Strength in Forgiveness

4 of 10 in the series ‘Children Home Rules - They’re Not Just for Kids’

Here at W. Kim Tae Kwon Do, we have a set of rules that we give every child that joins our program.  This list is called Children Home Rules.  Basically, it’s a set of rules that aren’t any different from the rules that parents already have at home.  They aren’t new, but they serve as a handy tool for reinforcement.

Children Home Rule #4 - 

Children must maintain a good relationship with their brothers and sisters.

Family is complicated and sometimes confusing.  

I have watched my own boys be the best of friends and then somehow later they can become the worst of enemies.

Recalling my own upbringing, my brother and I had a similar experience, although I’m not proud to admit that we didn’t really start to become real friends until after I left for college.

My boys have something that I wished I’d cultivated growing up.  They are real friends.  Do they get on each other’s nerves sometimes?  Absolutely.  But it shows in their relationship that they love each other, not because they are apologetic but because they forgive.

This home rule won’t necessarily provide the same friendship and love that my boys have gained growing up, but it can help provide respect and also lead to greater self control.

It’s inevitable that our siblings can push our buttons like no one else.  How we react when that happens is what matters.

It’s perfectly normal to be annoyed, upset, or even angry with our siblings.  Some of these feelings are more volatile than others and that’s when we need to be careful.  Specifically, we should never speak out of anger or strike out of anger.  

That’s what we shouldn’t do, however, it does happen.  In fact, it’s probably unavoidable.

As we get older we develop better self control but it’s easy to blame our siblings for things that happened in our past, and still have lingering animosity because of bad judgement we had as children.

I talked a lot about pain in the last blog post.  While we don’t enjoy pain and mostly try to avoid it, it’s those trials caused by pain that help shape us and can make us stronger.  Forgiveness (especially forgiving siblings) can sometimes end up being the hardest thing we do, which can be a trial in itself.

Whether we like it or not we are who we are because of the trials we have faced.  Your siblings will still know which buttons to push.  However, it is up to us, when we get past those trials, to determine how we face the future.