Roots of Rivalry

Lisa-Jo Baker's Fabulous Five Minute Friday

Start.

Many days the squabbling erupts into such a clatter of voices that I cannot tell what happened or even if everyone is ok at that moment.  The tears, the outrage, the anger just boils up and over until we are all coated in its sticky, yucky goo.  When this happens it is hard to take a moment and think and dig into the root of the problem.  But I have learned over the past ten and a half years, if I do not attack the root, there is NO hope of it not happening again and again and again.  So I take a deep breath and dig in and dig deep.

Usually after I have sent everyone to their room, including myself, I will come back and one at a time listen as each of them tells their tale.  Usually there are three pesky roots involved...

1) someone has forgotten that they are only responsible to their sibling (what they can control - their actions and attitudes) not responsible for them (what they cannot control - how their sibling responds in any given situation).  I hear myself saying this a LOT through the day "There is ONE Mommy here, not four"

2)  someone has used their sibling as a measuring stick and that old yucky bug of comparison has come in and taken a huge chunk out of their friendship in that moment.  I catch myself saying this a lot too, "God gave you a sibling, not a ruler.  He created each of you and you both are fearfully and wonderfully made with your own unique strengths and your own individual weaknesses.  God gave you the strengths for a reason, but He also gave you the weaknesses for a reason.  He did NOT give you each other to use a measuring stick to see how you are doing." 

3)  someone wants what they want when they want it.  Selfishness is a HUGE ugly root that every human being has to tackle on a daily basis.  In children this particular root seems to be healthy, strong, and solid.  It is like the weed/vine thing that sprung up this spring in our yard.  It was a hot and dry summer, most everything else was either droopy or died before it began - but this vine?  It thrived,  I purposely did not water it, tried to get to the root of it and pulled and pulled it down weekly, but every time I checked it would be there with ten of its closest relatives.

Stop.

Now that I know the roots I have to figure out how to dig them up and weed them out.  Next post I will tackle this.