The Sibling Noooooo's!!!!

tehehe, S., you'll love this:

We had just gotten home from a friends bday party. My boys, then 6 and 4, were given one blow up baseball, like a beachball, ONE between the two of them, sigh. A nice Dad offered to blow it up for them at the party (grrr), so you can imagine THAT ride home was just SO much fun.

Then, while I was rushing to get dinner ready, the oldest was trying the keep away game with the middle who was in turn being mean to the THIRD who was only 18 months.

I was only 15 feet from them all and could hear them, but could not see them. Sooo, after putting down what I was doing THREE TIMES to go in to correct the behavior....

I heard the oldest say...FINE you HAVE it then. I then heard the ball hit a child's head hard, and heard the 2nd child's head hit the THIRD child's head, and the 3rd head hit the floor, THUNK!

At which time I stopped cutting sandwiches, went in the living room to find the lot of them in a stunned heap on the hardwood floor...

I yelled something like THAT. IS. IT! And shuffled over and POPPED the damn beach ball with the knife I still held in my hand.

After a brief moment of silence, all three of them burst into tears and scrambled upstairs. I heard doors close, one, two, three, even the little one.

(So how's THAT for a warm fuzzy childhood memory; Crazy Wildeyed Mom, face twisted with Rage, standing over the wounded pile of little ones with a butter knife in her raised fist?! Perhaps I should cut and paste this in Cheryl's 'Proud Mommy Moments' post! BAHAWAHA!)

I vaguely remember the constant that's mine type of squabbling subsiding somewhat after that.

I should mention, when my oldest son left for college, his brother was like a lost toddler in a shopping mall. They had gotten very close. Now, the middle is looking at schools near his brother so they can be close (plus they only have one car between the two of them, tehehe).

So don't try this at home folks. I think what you're doing is just fine. They'll get it.

:)

Honestly, they're going to have to figure it out for themselves! :)
In the meantime, teaching discipline such as the timeouts is the way to go in order to prevent accidents or injuries. And definitely praise them when you see them interacting positively together "Timmy, you're playing so nicely with your sister! That's great!" "Sammi, that's so good of you to let Timmy play with your stuffed animal! You're a great big sister!"

It's a loooooonnnnnggggg process :) So don't get discouraged when your hair is gone and you've decided that they are 'deaf'. Remember too, that your 20 mo old had limited means for communication as speaking skills are minimal and pushing and hitting are methods that work for him right now. Subsitution (convincing one of the kids that a different toy is more fun than the one being fought over) worked for me -- sometimes :)

I wish I had a good answer for you. My kids fight like crazy over everything. My son is 7 and my daughter is 4.5. They fight over toys, one of them making a sound, who talks to me first, who sits next to me. There are plenty of timeouts at our house.

The short answer is that you CAN'T "teach" them to share .... they need to outgrow the "self-centred" stage. I even looked after twins of wealthy parents who had 2 of EVERYTHING exactly the same (eg 2 toy phones same make, colour & absolutely identical to our adult eyes) and they'd STILL fight over the one that the sister was holding! My son is 3 years older than my daughter. I put a child gate on his bedroom door to keep her out! It was the only way to stop them fighting cos that way she couldn't get into "his" toys. Don't worry, they eventually DO outgrow this frustrating phase. My kids are now 18 and 15 years old and they get along great ... most of the time :) Good luck!

When my kids fight over a toy, etc., I calmly walk over and tell them how sad I am that I just bought them a fight. They get ONE warning and then if I hear ANYTHING, I ask one of them to bring it to me and they lose that toy for at least 24 hours, but usually a week. Then, when I go to give it back, I ask them if they are going to flight over it and without too many words, explain that they are best friends and need to figure things out before there is ugly language, etc.

We never buy more than 1 of the same toy. I want them to learn sharing, conflict resolution, etc. I have friends that buy each kid the exact same toy. Not me....figure it out or lose the toy. The real world doesn't care about how you feel.

Pushing and hitting is NOT tolerated in our house, at all. My DD is the aggressive one, while my DS is the crybaby....over every little scrape, hurt feeling, etc. Apologies, hugs AND kisses are in order AND if the aggressor does it again, then usually, I'll commit the same offense in order for the aggressor to learn that they don't like it. I also explain that if they hit someone it's the same as telling them it's ok to do the same back to me. My DD doesn't get that when she hits, it hurts, so sometimes I have to give her a dose of the same medicine to get her to understand. Usually, she gets it. I've never had to do this with the boys. They learn just by verbal explanation. They are all different. Words mean NOTHING to my DD. She's exhausting.

My kids are a little bit older than yours (6yr old daughter & 3 yr old son) but whenever they start fighting over anything I make them hold hands on the couch. They have to agree to get along before they are allowed off the couch. If they start bickering now, I ask do you want to hold hands? It stops right away.