AoD (5)

My family life is somewhat stressful, and from this stress arguments usually occur. One of these arguments became very loud and crazy, and everyone was yelling at everyone else. Instead of becoming another addition to the noise and sanity pollution, I attempted to solve the problem through mediation.

I was upstairs doing homework when I heard yelling and commotion downstairs. Wanting some peace and quiet to concentrate, I proceeded to go downstairs and discover a solution to this problem. What I saw was my dad and sister yelling at each other, with my littler sister sitting in a chair crying. My mom was gone at the time. Wanting to help and stop the argument, I listened a while to he argument. It seemed that my sister, K, had hit my littler sister, S (not using names for personal reasons). This had caused S to go to my dad and tell him that K had beat her up, which led to my dad yelling at K because she had hit my sister. Trying to go deeper into the conflict, I asked what the heck was going on, to break the tension between them and to learn more about the situation. K began to tell her story, and was almost interuppted by S, but I told her to wait until K was done. Apparently K saw my sister drop our dog (we have a pug, so you can easily pick it up) and demanded that S put the dog down immediately, to which S replied no and ran away, with the dog. K grabbed her on the shoulder and then took the dog from her, putting it back into the pen, preventing S from getting it. S became angry with K and tried to kick her, to which K slapped her, all leading to the argument between her and dad. S then told her side of he story, saying that K had just randomly come up and grabbed the dog for no reason, and then dropped it in the pen, kicking my sister onto the ground. My dad was trying to get them both to agree to not argue about the dog, to be gentle around the dog, and to share holding the dog, but neither side was willing to negotiate with he other. I then told them both that they were going to get the dog, reassuring their side. I then told S and K to talk to each other, attempting to sort out how the problem would be prevented in the future. Several sarcastic remarks and close calls later, I realized that structure needed to be enforced in the conversaion. I told them both to tell me what they wanted, which was for the other not to take or try to take the dog from them. I said that in order to acomplish this they needed to share. Sadly, K did not want to share, and once again became stubborn, saying everyone hated her and that S was the spoiled brat. she then left for her room. I followed her, and tried to solve the problem through the locked door, but she refused to reply. Seeign that a mediation was not possible in the situation, I decided to place a timer on the counter above my dog's pen, and a piece of paper saying, "If someone else wants to play with/hold the dog, they must wait for 10 minutes after asking the other person." My dad approved of this method of control, and so far, it has worked relatiely well, although constant maintainence is required. This mediation might n ot fit the regular defining boundaries of a win-win negotiation, but the outcome led to a better, and more importantly quieter, solution.