{"id":115,"date":"2006-02-23T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-02-23T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/?p=115"},"modified":"2009-12-29T15:00:27","modified_gmt":"2009-12-29T13:00:27","slug":"personal-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/2006\/02\/personal-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal Space"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a familiar scene in our house. Too familiar.<\/p>\n

One of the kids will be sitting on the couch reading or playing in the
\nliving room. Another kid will come up, sit down right in his or her
\nspace and either start something in a demonstratively bothersome way,
\nor try to enter uninvited into the first one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s activity.<\/p>\n

The usual response: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was here first.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The mandatory reply: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not your couch.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Followed by: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you sit somewhere else?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not bothering you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes you are.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Imma! Abba!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Now, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing wrong with a little bickering between siblings. I
\ncertainly did it with my brother. But as this scenario gets played out,
\nagain and again, in exactly the same way, Jody and I as parents have
\nfelt increasingly powerless. There must be something<\/span> we can do to help
\nour kids \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and keep peace in the family.<\/p>\n

We decided to raise the subject at Family Meeting.<\/p>\n

For several years years, we have held a Family Meeting every Saturday
\nnight, after dinner. We all gather around the dining room table, even
\nseven-year-old Aviv (although he usually falls asleep before it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s over).<\/p>\n

The main motivation for Family Meeting is the distribution of allowance\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6and the opportunity to kvetch<\/span>.
\nWe have tried various techniques over the years to channel that griping
\ninto something more positive, such as going around the table and saying
\nsomething nice about everyone else.<\/p>\n

We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve also integrated advice from a couple of books to guide our
\ndiscussions: Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Siblings Without
\nRivalry<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Love and Logic<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Foster Cline and Jim Fay; and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Teaching
\nYour Children Responsibility<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Linda and Richard Eyre.<\/p>\n

But when it came to addressing our recurrent bickering scenario, none of these sources really spoke to us.<\/p>\n

And then something hit me. A flash of inspiration.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stand up,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said to the kids.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What for?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d demanded Amir. He was comfortably slumped over the table,
\ndrumming with his fingers as fourteen-year-olds tend to do. Or so I’ve
\ncome to learn. But he did as he was told.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I want you to stand still, Amir. And Merav,” I said to our
\ntwelve-year-old daughter, “I want you to come close to Amir. Now Amir,
\ntell me when Merav is getting too close.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s already too close,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Amir replied immediately, although she was still half way across the room.<\/p>\n

What I realized was that much of the incessant squabbling could be
\nattributed to the issue of “personal space” – that invisible comfort
\nboundary between people that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all supposed to know not to cross.<\/p>\n

For some, personal space is an innately understood guideline. Others,
\nhowever, appear clueless. You know the types: they stand too close,
\ninterrupt inappropriately, barge into a work meeting and start talking.<\/p>\n

Personal space extends to vehicles. In fact, I belive many of the
\nproblems we have on the roads (in Israel in particular but not confined
\nto our small aggressive country), from tailgating and passing on the
\nright to road rage, can be traced back to a lack of understanding of
\npersonal space.<\/p>\n

Which led to a question: is awareness of personal space teachable?<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Move closer,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said to Merav as we continued our experiment<\/p>\n

She did.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Is that comfortable, Amir?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

She moved a little closer.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153How about now?<\/p>\n

We did this several times and then switched so that it was Amir approaching Merav.<\/p>\n

Merav reached out and started to hug Amir.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Get her off of me!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Amir wailed.<\/p>\n

But the point was made. We tried again with Aviv, who was eager to
\nparticipate in this new “game.” I explained about the concept, then
\nswept in for the summary.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So, you see,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking we can solve at least some of this constant
\nfighting by just being more aware of personal space. On the couch or
\nwherever. Do you think you can start using this new language?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yeah, like she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in my personal space right now by just being in the same house!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Amir said.<\/p>\n

But this time, he said it with a smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a familiar scene in our house. Too familiar. One of the kids will be sitting on the couch reading or playing in the living room. Another kid will come up, sit down right in his or her space and either start something in a demonstratively bothersome way, or try to enter uninvited into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1272,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/1272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}