“Every story needs tension to be good.” – ND Wilson
Every family has conflict. It is an inevitable part of living life with other sinful beings. Our family has gone through big changes in the last few years as our kids have reached adulthood, one by one. Having children so close in age was exhausting when they were young, but it’s a different kind of exhausting as they mature. There are emotional taxes for everyone and a fair amount of conflict.
My husband and I have never disagreed very much, but we surely have differences of opinion and the occasional argument. However, we realized several years ago that our children never saw us argue. One day, we realized we had failed to teach that disagreements are normal and ok by the looks of silent devastation on our children’s faces when we had an argument in the van. It was one of those inevitable moments of childhood when the pedestals of parents wobble just a little. It was a good, hard lesson for us all.
We still do most of our arguing in private, because that’s just polite; but since that day in the van, we have made a conscious effort to model good arguments and grace in front of our kids. We know each other’s body language, we interpret the sideways glances and silent pauses, and we have gotten smarter about timing.
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