What if we are fighting because we want the same thing?

This morning my daughters are almost literally at each other’s throats. Insults have been lobbed to the point they are both beginning to sound like politicians running for office. Meanwhile, I’m still waking up.

Me, sleepy.

Mediating kid disputes is not my jam. I love supporting adults through mediation because they are, for the most part, able to think critically and slow their reactivity. I wish I could say the same for my girls, but mediation often has me looking like a hockey ref and the pair of them going to different penalty boxes. Why can’t we all be on the same team?

The thing is, we can be, but in order to do so we have to be willing to look beyond our own immediate wants, reassess our needs, and do so with compassion for the other party in our dispute. Could it be they want the same thing we do?

For my daughters, both want to be the apple of my eye. They forget, I have two eyes. So they are vying for positions they already have and tearing each other down to lessen one another’s potential access to my love.

It takes a leap of faith to recover from the sort of aggression they are committing against one another. For them, they have to trust me. I will not choose one over the other. They will also have to accept the consequences of their actions. It takes two to fight, so it takes two to apologize. And barring compassion, there are chores during which we can think about how we’ve hurt others.

I love when this goes well. Unfortunately I have two young daughters, and immature often means hyper-reactive. This doesn’t lessen the value of their feelings, but it does trip my PTSD wire to see people shouting at or shoving each other. No matter how small the people might be, I get frightened.

Which means I have to do the same thing as my kids to begin mediation: take a deep breath so we can work to gain some perspective distance from the problem.

Since beginning this writing, my younger daughter apologized and put on her shoes. My older daughter apologized and retrieved and took care of the recycling items I’d left upstairs. She is now putting lunchboxes into their backpacks. Then the two girls are going out to play. Together.

Do they agree with each other about who is the best/worst? No. But they are able to put that aside to cooperativley share in joy anyway. Sometimes that’s the best we can do. Yes, their insecurities will flare up again, their egos will be bruised and they will get reactive. They know this. But it doesn’t stop them from being friends.

What are you in the middle of this morning?

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