‘The Pioneer Woman’: Ree Drummond Revealed Her Perfect Parenting Technique for Breaking Up Her Kids’ Fights
Ree Drummond’s kids have no doubt had their squabbles over the years but The Pioneer Woman star has developed a parenting approach that’s effective when the kids are bickering. Her advice involves, in part, handshakes or hugs to calm the situation.
Ree Drummond shared her parenting advice for bickering kids
In 2020, Drummond shared an easy tip for keeping the peace in a house with five kids. She explained during an Instagram Live with her daughter Paige that she tries to be hands-off but sometimes she might step in and shut it down.
“I don’t get too involved in refereeing because they kind of have to learn to figure it out,” Drummond explained (via The Pioneer Woman website). “But for, like, really bickering and fighting I just order them to stop.”
Paige added, “Or hug! She makes us hug and shake hands.”
Drummond admitted that hugs can be a way to calm things down and might even end with some laughing, which distracts them from the argument. “Yes, or hug,” Drummond said. “I make them hug a lot because that actually diffuses it.”
Drummond said there had been some ‘tricky’ moments
In her book Frontier Follies, Drummond shared that there had been some “tricky” moments when their “bonus kid” Jamar joined the family.
“Fostering a kid was never something Ladd and I pursued or felt called to do, but Jamar’s circumstances presented themselves to us in a way we couldn’t ignore,” she wrote. “So, long story short, all six foot five inches of him showed up at our house one afternoon, bag in hand, ready to move in.”
She continued, “Ladd, who had the initial idea to have Jamar live with us, had met him a couple of times during high school football practice that summer. My boys knew him, too.”
While Drummond beamed about their newest kid, she admitted that there were some kinks to work out, pointing out how there were “tricky” moments.
“We’ve had a few bumps in the road here and there that we’ve had to address — but the same thing is true with Bryce and Todd, or any teenager, for that matter,” she explained. “In fact, having two teenage boys of our own has turned out to be both a challenge and an advantage during this whole process. A challenge, because Jamar and Bryce are just a month apart in age, and there’ve been some natural turf wars and personality clashes that Ladd and I have had to referee.”
She continued, “It can be tricky, because we’re mindful not to make Bryce feel like his whole life at home has changed, but we’re also mindful not to default to taking Bryce’s side over Jamar’s. Bottom line, we make them shake hands a lot.”
