Distractions

I've tried taking a toy away when 2 kids were fighting over it, but sometimes this caused unfavorable results (the kids were more mad at each other because they blamed one another - and me- for having their toy taken away).

This is something else that reading about the Spartan lawgiver, Lycurgus, got me thinking about...

Something he did to keep his people temperate is to take away all distractions. For instance, he had them trade in all their gold and silver for iron (which was too cumbersome and heavy to be of any use). This eliminated many temptations that would be a harm to his ideal state.

Alexander the Great did the same thing when his soldiers were getting weighed down with too much booty - he just burnt it all - and they were glad of it.

This got me thinking that a good way to help the kids focus on the vision we have for our family would be to get rid of things that distract us from that goal.

In the last April conference, Elder Uchtdorf's talk "We are Doing a Great Work and Can Not Come Down" was very inpiring about this.

I've tried to get rid of distractions as I see them, but there are so many of them - and THINGS seem to cause plenty of contention around here.

I explained this to the kids, "If something is keeping us from being an eternal, happy family - isn't that thing worth getting rid of?" They agreed that it was. I told them we would be getting rid of any THING that caused contention. They agreed.

The first trial was harder than I expected. Spice and Bud were fighting over a toy that happened to belong to Little Miss. I said, "That is so sad that we have to get rid of Little Miss' toy when this wasn't even her fault. They both gave Little Miss the toy and asked me to please not take it from her. I didn't - on the condition that they wouldn't let it cause any more contention.

Another instance was just as hard because one person WAS being unfair and I wanted to step in and help the other, but I wanted them to work it out on their own so I took the toy, explaining that it was not more important than the love I knew they had for each other. In a short time, the unfair person saw her fault and asked me to give the toy to her sister.

I think taking toys is working this time because they are seeing the whole picture - what we're trying to accomplish. They see the "love of things" for what it is - a distraction from our goal.


(no this isn't a picture of our play room)