Servanthood Snapshot

The Scenario: Your teenage children—two boys and a girl—have been teasing each other mercilessly. Their banter starts out light and funny, but soon digresses into mean-spirited verbal punches. You want to restore their interactions to a more loving and caring place. What can you do?

The Solution: Try a “teasing fine” coupled with a “blessings jar.” Decorate two mason jars, one with the words “teasing fine jar” and one with the words “blessings jar.” For the “blessings jar,” cut slips of blank paper and put the paper and pens in a basket next to the jar.

Then gather the children together to explain the new “game.” For every time one of the teases another—no matter how benign the words or intent—that sibling must pay a dollar into the “teasing fine jar.” Then all siblings involved—the teaser and the teasee—must take a slip of paper and write down something they like about their siblings. Fold the paper and put it into the “blessings jar.” When the “blessings jar” has a good amount of paper, bring it to the table after dinner and pass it around for everyone to pull out a slip of paper and read the blessing.

These two ideas—tying teasing with a fine as well as writing down something they like about the sibling—should eventually greatly reduce the teasing and encourage more loving interactions between the siblings.

Excerpted from Ending Sibling Rivalry: Moving Your Kids From War to Peace, available in October. Posted with permission of Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City.