Ritual, Parenting and Experience
👣This morning, I was going through the ritual of getting the children to jump up and go… as usual, they were gripping about wanting more sleep and moving at their own sweet pace.
👣While rolling up and down to decide which part of the body to come down from the bed first, Nuggie started scratching her leg (to buy more time).
Nuggie: “Mummy, Aunty Favour didn’t bring down the mosquito net last night, mosquito bit my leg.”
Me: I brought it down myself, stand up. It’s time for school. Besides if she didn’t bring it down, what stopped you?
Nuggie: I’m small, besides I don’t know how to do it.
Me: have you tried it before, who said you are too small?
Where’s Tori, both of you bring down the net let me see.
👣While Nuggie was trying to figure it out, Tori was more interested in dragging as much as she could towards herself. As far as she was concerned, it was a competition. Nuggie figured it out and tucked most of it in, but Tori was still trying to pull more with none tucked in…
👣Recently, I learned something about sibling rivalry. The trick is to make them compete together against something, rather than against themselves(which encourages sibling rivalry). So I said pull everything out, I want to see if you can finish fixing the net before the count of ten.
👣The tension immediately disappeared as they worked together, in fact, they wanted to go again… They made me promise to repeat it again tonight when it’s time for bed while they joyfully went to the restroom.
🙌🙌 I think I am getting a great hang of this parenting thing…
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