Now that the girls are older and more sensible, I realized that the way I talk to them is a little different. At least when it comes to resolving fights and such. The girls still fight a lot, though the fighting have turned from physical to more vocal ones.
Instead of sitting on each other and pulling each others’ hair, we get a lot of shouting wars in the house these days. It doesn’t help that both my girls are pretty eloquent, so they seldom run out of vocabulary when scolding each other. The 6-year-old younger sibling does not lose out, even though her logic may not always make perfect sense. It can be amusing to watch on the side, but I usually step in when the volume gets a little threatening - You never know whether the neighbors are calling the police any minute.
When they calm down, I take each one aside and give my ‘Mummy’s speech’. I go by the ‘emotional blackmail’ route most of the time. That word may sound a little threatening, but I can assure you it works on girls. Not too sure about boys though, so don’t come to me if it doesn’t work on your boys.
I remind the girls that they only have each other in this lifetime – Only ONE SISTER and that’s it. I’m not going to have another kid (if all goes as planned, of course), so they better learn to treasure that only sister they have. I go as far as to tell them that when Daddy and Mummy have both gone to heaven, they are literally only left with each other in this world. The talk usually leaves me feeling and looking a little teary-eyed (for effect) and their facial expressions get a little solemn at this point. They may not agree with me or vocalize their understanding, but I sure hope it gets them thinking when they are by themselves.
You may feel that this method is a little too extreme for girls of their age, but all I was doing was to remind them of a truth. The truth is they only have one sister who will walk through life’s journey with them. If they are always fighting, refusing to share anything, and complaining about each other all the time, life’s going to be miserable. And seriously, why waste time on those negative stuffs in life? Why not treasure each other and be the best companion they can ever be?
The solemn truth sinks in bit by bit, I’m sure. The girls usually don’t comment much on my speech, but just yesterday, Jayne had a response for me for the first time. When I said that she only has jie jie with her after daddy and mummy are not around, she went,
“It’s OK! I will have my husband and daughters with me.”
Seriously. =.=
