Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Mike Smith:
Ken, we’ve all seen it happen: when siblings disagree, conflict often escalates into angry verbal attacks. How can parents lead their children away from this type of response?

Ken Sande:
You know, Mike, this is exactly what my wife had to teach, both as a school counselor, and then when she developed the Young Peacemaker materials we use, is how to help children understand the power of words; they have great power. And one thing that Corlette would do, she developed something called the communication pie, that talks about our actual words, our tone of voice, our body language, how well we listen.

And one thing she did is she kept actually a diagram of that pie in the classroom. And when the kids started to swerve off, and the tongues were getting sharp, she would point to that pie or put the diagram on their table, and just walk through: remember about this and this. And she’d have the kids actually teach it back to her. They’d have to go through the concepts of how to use the tongue, how to engage to each other, etc.

The other thing that really helped was memorizing key Scriptures out of God’s word, on the power of the tongue, how it can bless, or it can cut, and how important it is we use our words in ways that honor others and bring honor to God.

Mike:
Well, thanks, Ken. That’s tremendous advice. Until next time, I’m Mike Smith.