He Punched Me
Sergey: Papa Papa!!! Where are you?
Papa: Upstairs
Sergey enter the room his voice already heavy with a nasal whine.
Sergey: Papa Damien punched me.
Papa: Go down stairs and tell him not to do that.
Sergey: But Papa he punched me two times.
Parenting tip: Sibling fights are never what they seem, always dig deeper.
Papa: What did you do?
Sergey: Nothing
Papa: Well what happened before he punched you?
Sergey: I hit him.
Papa: Sounds like you started it, and are mad that Damien hit you back.
Sergey: No I hit him one time then he punched me two times.
Papa: Still sounds like you started it.
Sergey: No Damien started it, we were watching TV and he was being loud and I couldn’t hear ANYTHING so I hit him, and he still wasn’t quite so I hit him again, and then and then.
Sergey pauses to catch hi breath.
Sergey: And then he punched me two times.
Parenting Tip: I feel my role is to give my children solutions to problems, instead of solving them.
Papa: Maybe you should use your words instead of hitting, go down stairs, and tell Damien to not be so loud.
Sergey leaves looking disappointed.
You will probably find more parenting stuff, because while I am leaving Russia early to go to my new job, the kids will be staying here with the grandparents, and they have started asking me how I manage the kids, so I will just post them here, them maybe translate them to Russian.
Olya said,
June 30th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
I think my parents are more interested in things like “how to get the kids to eat their meals” and “how to get the kids to go to bed.” I could be wrong, though.
And aren’t you glad we have at least one kid who can tell us what was going on, even if he does end up incriminating himself?
Shannon said,
June 30th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Perfect example of why the older child is not always the one who did wrong.
Bill the Annoying said,
June 30th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Oh I will get to those other things, I just wanted to get this one out there before I forgot it.
And Damien is both forgiving, and just, he will usually simply tell others to stop hitting him, and not retaliate at all, and if he does retaliate, hi tries to do it with the force he was attacked with, as well as staying blow for blow with the attacker. Very eye for an eye mentality.