Personal Space

March 7, 2006 - 11:46 AM by

It’s a familiar scene in our house. Too familiar.

One of the kids will be sitting on the couch reading or playing in the living room. Another kid will come up, sit down right in his or her space and either start something in a demonstratively bothersome way, or try to enter uninvited into the first one’s activity.

The usual response: “I was here first.”

The mandatory reply: “It’s not your couch.”

Followed by: “Why can’t you sit somewhere else?”

“I’m not bothering you.”

“Yes you are.”

“Imma! Abba!”

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a little bickering between siblings. I certainly did it with my brother. But as this scenario gets played out, again and again, in exactly the same way, Jody and I as parents have felt increasingly powerless. There must be something we can do to help our kids – and keep peace in the family.

We decided to raise the subject at Family Meeting.

For several years years, we have held a Family Meeting every Saturday night, after dinner. We all gather around the dining room table, even seven-year-old Aviv (although he usually falls asleep before it’s over).

The main motivation for Family Meeting is the distribution of allowance…and the opportunity to kvetch. We have tried various techniques over the years to channel that griping into something more positive, such as going around the table and saying something nice about everyone else.

We’ve also integrated advice from a couple of books to guide our discussions: Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish’s “Siblings Without Rivalry”; “Love and Logic” by Foster Cline and Jim Fay; and “Teaching Your Children Responsibility” by Linda and Richard Eyre.

But when it came to addressing our recurrent bickering scenario, none of these sources really spoke to us.

And then something hit me. A flash of inspiration.

“Stand up,” I said to the kids.

“What for?” demanded Amir. He was comfortably slumped over the table, drumming with his fingers as fourteen-year-olds tend to do. Or so I’ve come to learn. But he did as he was told.

“I want you to stand still, Amir. And Merav,” I said to our twelve-year-old daughter, “I want you to come close to Amir. Now Amir, tell me when Merav is getting too close.”

“She’s already too close,” Amir replied immediately, although she was still half way across the room.

What I realized was that much of the incessant squabbling could be attributed to the issue of “personal space” – that invisible comfort boundary between people that we’re all supposed to know not to cross.

For some, personal space is an innately understood guideline. Others, however, appear clueless. You know the types: they stand too close, interrupt inappropriately, barge into a work meeting and start talking.

Personal space extends to vehicles. In fact, I belive many of the problems we have on the roads (in Israel in particular but not confined to our small aggressive country), from tailgating and passing on the right to road rage, can be traced back to a lack of understanding of personal space.

Which led to a question: is awareness of personal space teachable?

“Move closer,” I said to Merav as we continued our experiment

She did.

“Is that comfortable, Amir?”

She moved a little closer.

“How about now?

We did this several times and then switched so that it was Amir approaching Merav.

Merav reached out and started to hug Amir.

“Get her off of me!” Amir wailed.

But the point was made. We tried again with Aviv, who was eager to participate in this new “game.” I explained about the concept, then swept in for the summary.

“So, you see,” I said, “I’m thinking we can solve at least some of this constant fighting by just being more aware of personal space. On the couch or wherever. Do you think you can start using this new language?”

“Yeah, like she’s in my personal space right now by just being in the same house!” Amir said.

But this time, he said it with a smile.

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This article was cross posted at This Normal Life, which is hosted by Bloggerce, a new publishing service started by the author.

Tags: • Category: General, Life 

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