You really think there are times when breaking a siblings’ hand is a more or less acceptable response to a provocation?
Thing is, kids quarrel all the time over petty shit. Sometimes, one kid cruelly bullies another, but that stuff is much less common (and usually, reasonably detectable). As a parent, it is usually far more important to keep petty shit from spiraling out of control (maybe leading to “broken hands”), than decoding who is “at fault” in a typical case of sibling squabbling - usually a hopeless task: both sides typically quite sincerely believe they are in the right; both sides typically have given some sort of offence.
There’s assuredly a whole lot of unfortunate parenting going on in scenarios like that, but the use of this particular phrase isn’t really the issue. There certainly are parents who use “I don’t care who started it” essentially as a way to say “I don’t give a fuck what’s going on here - you two little buggers figure it out yourself because I can’t be arsed to parent”, but the vast majority of parents aren’t using it that way.
Mostly it’s just an acknowledgement that probably neither kid is innocent in the scenario and that the behavior of all parties involved has exceeded the bounds of what’s acceptable - which is a thing all parties involved ought to have known already.
Variant on the theme:
“I don’t care WHO did it, it needs to not happen again.”
No, I am not a parent. I used that one on two co-irkers I supervise recently. Dunno who got too lazy to actually put things where they go (instead, said items were dumped NEAR their destination), don’t really care, just need them to do their damn job so I don’t have to get griped at by leads in the destination area.
My mother’s version (and she was completely channeling her dad on these occasions"“I don’t care who started it, I’m ending it. NOW.”
The funny thing is Mom isn’t domineering, or scary, or ever laid hands on us. Just when she channelled her dad, disciplining one or several of his 10 children she scared my brother and I into extreme good behavior. One time she said “If you two don’t knock it off, someone is going to leave. And I think it will be me.” And she left. For hours. (My brother and I were probably 14 and 10 then so it wasn’t a case of abandonment)
My dad was working out of town at the time and usually phoned at 9 pm every night he was away. As it got closer to 9 pm and no sign of mom, my brother and I were figgiting in the kitchen, looking out the window, staring at the phone. “When dad calls, you talk…” my brother said.
When the phone finally rang and we talked to dad, telling him about our day, etc. dad said “Well I guess Mom isn’t home yet, I know she was going to the movies with your aunt tonight, maybe they had coffee after.” I think our collective sighs started an avalanche in another hemisphere.
A phrase I’ve used more than once is “Don’t make me get involved”
If I get dragged into petty squabbles, the only winner is going to be me. This is a great motivator to resolve the problems themselves.
The kids outgrew knock down drag outs years ago, and get along rather well. Go to each other’s games, hang out, play cards and games together, go to the same college. Are they perfect? Nope. I’ve seen them chase each other with a broom at a full run and death in their eyes. I’ve seen them not talk to each other for days. Overall, I think they have pretty healthy sibling relationships. But I was an only child, so what do I know?
As people have already said, there’s a massive difference between ‘A is picking on B’ and ‘A and B are bickering’. If you’re paying even the slightest attention to the general intonation of the interaction, you can tell exactly which one is going on.
If A is picking on B, then no, you absolutely can’t dismiss it with ‘I don’t care who started it.’ But if they’re bickering, who started it isn’t the point. The point is both of them learning how to not do that shit.
In our house, one of the most common versions goes like this:
A starts playing with a mutual toy. Instantly B HAS TO HAVE that toy.
B lunges at A demanding ‘Can I have a turn?’
A clutches the toy and shrieks ‘NOOO! It’s MINE!!’
B yells ‘No it’s NOT!! It’s OURS!!’ and grabs the toy.
A screams like a freaking banshee and possibly whaps B.
Nobody ‘started’ that. Both of them handled it all wrong. They’re perfectly capable of handling the exact same situation right, and usually do. So there’s no point in me getting dragged into the who-started-it bullshit. A lot of the time I just say ‘Hey, both of you, work it out,’ and they do, but sometimes it gets past the point where they can sort it themselves, and I have to step in.
My version is ‘I don’t care who started it, I care what each of you can do differently to stop it happening again.’ And then each of them has to come up with what she could have done differently.
In that case, the kids would get different punishments according to how badly they behaved. Maybe one will be grounded, and the other will be forced to write pedantic phrases like “Solipsism did not cause the death of Socrates!” 100 times.
Hey, my kids will be perfect! Perfect! ;p
I’m not trying , nor will I expect, to be perfect. I’m simply taking one variable that I see being overused, the “both sides are punished equally because I’m tired of you kids fucking around”, out of the equation. I’ll probably lose my temper, or punish incorrectly, or believe one kid when I should have believed the other.
I was exaggerating for effect ;p
That’s a good and fair punishment which takes into account the situation. I don’t mean to imply that whoever initiated is always at fault, there will be differing punishments based on the situation. In this case I think you did well and I’d hope to model that type of parenthood.
It was a joke, an exaggeration for effect.
In those cases, I hope I can give a punishment equal to the offense
Wait–so instead of having the kids talk to each other and try to figure out how they can resolve their conflict themselves, what positive social skills they can practice, you’re going to mete out dreary punishments unrelated to the offense?
Wow–if that’s what you come up with given two days to reflect on the situation, are you really confident enough that you’d outperform parents in the spur of the moment?
Much to learn you have, young Padawan.
Edit: to be entirely and completely clear, the point of punishment is to civilize the feral animals that children often are. Punishment is very often not the best tactic for achieving this goal. “I don’t care who started it” is useful EITHER when the next move is a skills-building move, like I describe above, or when the next move is to the liquor cabinet, and the kids are in the way.
No no, like I said, I’m all for doling out punishment on a case-by-case basis. Boring writing is just an example I was thinking of because I was thinking about Bart Simpson’s chalkboard gag
I think it is important to note that when disciplining children there are different “stages”, just as in real life. When I come in and tell my two bundles of joy to stop it, and that I really don’t care who started it, it is equivalent to when the cops are called to an altercation. YOU STOP NOW, YES ALL OF YOU, YES NOW, NO ONE GETS TO THROW A LAST PUNCH. Once that is done and each one has piped down a bit, you can probe, inquire, and see if there was anything else behind the incident. 99% of the time there isn’t and all parties quickly agree to drop it, as consequences for all will be meted. The 1% where something really happened you will get a better idea by questioning each individually after they have had some chance to cool their heels.
Yes justice matters, but when you initially get involved you are not the judicial system, you are a cop.
