The Art of
Compromise
Once your children learn to negotiate, your
home will be a happier place BY MARK ADAMS
Would you
negotiate
with the
Axis of Evil?
I break
bread with my own domestic
version every night. A man has
little choice when his adversaries
have infiltrated his home:
tracking mud through the living
room, leaving the toilet seats
up, snickering at requests that
they review their flash cards.
Each time we sit down at the
dinner table, my wife and I face
a tripartite cabal—ages 12, 6, and
3—that is determined to achieve
its selfish goals at any cost. After
some diplomatic trial and error,
we’ve reached an accord with the
older two. It’s the youngest one,
wielding a Hello Kitty spoon that
never leaves his grasp, who climbs
into his booster seat each night
ready for a battle of wills: my
baby-faced bête noire, Magnus.
Most dads spend a good
chunk of their days arbitrating
disagreements large and small
at work. Staffers want raises;
clients want better terms; bosses
want greater productivity
despite shrinking budgets. But
many men who spend their days
satisfying their always-right
customers refuse to negotiate
disputes with their children. The
logic seems simple. At work, give-
and-take is a lubricant that allows
the gears of motivated creative
thinkers to keep turning. At
home, the father is the wisest
OUTGUNNED? Even the
toughest kids can be taught
how to make a deal.
party in any disagreement,
period. Anyone who doesn’t like
it can go to his room.
I suppose that refusing to
bargain with your kids is fine, as
long as you don’t expect them to
ever have any dealings with other
human beings. Almost every
situation in life that involves two
or more people is a compromise
between parties with competing
interests, whether you’re stowing
overhead luggage or choosing
a wine. “Children know this
intuitively,” says Daniel Shapiro,
PhD, associate director of the
Harvard Negotiation Project and
coauthor of Beyond Reason: Using
Emotions as You Negotiate.
But kids are as naturally
inclined toward making small
concessions with an eye on the
larger reward as they are toward
bed making. They’re excellent
hardball bargainers, as anyone
who has witnessed a Toys “R” Us
meltdown knows. The little-tyrant act is almost every child’s
trump card, usually eliciting one
of two paternal responses: the
Hawk or the Dove. Hawks take
the never-surrender approach
toward family conflicts. They
demand obedience. Doves are
appeasers and will let a screaming
child cut paper dolls with a chain
