Mid-week Inspiration,                                                                     

Who cares?  Who really cares who threw the first rock and who started what and who did what to who, when?  The names, places and issues have been changed to protect the ignorant.

There they are, my son, eight years old, hitting his sister.  She’s only six but she’s devious; she has a handful of his hair tangled around her fingers and she’s not letting go.   They’ve knocked over the coffee table, a glass of water is on the floor soaking into the carpet.  The lamp has fallen, the glass of a broken bulb scattered underfoot just waiting for the opportunity to cut one of them; and I know already that will escalate their little battle.  

Wait a minute!  He didn’t start this fight, he can stop when she stops pulling his hair.  Well, I guess maybe my wife and I should sit down in the kitchen and discuss this fiasco over a cup of coffee.  Maybe with a little java and some level heads we can agree on who started it.   Then we can go back in and really and fairly blame the one who’s at fault.

Now that would be the level headed approach; level headed parents showing a good example of problem solving skills and negotiation.  Don’t we all know this is the way to teach our children about peace? 

Or better yet maybe we as sensible adults can join our kids and start pulling hair too or maybe give the occasional jab just to balance the odds a bit in favour of our personal favorites.

The house, oh it’s completely trashed but we feel good because we have done the right thing.  We have maintained that ever important appearance of moral correctness.  We have set a good example and we have once again established our dominance over our children.  Right……. !

It doesn’t seem so complex to me.  Whenever there is a conflict the first step is to stop the violence.  Whenever my children started to fight I did not attempt to first solve who started it.  I immediately separated them and gave each of them a moment to ‘cool down’. 

Then we started to talk about the situation; we never focused on who started it.  We had an absolute rule in our house; wherever there was fighting both parties were equally at fault, and if we all did not find a mutually satisfactory solution we were equally complicit in the continuing conflict.

I really don’t see any particular difference in our global family.   To stand by on the side lines and declare that one side is wrong and the other is right while people are being slaughtered is absolutely insane.  To take any action that exacerbates the conflict is wrong.  There is only one action to take when conflict breaks out and that is to stop the violence, pull our global children apart, sit them down and get them talking to each other.