Material Girl...

We had an incident last night between the older girls that got me to thinking. Maybe I've not done such a good job at teaching them that people matter more than things. 

The eldest daughter is fiercely protective of her 'things' and she gets very upset about her little sister touching them. Some of that I can understand, they are always together, they share a room, and to be honest, middle daughter is, um, insistent to say the least lol. So, yeah, she doesn't want her things to be touched or messed with, she likes things just so, and I do want to honor and respect that.

Where it crosses the line for me, though, is when there is so much anxiety about things being touched that it causes her to be unkind. So that's exactly what happened. I was left not all too sure how to handle the situation without adding to the already there resentment or rivalry. I needed to make sure that my oldest daughter understood that she was putting her 'things' before her sister and that it wasn't ok. At the same time, I do want to help her learn how to set a boundary around something that belongs to her. I want my middle daughter to know she is important and loved by her sister, and yet, that she has to maintain other peoples limits. She has a hard time with that. 

So, in the heat of the moment, I was angry, hurt, and I felt as though I had failed at teaching this big important thing. My children were hurting each other over a silly little toy, something that honestly, until yesterday, was completely forgotten by them. 

How could I show her? We talked a lot last night, and though I was seething, I do think I handled it ok. I told her that she's been putting the safety of her toys over the safety of her sister, so for a while, I'd be keeping them safe for her. That way, she doesn't have to worry, and can focus instead on extending kindness to her sister. 

Then I got to wondering if *I* had treated them as less than any of my special things...you know like, my computer or phone, or my 'break' time...have I ever made them feel like they were less important than those things?