When you think about having a second or third child, you don't normally envisage that your children will fight with each other. Instead there are usually images of sibling togetherness and fun as they have their own homegrown playmate. And most of the time this is true - your children will be companions for each other.
Researchers tell us that 36 million acts of sibling rivalry occur every year. Some are severe. Most are normal. When your kids fight, they want you in the middle. They want you to be the judge and jury. They each want you to take their side. I remember my own mother's reaction.
When I was a kid, my brother, Art, and I fought constantly. We kicked, we teased, we shoved, we called each other names, and we rolled over and over on the ground punching each other as hard as we could. My mother said, "I was sure you two would kill each other."
Many fights started in our backyard. In my excitement to win the fights, my yelling grew so loud that the whole neighborhood knew we were slugging it out again. My, mother, a rather shy person, would throw up a back room window and yell, "For God's sake Jeanie, shut up!" The whole neighborhood heard her too. Her shouts embarrassed me and hurt my feelings but they didn't stop me. My brother and I fought like that almost every day. And almost everyday mom would shout the same command.
Looking back, I can't remember what Art and I fought about. I can remember my mother's words. How about you?
When your kids fight, and you step in the middle,
what will your kids remember?
Your yelling?
Your swearing?
Your hitting?
Your lecturing?
Your letting them duke it out?
Knowing what to do in the heat of the moment isn't easy. What is easy, is letting your own anger explode. If you do, what are you really teaching your kids?
Parenting Tips and Advice:
Talk the situation over with your partner or someone you trust.
Come up with a logical plan for handling future fights.
Tell your kids (when they're not fighting) what will happen the next time they fight.
Determine to respond with your reason and not your emotion.
Follow through with the plan.
If you react to your kid's fighting the way my mother did, you can change.
Ask yourself these three questions:
What will my kids remember about my reactions?
What am I really teaching them?
What do I want to teach them?
Here's to your parenting success!
A friend of mine, a mother of three girls including twins, tries to stay out of fights between her children. Where possible, she lets the girls sort it out amongst themselves as she has seen that they have a keen sense of what is fair and what is not. She steps in only when things get out of hand.
