Monthly Archives: November 2013

Why do they fight with each-other?

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Raising happy and powerful kidsWhen starting to create my family, I was clear that I would like to have 2 and even 3 children. In my dream, I saw them playing together, the grown-ups support the young-ones in their growth. I was aware that in many other families, and in many stories that I heard – there were fights and conflicts between the children. But, I thought that in good parenthood and proper attention, these fights can be prevented.

Nowadays, looking at how they behave with each-other, sometimes it is very far from my dream. What went wrong? What is it that got our children to be kind to other children, but, negative and sometimes hostile to each-other?

This reality is very common in most families. This happens, not because we intend bring up our children to be selfish. But we are falling into some simple mistakes that are creating nurturing ground for these fights to occur.

Some of those mistakes are:

  • We believe that our children are not manipulative, and thus show them that it works for their selfishness to manipulate us.
  • We believe that we need to protect the ‘weak-ones’ without considering that those are manipulations
  • We tend to lecture about how important it is to be one good family, but we do not let the children pay the consequences when they violate it
  • We tend to ‘solve’ the problems, and thus let the children manipulate us
  • WE do not maintain a clear ‘family-culture’ that brings the wanted family dream into      fulfillment, but we move into fast-reactions.
  • Above all – we do not lead and train our children into the wanted culture, but we expect them to get it out of our ‘preaching’ speeches.

Once family-culture is created and translated into functioning definitions – clarity will show-up for all family members. This is the beginning step. The next step is to create a leadership concept within the family that will allow every member to identify benefits and prices in the family life. The next step will be to maintain the ‘family-culture’ and to translate events from family life into growth process. This is a path that must be followed regularly, and cannot be neglected.

It looks as a hard work. NO – it is different. It is much harder and more painful, many years later to see the whole family structure collapses. The it will be to-late.


This is one in a series of blogs by Yiftach Sagiv about how we can raise happy and powerful kids. If you want to know more about the program than go to the Essence website for more info.