I was playing the simulated military game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 with my teenage son…and I'm really bad at it. The mission is to kill the bad guys or be killed. In real life, what do you do when someone takes aim at you and starts to fire? Fire back, right? Well, that's our instinct, but our call of duty is to receive the "friendly fire," and not pull the verbal trigger…even though everything in us says "let it rip!" Sometimes responding with a gentle answer like, "It makes me sad that you feel that way," or not responding at all is our call of duty. We should practice and teach peacemaking skills to our kids.

What's your parenting call of duty?