Fights between siblings can erupt in a nano-second and the challenge for parents is to help calm things down before someone gets hurt.
Reasoning with small people invariably doesn’t work so the wily among us will use whatever tricks we can, and Frozen 2 star Kristen Bell has a good one.
Knowing her daughters, Delta, 4, and Lincoln, 6, are among the millions of little girls and boys in the world who are Frozen fans – and having the distinct advantage of being the voice of Anna in the movie – Kristen has devised an ingenious Frozen-themed strategy.
The 39-year-old actress, who also stars in the popular Netflix series, The Good Place, told People that when Delta and Lincoln get into an argument she asks them to put themselves in Anna and Elsa’s shoes.
“I will go like, ‘Well, Elsa would have never said that to Anna,'” Kristen says.
“Literally! I’ll go, ‘What do you think Anna and Elsa would do about wanting to share this toy?'”
Of course it may not work on the very, very angry small person – but studies have shown that kids can feel empathy and put themselves in others’ shoes from the age of around two years old, so there is a chance of success.
Kristen also revealed to People that Anna is not her girls’ favourite Frozen sister. Ouch.
“Their favourite is Elsa. They both love Elsa,” Kristen told the publication.
Kristen said that when her girls first saw Frozen they weren’t instant fans. “They liked it, but didn’t love it,” she said. “And I find that so funny because I think it’s in your DNA to reject your parents.”
Now “they like it very much” but she thinks that’s more “because it’s culturally sort of a phenomenon”.
Whatever works, we say!
