Unison Parenting Blog: Give Me One Story

I recently saw an article by a parenting advisor who came up with a convoluted scheme for settling arguments between siblings who disagreed on what happened. Essentially, the scheme told parents to punish everybody until the truth came out.

I looked at my wife and said, "We had a much simpler and more effective idea." She agreed.

It's called "Give Me One Story," and it always worked like a charm.

When faced with a situation where the stories don't line up, tell every child involved, "Go into that room, and don't come out until you have one story on what happened."

Before entering the room, you might hear, "He did that to me!" followed by, "Oh, yeah? Well, she did this to me!" But when they exit, one story sounds more like a sequence of events: "First, I did this. Then he did that. Then I did this in return. Really, we were both at fault."

Once the kids get trained on this technique, it becomes easier. My boys were well-versed by the time a guest came over, and a flap occurred between the three of them. When I inquired, the guest was relaying a very different story than our children, who looked at me with eyes that told me what was really going on. So, I explained "Give Me One Story" and sent them off. The guest's father was also visiting and expressed his admiration for the technique, which was new to him. When the three boys returned, the guest confessed that he had been the instigator of everything, and we were able to move on.

The beauty of "Give Me One Story" is it provides a structured way to place responsibility on the children to find the truth, admit fault, and learn to resolve conflict themselves. Actually, if you think about it, adults could benefit from this technique too.