Melissa