Growing up my dad always had some trick up his sleeve for teaching us a lesson. He always had a loving lecture to go with whatever we've done too. It came to the point that my sister, AA, and I started numbering the lectures and by number we knew which one was coming! One of my dad's favorite things was to put my sister, AA, and I in the bathroom when we couldn't get along. We'd have to stay in there until we could get along - then we could come out. Later down the road we learned that he didn't put us in there because he wanted us to be great friends when we emerged but rather that he knew we'd have to work together to get out. Even if it was "let's pretend we like each other so we can get out of here" we had to come to an agreement.
Yesterday K and N were at each other like no body's business. They do this all the time. They are so much alike that are always in disagreement about something. You'd think the 5 years between them would prevent these petty arguments - but NO! Sure they have their good days where they are the best of friends but then there are the bad days when every tiny thing is a disaster. Yesterday was a bad day! I had had it! I did the only thing I could think of - send them to the bathroom with these instructions "you can't come out until you can be friends for the rest of the day. When you do come out, you need to apologize to me and to each other and then you need to hug, kiss and make up". They looked at me like I was crazy. Finally they headed off to the bathroom. They argued at first saying "this is your fault" and such. Then the noise died down. After about 30 minutes, N came to see me - wanting to know when he could eat dinner (which was already on the table). I told him that neither he nor K would be eating until they could apologize and be friends for the rest of the day - so back to the bathroom he went. About 10 minutes later they came out together, apologized and reluctantly gave each other a hug. There wasn't another argument from those two for the rest of the night. Ah - sweet relief!
So, maybe Dad had a nugget or two of wisdom that I didn't see before! Thanks Dad!!
3 comments:
Love your Dad. And yep, those parents do have some wisdom and it's not so bad when we learn that some of the parental tactics they used really do work. HMMM! I'll have to keep this little bit of wisdom in my memory banks.
LOL that is awesome!!! Please tell me dad reads your blog.. he'll get a giggle out of this one.
Believe it or not...it works on adults also. I used something very similar twice at work on a couple of teammates and they worked it out. It's amazing!
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