Two sides of the coin...

Have you ever heard the saying, “Having one child makes you a parent, having two, makes you a referee!”

If you are one of those, left blowing the whistle all the time, frantically pulling out strands of hair from your own head each time there’s a fight, you’d probably be nodding your head in agreement with me!

Has it ever occurred to you that the first one to complain, always meticulously tips the odds in their favour? How you are almost inclined to believe everything that they say, coming to a speedy conclusion that the other one is most definitely wrong? What do you do then? Do you pounce on the other one who hasn’t been giving a fair chance to put their side forth? Or do you make an attempt to listen to both sides of the story and then draw your own conclusions?

As a parent, we are sometimes forced to come to a decision – who’s right, who’s wrong? And many a time, we succumb. We look at it from the angle that looks best to us and pronounce our verdict. But that’s where I want you to pause and reflect.

Is coming to a decision that important? What impact does pronouncing your verdict have on the morale of the one whose side you have forsaken? Will it ruin relationships in the long run? If you don’t want to take sides, is there anything else you can do?

Well, I have been tempted to prove myself to be a fair judge when it has come to resolving quarrels between my children. But over time, I’ve found that I have also managed to hurt the other one unwittingly. That’s when I choose to pause and reflect. And the more I reflect, I also realise that this applies to every aspect of our relationship – be it a quarrel between spouses, between family members, between friends, or even at the workplace.

Why should there be a quarrel or fight between two people?

I’ve always heard my mother tell me, that just as all five fingers on our hand are different, so are people and their opinions. We are conditioned differently, we have learned differently, we have different experiences about life, and we have faced our struggles differently. How then can we think alike? We are bound to disagree.

But just because we disagree, does one person become right and the other wrong? Each one is right from their own point of view.

When it comes to siblings, we may argue that they have been brought up in similar environments, and have had similar life experiences and struggles, then why the difference? While that is true, how can we forget that they still continue to be different individuals?  

 

Do personal biases creep in when we are the judge?

We may say, that as parents, we really do not have favourites, when it comes to our children. While we may not have favourites, we do tend to go by previous experiences when dealing with our children. The one who has frequent temper tantrums, the one who habitually lies to escape punishment, the one who has anger issues, automatically finds odds against them even before the entire issue has been listened to! How often have we jumped to conclusions like - ‘The younger one is naughty, it is possible that he broke the vase’, ‘the elder one is always bossy, it is possible that he hit the little one,’ ‘he is well behaved all the time, he couldn’t have screamed at his friend.’     

When we solve fights between our children and their friends, the bias becomes pronounced. It is easy to take sides when we know just one of them – right or wrong, be damned (pardon the language). It is equally true when are dealing with two people having a disagreement, the weight always tips in favour of the one we know better.   

 

Are our one-sided decisions ruining relationships?

Definitely. Hearing only one side of the story, means we have no understanding at all.

I remember reading somewhere that, ‘Too many people speak after hearing just one side a story. Judging a situation without being there and knowing the actual facts, ruins lives and relationships. So it is best to know the full story before attacking someone and making false accusations.’       

Profound, right?

I found that whether it is a fight between my children or between adults, the first storyteller always modifies the story to suit their own agenda or for their own benefit. In a fight, everyone wants themselves to look innocent or good. Hardly anyone is going to own up to their own goof-ups.

The little one will sometimes come to me and say, ‘Dada hit me. I was completing my work, I didn’t do anything.’ Now I know the elder one is the stronger one, and he has bullied the younger one on some occasions, so do I lash out at the elder one based on the version given by the younger one? Do I take him to the task? Would I be right to judge without hearing the other side of the story?

Accusing someone takes a second, but the impact it has on their morale is immense. It leaves one with a feeling of not being trusted enough. It leaves them with an impression of being alone in an unfair world. And this is as much true for adults as it is for children.  

 

Is being a judge so important?

Children do keep quarreling all the time. the disagreements are bound to happen. Are we going to be pushed to take on the role of a referee all the time? 

Though thousands of books have been written on parenting, nothing teaches you to be a good parent except your own experiences! We learn from our errors and lapses in judgment.

Being a parent has taught me certain things. I’ve learned to listen to both sides of the argument without any bias in my mind. But most importantly, I’ve realised that only listening is important; a judgment is totally unnecessary. I only end up hurting one child if I support the other. No matter what the situation is, both have their own reasons why they did what they did.

What children need is not to tell them who is right or who is wrong, but to talk to them about their actions and see if anything could be done differently. Toning down my angry voice and talking to them calmly, resisting the urge to say, ‘You shut up and listen to me first,’ and letting them see how the same situation could have been handled differently, are some things that have helped me bring a sense of peace in the house.

Just listening to them, or maybe giving them a different perspective, has worked wonders. In the end, my goal is to make them love each other and respect each other’s boundaries without overstepping their own. By judging their actions, by holding them accountable, by hurting their feelings, or by punishing them, I realise that they are more likely to drift apart, hating each other rather than knowing that despite the differences, they should have each other’s best interest at heart.

 

Can we agree to disagree?

Whether it is at home or at the workplace, it helps to understand that not everyone can agree with you. They are as entitled to their opinions as you are to yours. Not agreeing with you does not make them a bad person, unless someone is doing it out of malice. Is it not possible to coexist being individuals with diverse opinions, each as unique as the person having them? Are our opinion and judgment so important that we place them above our relationships with others?

Can we just agree to disagree? Can we realise that there are indeed two sides to a coin?