Real vs. Not Real

I have reverted my 6 year old daughter E and 4 year old son C to only watching Daniel Tiger for a while since their arguing and C’s hitting has been spiking up. They have been watching a bunch of different episodes and as a parent, I feel comfortable that the show is produced with experts that focus on how kids should model the right kids in behaviors in difficult circumstances.

In one particular episode, Daniel gets really mad about a bunch of different things. He wants to start hitting, but thankfully, he always comes to his senses by singing the right songs and remembering the right lessons to calm him down. C started to come up with his own theories about why it makes sense to calm down In those charged situations - it’s because the things people usually fight over aren’t real and who people end up hitting are actually real. His real vs. not real (or actually alive vs. not alive) is a good lesson to come up with at his age.

C still has some room to grow into so he isn’t hitting as often. Even though he knows the right lesson, it’s hard to apply them in the heat of the moment. One morning when we were still doing a stamp chart for doing their mini chores, E used C’s stamp to stamp her chart without asking. This created a huge fight and C started to hit E. I had to break it up and my wife came in to help separate the two.

I know C felt bad about what happened and apologized to E afterwards. He also reiterated that the stamp wasn’t real so he shouldn’t have reacted the way he did to someone who is real to him - E. Overall, we will get there and I know C loves his big sister very much. We will just get through these situations and come out with a better appreciation of how we all got to the end of the tunnel.