The Key to Successful Politics

I’m standing in the kitchen and the sound of feet running – four small feet -- pounds down the stairs, around the corner and toward me.

“I’m just, I’m just, I’m just…!” shouts Jaelyn

“Give it back me! Give it back me!” Addison’s shouts intermingle with his sisters.

Jaelyn appears first, running full tilt a fist clenched in the air. Addison jumps at the fist like a puppy toward a bone. Only --- this puppy is angry.

“Give it me!” he shouts.

Jaelyn uses a condescending tone as she leaps away from him and places the Quarter on the counter next to me: “I’m just showing Daddy!”

“But I was reaching down to get it and she took it!” He shouts.

They repeat the same mantras louder and louder until the kitchen is so full of speech bubbles that none of us have any room left for thought bubbles.

“Alright!” I shout, mustering my most stringent dictatorial tone. “EVERYbody to time out!”

Once they are sitting on the stairs, I explain the rules of the next Act:

1. No one may stand up out of time out until everyone is ready.
2. They must negotiate a compromise that everyone affirms.
3. Once they have agreed upon a compromise, they must bring it to me and tell me what they’ve decided.

If any rules are broken, the punishments will grow much more severe.

I go and sit on the couch and wait. The following is a close to verbatim translation:

ADDISON: Well! Jae-jae. I found the quarter and you just took it away from me and ran away and I said that I wanted it. And you not listen to me!

JAELYN: Okay. Well. I was thinking that I would bring the money to Daddy and then when we find another money then we would divide it evenly. Then we would both have money equally.

(she’s really selling it and she stands up to pace as she waxes eloquent. I chasten her back into her seat.)

JAELYN: So that way we both have the same much money.

ADDISON: And THEN! When we both have money, we both buy computers for ourselves. And then when we go somewhere and we see a treat, we’ll just put the quarters in the machine and get our treats!

JAELYN: Okay!

And they run to tell me the agreement. I confirm the details with Addison:

“you’re going to buy computers first with your quarters and then use them for treats?”

They’re both happy and delighted with each other. If only all of politics were so simple. On the other hand – if this sort of interaction were normal, there’d be no such thing as dramatic action and rising stakes through dialogue in conflict…

Peace~