September’s Value:  Peaceability
By Richard and Linda Eyre

Welcome to the second installment, the second unit, the second month, the second value in the Meridian Family Value of the Month series (click here to read the explanatory introductory column; you can also go to www.valuesparenting.com  for additional information on each value). The idea is for us all to focus on the same value each month, and to share our ideas and methods with each other as parents.

Through the year ahead we will focus on one particular and specific value that all parents want for their children (and for themselves). For a complete list of the Meridian Family Values, click and read the overview of monthly values.

You are also invited to send your own ideas and methods for teaching this value by writing editorial@meridianmagazine.com  We will post your ideas so that we can all learn from each other.

September’s Value: “Peaceability”

We hope you enjoyed last month’s value of Courage.  Now, as we start September, let us turn our attention to the marvelous and highly desirable family value of Peaceability.  Here is how we define this value:

Calmness. Peacefulness. Serenity. The tendency to try to accommodate rather than argue. The understanding that differences are seldom resolved through conflict and that meanness in others is an indication of their problem or insecurity and thus of their need for your understanding. The ability to understand how others feel rather than simply reacting to them. Control of temper.

I (Richard) remember the reaction of one of our boys years ago as we watched an old episode of Ozzie and Harriet. As usual with that show memories flooded back, but not very much was happening. No car chases, no murder plots, not even any soap opera drama. I sat down to watch. Ricky had some kind of problem at school which he was calmly explaining. Ozzie was putting  his arm around Ricky and calmly saying, “Now, don’t worry, son, we’ll work this out.”

When the show was over, I asked my eight-year-old if he liked it. “Yessss!” he said, “I like that show a lot. When is it on again?” When I asked him why he liked it, he thought for a minute and said, “It just so peaceful.  It made me feel calm and good.”

Children need calmness. It gives them a kind of security. Peace and the control of temper  is a powerful and important value that is largely a product of  love and of the atmosphere created in a home! During the month of and irritation. Just as there are a lot of ways to be cowardly (thinking of last month’s value of courage)t, there are a lot of ways to be  unpeaceable. Peaceability does not mean the elimination or ignoring of emotions. Rather, it means to control them and to prevent their causing hurt to other people.

Calmness and peaceability are values because they help others as well as ourselves to  feel better and to function better.  In addition to being values, they are contagious qualities. As you develop them within yourself, they are “caught” by others around you, particularly by your children.

Below are some general guidelines for enhancing and increasing the peaceability in your home.  As you strive to implement them, we will come back each week here on Meridian with ideas tailored to different ages of children.  And don’t forget to send in your own ideas or methods.  (And to go to valuesparenting.com for still more inputs and insights regarding the goal of more peaceful homes.) In September, Meridian parents are invited to focus and concentrate on this important value. Understanding is the key to it. We seldom lose our temper when we are trying to understand. Children who are taught to try to understand why things happen and why people act the way they do will become calmer and more in control.

We have used the term peaceability to mean understanding, calmness, patience, control, and accommodation—essentially the opposite of anger, losing one’s temper, impatience,

General Guildelines

1. Create a peaceful atmosphere in your home. Try to enhance the setting in which you live and teach this value. Improve the calmness of your home by (a) playing restful music—much classical music creates a feeling of refinement, order, and peace; (b) controlling the tone and decibel level of your own voice—yelling accomplishes little and instantly punctures a peaceable atmosphere; (c) touching others in your family—we talk more softly when we touch; put a hand on a shoulder or arm as you speak to your child.

In our large family the “antipeace” reaches its peak about dinnertime. Everyone is talking, louder  and louder, trying to be heard. Everyone needs something. The only way to get everyone’s attention is to yell louder than they are yelling. 

One day I (Linda) happened to read a magazine article about the universal om chanted by Eastern meditators to calm their minds. When the noise started that evening at dinner, for want of anything better to do, I sat at the head of the table, breathed deeply, lowered my eyes, cupped my hands, and started chanting, “ommmmmmmmm.”

Partly out of amazement and curiosity, the children fell into a hushed silence. Then there were questions.  “What are you doing? Don’t you feel well?”

Linda said, “Hold hands and do it, too.” Willing to try anything once, they did, and for a couple of interesting minutes this usually boisterous and competitive family harmonized in a calm chorus of ommmmmmms.

We use that method almost every day now at dinner—to calm us all down, to get everyone to stop talking for a moment, to prepares us for the prayer of thanks we say before eating. It  has become a collective way of saying “I love you” to  each other and of setting the stage for a reasonably civilized evening together. An alternative is to simply have one minute of total silence before starting dinner.

2. Set an example of and have an advance commitment to calmness. Demonstrate the practice and the benefits of peaceability to your children and take advantage of the quality’s “contagiousness.” It is natural, as a parent, to say, “I have the right to get upset,” or “They needed that.” but no matter how much “right” we have, getting upset with children simply doesn’t work very well, and children really don’t “need” to see us lose our temper.

There is occasionally a place for “righteous indignation” – when children willfully and flagrantly do something they know is wrong. But too often our anger comes from our own frustration and sets negative and even dangerous precedents. Unfortunately anger, volatility, and impatience are as contagious as calmness. Children frequently exposed to it inevitably become frequent expressors of it.

3. Learn to program yourself for calmness. Spend a quiet minute or two alone in your room (or in the bathroom) each morning before going out to face the family. Decide in advance to react calmly to upset, feisty, or aggravating children. Do the same kind of self-programming when returning home from work.

I (Richard) have a friend with a rather interesting method for avoiding any carryover of his work frustrations to his family and for helping himself respond peacefully to his family’s needs. He pulls into the garage after a hard day at the office, pushes his automatic garage door closer, and then sits there in the dark car, imagining the worst scenario for what might be happening inside his home. He imagines that they house will  be a mess, children will be fighting, his wife will look unhappy and will have had a bad day at work, and no one will have started dinner. Then he imagines himself reacting calmly, helpfully, understandingly.

Then, he says, “I go in, and one of two things happens: Either it is exactly like I imagined and I react the way I planned or things are better than I imagined, in which case I feel happy and grateful.”

4. Teach by praise. Try to develop a “contagious calm” in yourself and to build it in children though positive praise.

Besides working to stay calm within ourselves, and trying to respond in a peaceful way, parents need to learn that “praise is peaceful” while “negative is nervous.”

One summer I (Linda) had the rare opportunity of spending three days in Scotland with our three oldest children. I had envisioned seventy-two blissful hours having these children all to myself learning wonderful things about history and culture, but it was not to be. One child didn’t like Scottish food and couldn’t think of any food but McDonald’s (she claimed  it sounded Scottish anyway); another child wanted to get up early and see everything, and another wanted to sleep.

While one child carefully went through every room and read every sign in every castle, another wanted to hurry though everywhere in order to be able to see everything. I was disgusted with the picky eater, irritated with the squabbles and disappointed that we had come such a long way to have a miserable time. I didn’t mind letting the children know exactly how I felt. Angrily I pointed out everything that everyone was doing wrong.

That night I lay awake searching my mind for ways to change my children so that we could turn the fiasco into a festival. Suddenly I was struck with the thought that before I could change the children, I must change myself. Peaceability had to start with me.

The next morning I began looking for things to praise instead of criticize about the children’s behavior. I latched onto each little thing that was praiseworthy.  “How did you get dressed so fast?” “Thanks for not complaining about sleeping on the cot. Tomorrow night you get the best bed!” “Your hair looks nice today,” and so on. Like magic the mood became mellow. The more I expressed positive feelings and praise, the more children responded with smiles and sympathy for each other. I tried to respond to every negative remark with a positive one.  By afternoon we had had one of the greatest days any of us could remember and certainly one that none of us will forget.