Friday, October 01, 2010

Stopping the Argument by Adding Choices

For various reasons, we ended up alone with the big grandkids on Simchat Torah.  After a lot of dancing in our very local shul, literally in our backyard, the kids and my husband had had enough.  Numbers 1 and 3 spent time at the quicker dovening with my husband, and I took the second one home with me.  We got everything ready for the festive meal. I cut the salad, and she set the table.


My daughter seems to have raised her kids with the rule I made up:
Whoever sets the table decides where everyone sits.


When my husband came home with the other two, the eldest had complaints.  She preferred a different wine cup and wasn't very pleased with her location.  The two girls began fighting it out, verbally, of course.  I decided to change the rules.  I went into the cabinet which contains all the wine and shot glasses and took out a few others, very different from the one they were fighting over.


Success!  Each one fell in love with a different cup from those included in my new choices.
"From now on, this is the only wine cup I want!" They said in unison.


That's all it took.  And neither of their choices is actually a wine cup.  One is a very kitchy small glass decorated with gold swirls and the other is a very  modern shot glass, "v" shaped on a blue ball.


Yes, classic "out of the box" thinking saved the day, B"H, thank G-d!

2 comments:

Minnesota Mamaleh said...

lovely and fun example of lemons-to-lemonade thinking! and, btw, i think it's a *huge* compliment that your daughter passed on one of your traditions!

Batya said...

thanks
It's funny how enthusiastic they became about their new cups. Their tastes are very different, so the bigger the choices the less to fight about.