I Winned!

For all of Joel's tenderheartedness and gentleness with his little brother, James is aggressive and conniving back. No thankfulness on his part yet for a nurturing elder sibling. This upsets Joel to no end, and he has no idea how to handle these "situations" or "rows" or ... fights. If James takes something away from him, Joel doesn't want to go get it back. James is more than half his size and strong. It's never easy to go up against him on anything. So one day when James had sent Joel into a crying fit, I explained to Joel how James doesn't care about this or that, he just wants to see what Joel will do about it. It's all about power and not about substance with him. So I told Joel if he wanted to win, he must be strong on the inside and not be a bad boy and throw a fit. If he throws a fit, then James has won, but if he doesn't throw a fit, then he has won. Later that afternoon I heard some growling cries coming from the playroom. It was Joel. A few minutes later I heard James crying. Upon investigation, Joel came running up to me saying, "Mama, James hit me with --- and took ---, and I hit him back and he gave me back my --- and I winned!"

And so it was Mama who learned a lesson that day, and not Joel. At least, he didn't understand the lesson that I tried to teach him. We had to talk about not hitting each other for quite a while after that. But this episode did teach Joel to stand up for himself a little better, and that's a good thing.