Unsolved Conflicts

When a parent got upset, grabbed your son’s arm, and spoke to your kid in an angry tone, you needed to address it. For the sake of family relationship, I had stayed silence, but the progression has escalated. As soon as their kid got upset, the parents rushed in to defend. I had no problem if the parents use the moment to teach the kids about conflict. I have a problem when the parents defended their own kid by yelling at the other kids. My concern is when the parents get upset, yelling, and then grabbing. What’s next? Punching? Even though I understand that the family dynamics will change forever, I needed to intervene to avoid the violence.

I proposed that all of the parents take a step back and let the kids work out the conflicts themselves. If they can play together then they can solve the issues together. At age 6 to 8, they can communicate among themselves. When they get out of hand then we would step in. Stepping in doesn’t mean yelling or grabbing the other kids and defend your own.

I want the kids to work things out themselves and not having to depend on the parents. The other parent didn’t agree because he felt that his kid always got picked on. Isn’t the whole point for the parents to step back is to let the kids learn to defend themselves? We can’t be there for our kids every second. If the parents want to defend their own kid then I would have to step in as well. The kids’ conflicts then become the family’s conflicts. That would be ugly.

I understand that the love and the emotional attachment make it hard for the parents to step back. We are in the age of “my child is above all.” I have assessed my own emotion to see if my feeling has taken over my thinking and reasoning. Am I being too dramatic over the situation? I have come to the conclusion that I am not because I am fine with letting the kids handle their own issues. I am fine with letting the parents handle the situation fairly. I am not OK with the parents yelling and grabbing the other kids in order to defend their own. The line is drawn when the adults can’t control their emotion and get upset with the other kids. Adult can get upset, but they simply can’t channel their angriness on the kids.

Since we could not come to an agreement and the other parent could not offer any suggestion, the temporary solution is avoid conflicts. I don’t want to separate the kids because they have been together since they were born, but it is better than becoming a family issue. We can change the kids, but we can’t change the parents.