In honor of summer vacation and the forced sibling together time that comes with it, we started by talking about sibling rivalry -- both in our households now and in our own childhoods. We looked at the effect on sibling relationships of large age differences, different phases of life, family reconfiguration, chore inequality, and parent expectations and experiences. Then we moved on to the natural consequence of sibling squabbles: parents yelling, even when they know they shouldn't. Inspired by an article on yelling and a book urging against it, we considered the value of yelling as a way to let off steam, the comparitive virtues of passive aggression, the way strong and loud emotions discombobulate some kids and have no effect on others, and the fact that often the person we're yelling at is not even the target of our anger.
Finally, we gave some recommendations for the week: Catherine referred us to articles on her site about being a Team Mom (and getting new reasons to yell) and exercises to do at the playground (adding "Workout Mom" to our list of playground moms); Amanda mentioned the Orange Rhino Challenge, which suggests that you might want to stop yelling at your kids for 365 whole days, as if; Nicole invited everyone to join her new Google+ group, Community of Inclusive Practice; and Terri offered articles on turning down the emotional volume in your home and giving yourself a temper tantrum. One final recommendation: If all the sound issues in this week's podcast make you feel like yelling, we recommend turning it into a game! Listen and see if you can find the sounds of script-rustling, note-writing, keyboard-tapping, and mouse-clicking. Most challenging of all, see if you can figure out what Terri was saying all those times her mic playfully removed every other syllable. Fun!
Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our episode and Kristen Eredics for our happy in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.