Child-Led Solutions
(written two years ago)
My children are in the backyard arguing over who gets to use the garden hose, and I am inside plating dinner and reminding myself that my job is not to make sure that everything among them is evenly divided forever, or that everything is always fair. My job is to make sure nobody gets hurt and to give them space and trust to learn how to navigate social dynamics.
On another day, they might need me there mediating more closely. They often do.
Today, everybody is annoyed with their voices but they’re allowed to be annoyed. Everybody is being unfair, but that’s part of figuring it out. Everybody is using immature words and power dynamics because they are immature; they are 5 and 4, they are supposed to be.
The solutions I might have proposed might be “he gets a turn for x minutes, then she gets a turn for x minutes,” or “he gets to do xyz, then you get to do xyz,” or something else sensible and adult.
After squabbling, and threatening, and one kid making loud angry noises, and instructing and “bossing” back and forth, the solution they come to is that one kid will spray the other in the face.
It is fully mutual and met with enthusiastic delight.
And they got the chance to flex all their socializing muscles.
And I could have robbed them of that. Instead, I’ve finished my job: dinner is ready. And they’ve done theirs: everybody is soaking wet and everybody has played.