“Hey! I want a cupcake!” said Mr 4 (turning 5).

Oh man. He was in quite a mood, and I’d finally cajoled him into sitting at the supper table. Now he saw the last banana muffin, which Mr 3.5 had just put on his plate.

This could go really bad, really quickly.

Lucky for me, I had a few tricks up my sleeve. (I’ll star * and explain at the end, so you can learn them too!)

“Two boys and one cupcake, what should we do?” I said. *

“Cupcake? I want a cupcake!” called Mr 7 from the living room.

Great. “Okay, three boys and one cupcake,” I amended. “What should we do?”

“Well, I can be mevater,” Mr 7 conceded. **

“That leaves 2 boys and 1 cupcake. What should we do?” I repeated.

They looked at me.

“Do you want options, or come up with your own idea?” ***

“Options,” said the 5 year old.

“Option 1, one boy eats it, and one boy cries. Option 2, one boy eats it, and one boy is okay. Option 3, we cut it in half.” ****

“Cut it in half,” he answered immediately.

“Okay, who should cut it?” (I should have stopped here.) “You, you or Mommy?”

Brother 5 was already heading to the drawer for a knife while Brother 3.5 started peeling off the paper.

“Okay,” I said quickly, “You will peel the wrapper, and you will get the knife.” *****

He came back. He cut it. They each ate a piece happily.

I ran to my laptop to type it up verbatim… and then heard them fighting a moment later because one knocked the schnitzel out of the other’s hands. 😂

You can try this at home! Let me break it down for you:

1. * Narrate the conflict first. No judgment, no decisions, just state the facts so that we can all see what is happening. Then we can try to problem-solve. You can do this with all ages, even if it’s two babies grabbing the same doll.

2. ** I don’t love the concept of being “mevater” or giving in by default. (He learned it in school.) If it comes from them, as it did here, that’s fine, but I won’t ask my kids to solve a conflict by convincing one of them to just concede. I want to teach them how to first explore all possible options, including compromise.

3. *** Sometimes the solution is simple enough that they’ll come up with it by themselves. You’d be surprised at what kids are capable of when you lay out the problem and encourage them to look for a solution. (When they do find it on their own, they are usually more cooperative and are happier with the result.)

Sometimes they need some scaffolding, like here. I make sure to lay out all possible scenarios, including the one where someone ends up crying, because they can’t really envision the more long-term consequences beyond immediate gratification.

4. **** I knew he couldn’t hold all the options in his mind, so I started with the least desirable one, so he could immediately discard it mentally. Basically, I presented the options from least desirable to most desirable, and led him to (what I thought would be) the optimal option by saving it for last - without actually telling him what to do.

This one is just a bonus tip:

***** We could easily have had another fight here if one realized that he actually wanted the other’s job. So I just told them what to do, even though they were already doing it. If they’re doing something anyways, take back control of the situation by just allowing it to happen. I learned this from an experienced preschool Morah who would see a little boy trying to be sneaky, make eye contact and say, “I let you do that!” Takes all the fun out of it 😂

Also: critical to the success of this strategy is remaining calm and objective, not getting sucked into the drama, and not getting derailed by any internal triggers. If you need help with that, it’s covered in Chapter 4 of my online crash course for mothers, A Motherhood Manual.

Have you tried this? Will you try it?? Hit reply and tell me!