Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan - What to Do When Kids Fight

[Music] do [Music] good evening welcome to our class on parenting and uh before i start i would like to mention our sponsors today's class is ponz is sponsored ishmael rafael mitchell ben motel who passed away on the fifth of shabbat 12 years ago and his his daughters he has two daughters they dedicate this class to his memory um he understood the value of uh torah and he even while living in moldova he sent his two daughters to the united states to learn in yeshiva imagine that and they he and his wife were not able to join um them in the united states because they immigrated to canada however his daughters stay the united states they they grew up religious they married hashem have good families but they are thankful to their father for training them to be curious inquisitive which help them to explore judaism and find its truth so thanks to him his daughters are hashem now observant and are now raising their own families as well as eliezer ben tamara this class is sponsored um as well thank you to our sponsors if anybody wants to sponsor a class of emmett they should speak to rabbi um and he'll arrange it and we can put it on a flyer either rufus lima or zahud for shibukim or in memory of the loved one please take advantage of that while supporting uh torah education that ahmet provides um for the jewish people okay again thank you for our responses and now we begin our class today's class is um a very important one because it deals with uh with um something that that affects every family every family that has children doesn't matter what age from one year old until they leave the house you have this issue of children fighting and as i mentioned you can have a one-year-old year and a half two-year-old little children fighting with each other with their siblings as as well as with play dates you you have plenty of toys as soon as one child takes a toy the other child starts crying i want that toy also the somehow they resolve the conflict the the first child goes and gets another toy the second child follow follows along and says i want that toy and again they start fighting or this they fight oh he got more orange juice than me he got more soda than me he got a bigger piece of cake or a cookie and then me i want to sit in this place i want to sit in this chair and the this constant fighting this constant jealousy as they grow older not only they're just whining but they're actually now hitting each other and calling each other names a child of two is not so uh imaginative as to call another human being with a bad name but once they get four five years old now they learn another uh way to attack their sibling now they call names and now they know to hit to drag by hair and to poke with screwdrivers and uh they they are very inventive and the older they get the worse it gets they start throwing shoes at each other banging each other with their feet and their their their um even even their uh baseball bats whatever you can think of starts flying and being poked at them they tease each other so much so that sometimes even blood comes from one or both of them sometimes one or both of them are on the floor with bruises with cuts and hassel sometimes even with broken bones what do you do and worst of all sometimes it continues even into adult life and when they grow up even when they're adult they remember the painful memories how my brother hurt me how my sister used to make fun of me how i hate them and i cannot talk to them because because when we were younger they abused me or they didn't give me my favorite toy and we're gonna speak about when that happens exactly so it seems such a such an overwhelming problem this problem that pervades every family every age what do we do about it and of course our sages tell us as always they guide us and they say a parent should never treat one child better than the other differently may be okay but better in the eyes of children of the siblings not and uh the famous example where yaakov treated joseph with a little bit a little bit more attention yaakov gave joseph a coat and that code became the subject of jealousy and from then on the brothers could not look at joseph uh favorably and we can understand jakob yakov didn't do it because he loved yoshi because he saw that joseph is better no the only reason why yaakov did it was because of his love for his wife that passed away and the fact that joseph didn't have a mother imagine you have a poor boy whose mother passed away your beloved wife other children have a mother but he doesn't so out of love for your wife and out of compassion for him you tell him an extra good word or you give him an extra gift and that causes terrible terrible jealousy even in such a case our sages say you should not treat one child better than the other and imagine if everything is the same and parents still have a favorite and they speak nicer and they treat nicer one child over the other shalom whether because one is a boy another is a girl and they happen to like one over the other that for sure shouldn't be done or because it so happened that one child is more talented than the other the or one child has lighter skin than the other or is more more beautiful than the other has a better name that is because in memory of his grandfather and the other child is memory of his wife for wife's grandfather and because of that i treat better the child that's named after my grandfather hashem such things should never be done that may be the cause of children's um fights when they see that they are the unloved one and the anger the frustration now goes on the sibling because they feel the sibling is the cause of it if not for that bread i would be favored by my parents and because of him or her now my parents hate me it could be because in in reality the other child is more pleasant and respectful and uh and listens to parents you ask both of them to throw out garbage one of them says no the other one does it so you naturally tend to favor and look look positively at the one that listens to you and the other one feels bad number one he feels bad that really he knows he should have done the right thing and he didn't and more than that he feels bad that the sibling performed the parents request and he is being praised and treated better and if not for the sibling he would be the king he could tell the parents what he wants to do and what he doesn't want to do and parents would not have an option they would love him nonetheless so even if one child respects you more and is as we say better child don't treat one child better than the other and we see the example from uh it's hot his haka vino had two children yaakov and asap jaakov was a good boy diligent boy respectful boy and asav was rude and not interested in studies and rifka loved yakov naturally she saw that he has uh better character traits that he has more potential and she heard the the prophecy that he's going to be better greater so she loved him but yitzhak said no i'm not going to do that yitzhak represents the the character trait of or for strength and he said even though my feelings are telling me to love yakov i'm not going to love yaakov more than asap of course i'm going to love yaakov also but i'm going to love asap as well the fact that it's loved yakov that's pashu that's of course torah doesn't even mention that but the fact that it's decided to love asap that's that's a novelty so the torah says wow unlike rifka who loved yakov naturally because he was better yitzchak overcame his natural tendency and he also loved asap why did he love asa with asa was evil because he said if i treat yaakov better than asap then what hope is there for asap what i'm gonna do is i'm going to overcome my natural feelings and i'm going to love asaph the same as if he's good and what happened it didn't help asaph still went on the wrong path but at least yitzhak knew that he didn't cause it he knew that it was not because of bad upbringing but rather because asaph made his own choice so we should follow yitzchak as example and not make the life of our children more difficult we should not be the cause of shalom our children saying my parents don't love me and therefore i don't want them and i don't want the god and i don't want judaism i don't want torah i'm gonna become not religious why all because the parents don't love me so even if one child has a better name one child is more beautiful one child is more obedient we have to make sure that we love both of them equally so that we should not inadvertently be the cause of their going of the data now having said that let's understand why children fight and here we have to differentiate between regular normal fighting and bullying if there is bullying then all the rules that we speak about today don't apply if there is bullying if one child has advantage and he uses that advantage to hurt to abuse to control the other child then the parent has to get involved however if the kind of fighting that you see is normal competition normal rivalry that every family has that you may have had when you were young then this class is for you again if there is bullying if you see that one child maliciously with intent tries to hurt the other child and the the younger child usually doesn't have uh ability to defend himself and he's scared to the point that he can't even ask parents for help because he's afraid of the older sibling then you have to get involved and put the bully in his place and we can speak about it at a different time but now we're speaking about when there is normal healthy children fighting which means that there is no fear they're just trying to gain certain rights they're fighting for their rights even if one child is younger but he's not afraid of the older child he is fighting he's calling names he's teasing him that happens all the time sometimes it's the younger child's fault but all that is healthy all that is normal and that happens in all families when i was young i used to fight with my sister all the time and i'll tell you more stories later so what do we do if our children fight first of all you have to understand that all little creatures fight when you see little cubs are born puppies they fight with each other they play fight why because that trains them for real life in real life you have to be a fighter you cannot give up you cannot give in completely you have to stand for what's right you have to be an achiever so if you don't allow your children to fight you are taking away from them an essential part of human development and maturity if they don't fight they will not know how to not enter into a fight and they will not know how to fight fairly and they will not know how to forgive so realize that children fighting is a normal thing and it's something that has to be allowed to happen now here i want to quote one wise woman who once told me a good advice she said when i was little my brothers and i used to fight but my parents did not allow us to fight we had to rule in a house that no fighting is allowed and whenever they saw us fighting they would stop us and they would punish both of us and now that we grew up i hate my brothers and they hate me i don't talk to my brothers and they don't talk to me why because all that negative emotions and feelings towards my brothers stayed with me i never had a chance to express them i was not allowed to scream i was not allowed to fight and therefore i still i still remember how they hurt me how they took away something from me and they still remember how i teased them or how i embarrassed them or how i took something away from them and we cannot forgive each other so she told me please allow your children to fight let them fight let them beat each other let them scream at each other and then they will make peace and then they will love each other and i thought about her advice and i remembered that when i was young as i said i used to fight with my sister all the time and there were many times when after a great fight when we were all scratched up with wounds bruises and blood my grandfather my grandmother would find us sitting next to each other by a table close to each other coloring the same coloring book reading the same book and she would come to us and say i'm very surprised just a few moments ago you were fighting and clawing each other why are you so nice to each other what happened to you and now i understood why all of a sudden we became friends because after i expressed my emotions and after i let my sister hear and feel on her skin everything that i felt about her and she did the same for me i thought about it and i said you know i think i hurt her more than she deserved and she thought the same thing i think i hurt him more than he deserved i think i overreacted and we try to be nice to each other and we try to make peace and we try to be better from then on and right away we made peace and right away we became friendly and what do you think now when we grew up we are best friends and we love each other we help each other why because i know that whatever i did to my sister was more than she deserved i shouldn't have done certain things and i feel guilty and therefore i will always treat her best possible way and my sister feels the same way so in the olden times parents were not much at home and therefore they didn't interfere into children's fights and therefore after fighting they made up and they became best friends now especially during the the corona when parents are constantly at home they try to be the judges the jury and they try to decide you're right give him the ball give in you have to be nice you have to do this go to your room stop fighting and what happens there is no winner each child feels that he wasn't listened to each child feels that he didn't get the last punch each child feels that the other one hurt him more than they hurt them each child feels that the parent is not fair as much as the parent wants to be fair and listen sometimes one child will will uh feel as a victim sometimes the other but overall both children will feel that parents are unfair that parents love the other child more the parents hate them so if you get involved beware the children will not appreciate it the opposite they will feel that you're against them they will feel that you hate them so rule number one when children fight in a healthy way no bullying rule number one is don't get involved don't get involved because you don't know the whole story you don't know what he said what she said what happened behind closed doors sometimes it's a it's a fight from before as they were coming home on the bus or from the bus or in the hallway someone did something said something and now they come home and one child in front of you does something and you are sure that he started how do you know maybe before they came in the other one did something or said something so no matter how hard you try to be just and fair you're not gonna be so the best is to stay out of it and uh you cannot uh just sit there and ignore you have to tell them you know guys if you decide to fight i'm gonna let you it's up to you if you need help to dissolve it i'm here to help you to resolve it peacefully but if you don't want to resolve it peacefully if you want to fight be my guest i can watch and enjoy or i can ignore you i can go to another room but let them know that you're not getting involved because if they think that you will get involved they will take a risk that they think you'll save them from for example a a younger sibling might say you know what i'm in a playful mood i want to i want some action i'm going to go and pull my sister's hair or i'm going to go and i'm going to poke my older brother from behind or i'm going to go and shoot a spit gun at my sibling and i'm gonna run away and when they gonna chase me i'm gonna come to my parents and they're going to interfere and they're gonna save me so by interfering you are encouraging that the younger or the weaker child should um bother the older sibling you're encouraging that instead of seeking a peaceful resolution they will take the chance of fighting because if it gets out of hand my parents will protect me not a good idea because you're just encouraging the the competitive behavior you're encouraging them to hurt each other behind your back to uh uh tease each other if they know you're not gonna help them they're all by themselves then they will think twice the younger brother will not tease the older brother because he knows the older brother is going to beat him up so he's going to respect all the brother but if he knows you will protect him then the younger brother will be brazen he will be bald he will be uh with good spa because he knows um he knows that the parent will come to his rescue so again somebody is asking a good question what if the older brother hurts the younger brother younger brother has no chance so if you see it's bullying something that the older brother does unprovoked with malice with the cruelty you have to interfere you have to protect yeah there has to be safe environment at home however very often it's the younger brother who starts the trouble who teases who plays who doesn't know the the boundaries and it's good for you to let them resolve it among themselves if the younger brother stands no chance he will not bother the older brother and again if you say i'm going to be on the side of the weaker child you're encouraging the weaker child to misbehave so the what what happens is a natural um settling and uh and the older siblings they put the younger siblings in place and the younger siblings don't play don't bother don't tease the older siblings but again you're not allowed uh to bully that's the message that that has to be known in the in the family bullying is not allowed in our family our family is safe if you want to start a fight you have to uh you have to know how to uh fight if it's worth it for you you know if you want to uh bother your sister and then she's gonna she's gonna scratch you up or she's gonna take your homework and flush it down the toilet that's the risk you're taking and we don't recommend doing this but if you decide it's up to you so number one risk of getting involved is that you cannot be fair you don't know everything you didn't see everything you were not with them the whole day and number two you're encouraging fighting because the weaker and the younger sibling will use your involvement to his advantage and he will not be afraid to bother and tease the older sibling and as they said um what's what is going to happen is if you do get involved and they feel that you are unfair the the negative feelings the hurt feelings will stay with them into their adulthood and they will not be able to forgive not their siblings and not their parents because they didn't allow them to fight and and beat each other up so a certain amount of uh fighting is healthy and necessary for them to learn boundaries to learn to respect each other's privacy each other's uh property and by stopping their fights they're gonna grow up uh spoiled brats and they will not respect their their classmates and even their their spouses and they will interfere with their spouse's business they will tease their spouse and they will think that they can get away with it and then it often happens they will call again their parents and say oh mom dad my wife or my husband i don't like them they're they're abusing me they're hurting me and they will again uh try to recruit their parents to their to their salvation and that will ruin their marriage so in order to make our children independent you have to allow them to make their own decisions when they want to fight and when they want to be peaceful and when they fight how to stop it you can offer them help and we'll speak about how to offer help to your children now before we go there let's explain one more reason why children fight the first reason was that it's a natural development we see that in all animals dogs cats bears tigers and even even lambs all animals play fight and real fight that's part of life and this way they learn their boundaries they learn self-control and and everything else so second reason why children fight this time it's a negative reason this time it's a reason that that parents are introduced besides what we mentioned before that they they they treat one child better than the other and they cause jealousy we're not talking about that that shouldn't be done that for sure has to be avoided but there is a separate reason that is very common and that is very often when children fight it's because they are missing attention of their parents and they feel frustrated and because they don't get the the positive attention out of desperation they seek negative attention sometimes they know that the only time their mother or their father looks up from their phone or their newspaper or the phone conversation with their friends is when there is a fight when they're screaming and they think to themselves how do i sometimes consciously sometimes unconscious subconsciously how do i get attention of my parents by creating a fight with my sibling when my parents see that the situation is unbearable they will finally give me their attention so when that happens you're reminded you know i left my children for a long time unattended their young children they might not know how to read yet they might not know how to occupy their time positively and so they're bored and they not only they're bored but they also are lacking warmth and uh and the positive positive connection with with the parent when i see my children fighting i have to right away tell myself they're fighting because they want my attention must be in the last few days or hours i did not pay attention to them and they're missing it so they're trying to get my negative attention but i cannot give them negative attention that's not healthy that will only encourage them to to fight more because they that will train them that the only way they will get my attention is if they fight so i cannot give them any attention i have to ignore their fight i have to inform them that i recognize that they are fighting but i'm not getting involved i'm going to ignore them or i'm even going to leave the room if they fight but i realize that they do need attention so i take upon myself that from now on i will spend more time with each one of them i will speak more to them i will read them a book more often i will play with them more often i will give them positive attention as much as they need so that they don't need my negative attention very often children as they fight with each other they with the corner of the eye they're looking at the parent they're trying to get your attention either to interfere in their fight or just to be recognized until now you're ignoring them and now they want to be recognized if you're not in the room they're not going to bother their sibling or if they have a problem with their sibling they might give in but just because you are there they will be more stubborn they will be more rude to their to each other because either they want interference your protection or they want your attention so that's the second reason you should recognize what is happening again as a review the first reason is that your children might want you to be on their side to decide their fight to have an upper hand because for some reason they might think that you will be more favorable to them than to their sibling and the second reason is because they are bored they are down they might be depressed they might feel unworthy and in order to get your attention they will create a ruckus they will create a fight they might do trouble in the house so um when children fight you have to remind yourself that i need to spend more time with them okay now what do you do if your children are fighting as we said you have to let them fight however you have to be there um to offer help in resolving their conflict peacefully you don't stop them unless it's dangerous if they choose to fight let them fight because if you stop them one will say why did you let me hit him back he hit me and you didn't let me answer so where when you stop them physically again they will feel that you are unfair you stop them a second too early you don't stop them unless it's dangerous what what doesn't mean dangerous uh you see that that they are grabbing knives and they're so angry that they might use them or shalom they they grabbed your gun or they're playing um with dangerous um weapons or one is so angry that he might smash the other one's head on the cement floor so if it's dangerous life-threatening you get involved otherwise you don't get involved instead you can calmly be near them and uh say i'm if you want to fight i'm not going to interfere i'm not going to stop you if you decide to fight be my guest however if you do want to resolve it peacefully i'm here to help for example you can say um let's see what's the problem you cannot divide the toy so let's think what can we do to dissolve it you can say i know that some children they share the toy they play together or if you don't want to do that some children take turns i can help you to set a timer for two minutes one minute five minutes you play with the toy for five minutes and he plays with the toy for five minutes or i can help you find a different toy so you give them a as a possible solution but it's their choice whether they want to use your advice or they want to continue fighting of course as i said again and again and again if there is bullying and one child is abusing the other you should stop them but if they're just bickering they're just being stubborn and they don't want to be reasonable let them they will they will eventually see that it doesn't pay they will learn that that's not a good way to communicate and you just offer them a um you offer them help but don't force it upon them um also a good idea is to show them that you understand their frustration you can say if they tell you oh my brother always bothers me and you say yes it's difficult to live with your siblings yes we live in a world that we have to we have to deal with others and it's not always easy you acknowledge that yes without telling them that they're right and without blaming the other sibling but you acknowledge their their emotions and you say yes it's a normal thing to feel like that that's part of family that's part of the world we live in a world with other people yes i understand yes it's frustrating to share your toys yes you know you don't always have uh double and triple of everything there are limited resources yes um make sure you don't judge them to say oh you're always like this you always start up uh you're stubborn you never share you're greedy don't put labels on them don't accuse them because again you don't know what happened uh but rather offer them help and show them that you understand their frustration now some parents are tempted to say you know what you cannot uh peacefully play with this toy so you know what i'm gonna buy you a second toy so that each one of you has the same toy even though it seems like a smart way to resolve the issue but that only solves the problem temporarily yes with this particular toy they're not gonna fight because each one has the same toy but you didn't teach them how to resolve their conflict how to share how to be sensitive to the needs of another a better way is to say yes guys we have one toy and we have two people we have to figure out a way to share it and then offer them solutions from which they will learn if not now for future even if now they will uh refuse your offer to help but it will stay in their mind and they will say you know what um my parents are you know they're smart they gave me good advice i don't want to do it with my sibling because they're nasty but i'll do it with my friends next time i'm going to be smart when my friend has a toy and i want to use it or i have a toy my friend wants to use you know what will share how i'm gonna use what my parents taught me i'm gonna set alarm and each one is going to use it for a minute or five so by offering them solutions you're actually giving them tools for life but by resolving it for themselves for instead of them you are putting a band-aid but you're making them crippled and you can offer solutions immediately which means you don't stop them from fighting you don't stop them from teasing each other um and then and so on but you tell them right away guys you can either fight about it which i don't recommend or you can do it in a nice way peacefully usually it works better trust me if you want come to me and we'll try to resolve it together and if they say no no i don't want you you always say this oh no i don't want i want for myself fine and you can just stay near them and just calmly give them comments yeah already five minutes passed you know you could have been playing if you could want to continue fighting that's fine fight but you know there is a better way uh so you can give them the the opportunity the offer to for a solution right away but they will not accept it right away but as long as you are calmly standing on you know on standby they will at some point um take you on your offer uh again if not immediately in future fights um it's important not to give names you know like like nicknames or roles to your children as i mentioned before don't say oh you're greedy or you are this you are that you're stubborn because then their siblings will learn from you and they will call each other with those same labels that you put on them not only you give negative tools to the other sibling but also you're programming your child that he is that kind of a person and later in life they will tell themselves what kind what kind of a person am i they say oh my parents used to call me this or that must be that's who i am so i'm going to live in that role and i'm it's going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy they will try to live up to their parents predictions so instead of calling them names and giving um extra bad names for the siblings to call them rather be quiet when you see them doing something positive even for a moment call their attention to that and say oh i see even if it was by accident even if it was insincere draw the attention to it and say oh i see you did such and such even if it was inadvertent they were fighting and then they needed to blow their nose and while they were blowing their nose their sibling had a chance to talk you say oh i see you respectful you let your your your sibling to talk which means you have to find even funny ways to to to find good in your children and focus on that tell them yes i see you know how to talk i see you know how to share i see you are patient even if they were patient only for one second you say i see you know how to be patient you were patient for a little bit now you can build on that you can increase your patience because i see you have it within you if you see they uh cleaned cleaned up a little bit you say oh i see you know how to clean up i'm proud of you so which means instead of trying to rebuke them and stop them from doing what you don't want them to you trick them into thinking that you are impressed with their good behavior and then they will say oh my parents noticed the good thing i did i'm going to do more of that or they'll say my parents didn't realize that it just happened i didn't mean it but they were happy you know what i don't want to let them down i'm going to do good things from now on because i see it's important for them and they like it and they praise me for it and i like how it feels to be praised at what age can you offer them advice and possible solutions uh i would say from age two from age two um you can offer them maybe your child even smarter from one and a half but a very young age you can already talk to them and if they uh don't want to share and they're just sitting there and both crying it's okay let them next time they'll think twice i'm not going to pull the toy away because we're just going to be sitting and crying okay now sometimes you can you can make a joke out of it not making fun of one of them but just making fun of the whole situation so let me finish this before i address questions for example whenever i see my children fighting over food i tell them you know you're fighting like chickens and i tell them the story that they remember when we used to have chickens i would come there with a whole pail of food and i would throw some food to the chickens and they would jump on it and they would fight and bite each other and claw each other and i would be standing there with the whole pale and saying guys why are you fighting just finish it as soon as it's done i'm gonna throw you more food and more food and more food more than you can ever eat there's gonna be food left so i tell them the same thing you know we have plenty of food america is not a place where you fight for food when you fight for food you resemble those chickens who think that whatever food is in front of them is all there is they're going to be hungry if they don't eat so i make fun of them of the situation or i tell them another story i tell them you know one time i went to uh slaughter two roosters to shed two roosters and while i was uh sharpening my knife i gave them some cheerios to eat and these two roosters they saw that there's only a few pieces of cherries they stood across from each other and they started jumping each other and clawing each other with their long long claws and feathers started flying and blood started dripping and i was thinking to myself the they're so stupid they're fighting over so something so insignificant compared to their life soon they are gonna die these are last moments of their life they're fighting about a few pieces of chariots instead of enjoying the rest of their life and i told my kids the same thing think about your whole life think about is it important to fight over this is it important that your sister moved a wrong way and bumped you with her elbow is it important that your sibling got a little bit bigger cookie or a little bit more pieces of legos than you is it is it important who sits on which chair look at the general picture of life you're missing life while fighting for smaller things so you can you can um discharge the situation make it make it less severe by making a joke by making fun of the whole the whole situation of how they're fighting about uh insignificant thing um now one more idea is to encourage your children to love each other to change their image of each other and that is by giving them reward for praising each other and doing good things for example some people have a custom that by shabbat table they go around and they each person says something good about each other person around the table or you can say just about uh the siblings you can say okay find something good to say about your system i said no there's nothing good okay every good thing you find about your sister you're going to get and it can be anything for example you can say uh you're going to get a marble you're going to get a whatever a sticker when you get 10 stickers i'm going to buy you a pizza whatever it is or um for every good thing you find you about your sister i'm gonna give you a dollar and right away you will see they're gonna give you a whole list of hundred things they see beautiful things about her sister about their sister so this way in a nice way you're encouraging them to see positive in each other to see good in each other you can make it a family family challenge for example you can say you know every time i hear something good we're gonna put a a little a little um coin or marble or whatever it is into a jar when the jar is full we're going to go on a family trip and everyone will start for fun saying oh you're so beautiful oh you're so handsome and i like you so much i like your pants i like your skirt they're going to start making um making making up these uh praises these compliments but that's exactly what you want they think they're taking advantage of you but really you are training them to say good things and you know there's a there's an amazing saying i learned this from a program called recovery uh in recovery um recovery international they have a famous saying that says better and insincere gesture of peace than a sincere gesture of animosity that means that if you hate someone and you have a choice to smile at them insincerely or scowl at them sincerely to say hello to them in a nice way even though you don't feel like it or to look away with anger the way you really feel it's always better to be insincere in such a case so the same thing here even though their praises and their their their um good behavior is insincere but that's of course much better than being sincere in their hate and we develop our muscles so too we develop our character trait the more we use it the stronger it gets the more we use our positive speech the stronger it's gonna get the more we use our sharing uh muscle the stronger our sharing muscle is going to be so it's okay to to reward and encourage your your child positively either through praise or through a family challenge let's fill up this jar with marbles and then we're going to get a party okay now as they get older you of course you have to know it yourself you can teach them how to speak properly you can teach them communication skills unfortunately majority of adults lack communication skills for example instead of saying um you are nasty you can say what you i didn't like what you said or to instead of saying you are greedy you can say i would appreciate if you shared with me for the instead of using you sentences you use i sentences when i hear such words it hurts me when when the door is left open i get called instead of saying you opened the door you opened the window and you made me call you insensitive you teach them how to speak the same thing you want to give a message over yes you give the message over but without attacking without putting down that will serve them very well both in um your house as well as with their own spouses when they grow up so it would be very beneficial to read to read a book on community communication um you can choose search google any book on communication will some better than others but overall any book will teach you good skills how to say what you want to say without hurting the other person without putting them down um without making it a competition who is better okay um now there is more to say but i'm going to stop here and i'm going to turn to questions let me see the chat okay how do you praise without putting labels on them you can put a good label on your child just don't put a negative label when when when you praise it's always good any praise is good whether praise is sincere or insincere as as long as you have a good intention in insincere praise is called flattery when you want to gain from it but if you're really concerned about the the person if you uh care for them you want to encourage them you want to lift their spirits then it's okay to be insincere what if you treat all kids the same but they still find reasons to be jealous yes that will happen but you have to try your best and you have to give individual attention to each child sometimes uh as much as you try one child will feel that you love the other more but if you take them out for pizza or for bowling or just for shopping trip all by themselves they will see without any competition you love them you value them you want to spend time with them you enjoy their company so then it's not going to matter that that you give the other sibling more because they know that they are important in your life um what is normal fighting anything that is not bullying is normal fighting at what age is it called not normal fighting any age is normal fighting from diapers until they get married it's it's normal uh often you know i see a color beautiful mature color speaking nicely to her but then when she goes to speak to her brothers and sisters you can't imagine they hurt each other they nasty to each other they put each other down how is it possible this beautiful respectable mature color is a different person and the answer is that until they get married and past that they're still fighting they're still they're still immature with each other so there is no age limit but again using these techniques uh of ignoring their fight offering their help but not stopping them allowing them to fight express their feelings to respect each other understand the limits you will make them more mature and as they grow up they they will fight less and less normally you will see that as they grow they fight less and less and less but if you interfere with them if you play a judge then as they grow they will fight more and more and more and more aggressively and they will hurt each other more until when they grow up they will hate each other so again i'm repeating this idea again and again because it's such an important idea you have to allow your children to fight as long as it's not bullying if a younger sibling really hurts an older sibling intentionally am i allowed to tell older sibling i'm not getting involved and they should hit them back yes exactly that's what i'm trying to say that if children fight very often it's the younger sibling who annoys the older sibling because he knows you're gonna get come to his defense so in such a case you tell them i'm not getting involved if you bother them and they beat you up i'm not getting involved and you tell the older child just you know be careful he's a young child don't beat him up too much but um you you give them that freedom because when they go out into the real world they have to know that their actions have consequences that people have feelings they cannot just tease hurt and take away people's stuff there will be consequences and when they grow up if they steal they will be put in jail if they don't follow rules there will be consequences and the first uh place to learn it is from your sibling if i hurt my sibling they will show me that i did something wrong very good question thank you what if the child curses at their sibling and even though the parent tells them to stop they don't stop how do you prevent a child from cursing so this is similar to all bad behaviors uh there can be consequences for cursing or you can choose to use positive reinforcement when the child has not used curses in a minute or two you can say oh i'm impressed i see how you know how to control yourself you are a gibor you are a strong person you know how to control your mouth you have a good mouth you praise them or you give consequence or both for sure you should praise and for sure you should you should notice the good and the good will grow but you can also give consequences if there is cursing whatever your child doesn't like that's what you assign as a consequence what if a five-year-old hits his mother wow wow so that's a different topic what happens if children hit their parents so that is not allowed that has to be stopped and don't wait until they're five years old that's too late you have to stop it when they're one year old if a young child picks up his hand even though it might be cute and when they're one year old you might be laughing and allow them to hit you that's the beginning of the downfall don't allow a child to hit a parent under no circumstances can a child hit a pain and stop it when they're young so that from the young age they know that parents are cardoch parents are holy you're not allowed to hit a parent if they hit a parent they get the consequence right away either you will you will slap them on their hand you'll send them to the room you'll tell them we're not allowed to hit pants that's a separate that's a separate topic but that cannot be tolerated whereas uh sibling rivalry is tolerated but children are not allowed to be um to their parents they're not allowed to hit their parents okay uh one more question when they're getting the tools to learn that in life there is there needs to be real communication and not everything is gotten through hitting one that affect them with their friends and in their future as well they learn that it's okay to hit when angry and upset so that's that's counter-intuitive what i'm telling you it's the you know all along we thought that if you don't let your children fight they'll find other ways to resolve the conflict but in reality it's the opposite if you stop them from fighting they think oh i had a better way to resolve the conflict my parents didn't let me they're forcing me to do this stupid thing i have to talk to my sibling next time i have a chance i'm gonna fight whereas if you tell them fight be my guest they will fight and they will get hurt and they will see that they didn't get anywhere then they'll realize fighting is not good fighting doesn't accomplish anything next time i'm going to listen to my parents and i'm going to talk so by allowing them to explore and to find out for themselves that fighting doesn't work and that it hurts and then they have bad feelings that i hurt my sister my my brother and i feel bad that i hurt them so much then they will realize that fighting hurts the fighting is not good fighting doesn't solve anything and they will learn communication skills is it okay to hit the child as a consequence of them healing the parent yes uh even same idea that even though it seems that by hitting my child when they hit me i'm teaching them that it's okay to hit that's very different when the child hits me i tell him we're not allowed to hit parents and then i hit them not because i'm upset not because i'm angry not because i didn't get what i wanted but because i'm showing them that what they did was wrong it's not allowed um that's that's different of course i cannot hit them when i'm angry because if i hit them when i'm angry then i'm teaching them that it's okay to hit but if they hit me i don't hit them in anger in fact i feel bad for them because i can't just say not allowed but i'm hitting them lightly to teach them a lesson first i calm down and i talk to them and i say we're not allowed to hit parents we're not allowed to hit abba and emma and i hit them lightly i'm not angry and they see i'm not angry that will only teach them one thing not allowed to hit parents it's not going to teach them what you're angry hit because my parent wasn't angry they hit me only as a consequence okay um thank you for all your great questions um thank you have a great night [Applause] [Music] you