My dilemma

This week I am going to work on the following:

So I have three kids which among other things (like lots of laughter, hugs, smiles, fun) means that I hear squabbling ALL THE TIME! When I think about it logically I know that there are times I need to step in and help them practice how to work out their problems and there are times when I need to stay back and let them practice working out their problems. In reality, I think that I step in too much. OK, I know I do, because I step in just about every time.

Experiment 1: Jon is playing with cars and Becca wants to join. Now let me fill you in that this happens one hundred and one times a day, so I have stepped in to "solve" this problem some forty thousand times in the last year - exhausting! So this time I stayed in the other room and listened. I don't think it went well because there was a lot of yelling and Becca came to me crying and holding her teeth. I think she probably got hit in the mouth. And this is usually why I step in - the younger one in the squabble tends to get the raw end of the deal. But while I'm comforting Becca, Jon runs upstairs and brings down a teddy bear for Becca "because she is cwy-ing" (crying in Jon speak). So maybe it didn't end so bad.

Experiment 2: Jon is playing with cars and Becca wants to join (3 minutes after Experiment 1's half failure), so you see I may not have been joking about the 101 times a day! I hear Jon saying something about his "faborite" car and Becca crying and then Jon proceeds to tell Becca that she can have some other cars and gives her some. Becca comes around the corner with car in hand and a big smile and I shed a tear (ok maybe just a big sigh) at how sweet big brother Jon can be.