corner to see Ben on top of Drew trying to take a ball away from him
and Drew struggling and snatching back. Seeing that nobody was
getting hurt, I stopped to watch a moment to make sure that both of
them were equally involved in the scuffle. I sent them both to time
out in separate places to calm down and then I called them together.
When we have fighting siblings in our house, the punishment usually
involves "hug therapy" where they must prove that they know how to
show love. As I was talking to them about being kind to one another,
Drew suggested 2 minutes or hugging (he has learned from experience).
Usually, when Drew participates in hug therapy with Kate, he is super
reluctant to hug her and she keeps asking him to start hugging so that
the timer can start. This time, Drew got to experience the other side
of things. Drew reached out his arms to hug Ben and Ben refused. We
sat there for a few minutes and I told him that he could either choose
to show love to Drew or to sit in time out until he was ready to show
love to Drew. He chose time out. During the time that he was in time
out (I'm guessing about 30 minutes), I kept asking him, "Ben, are you
ready to give Drew a hug?" and the prompt reply would be "NO!". I
would remind him that we need to show love and that he could leave
time out when he was ready to hug Drew. Finally, after a while, I
went in and sat down with him and talked to him more about why we
don't fight and why we show love. I called Drew in so he could be
ready for a hug from Ben. It took at least 10 more minutes in time
out before Ben relented and that was only because Drew reached around
him.
I say we haven't given Ben enough credit because we've billed him as
the easy going one, but today, he proved that he could be just as
stubborn as the others.
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