A couple of months ago, I ran into a young mother of two whom I adore. She hugged me (remember hugs?) and said, “I promise I'll read your book when the boys leave for college!” We shared a giggle of course, but there's some truth to what she said. The people for whom I wrote The Opposite of COMBAT are incredibly pressed for time.
Yes, one response I get to my book is, “who has time to read one?” That's why I initially posted the “quick version” on this blog. I'm confident that parents who read this digest, and who try some of the techniques, will be so pleased with the results that they will want to learn even more in order to hone their skills.
No time to mediate? Well, all bets are off now - you don't have time not to mediate! That's my first response. All of the normal, everyday buffers – between parent and parent, between parent and child, and between child and child – have been taken away from us. School, work, playdates, after-school activities, coaches and teachers kept us floating somewhat separately from each other, at least for substantial portions of each day. Suddenly everything is completely different. Quarantine is sure to result in elevated conflict – but the good news is that handling conflict intelligently builds social skills and buttresses relationships.
My second response is this: sometimes people mistake what I'm saying, and their takeaway is that I think they should mediate every squabble. Not so – I can't imagine doing this more than once a day and I think three times a week is a very reasonable goal to set. That's why I have a whole chapter in my book about deciding whether to mediate. Here's a tip from Chapter 7: if a conflict seems repetitive, and has a theme-and-variation quality to it, your time might be very well spent on a deeper dive.