DS and his twin sister and the last thread of my sanity

[Llyra]

I'm kinda hoping somebody might have an idea for how I can intervene more effectively with this situation. DS and DD2 are 3 1/2 (I also have a DD who's almost six). On the whole, DD2 is the larger, more mature, and more verbal one of the twins. And DS is on the whole a very sweet, gentle, cuddly kid. He clearly adores his sisters, and wants very much for them to adore him.

But lately DS has started this behavior where he waits until DD2 is involved in an activity. Then he walks up to her, grabs whatever she's playing with, and hugs it to himself, or runs away with it. So of course, DD2 goes berserk, and starts hollering and yelling and crying-- "That's MINE. I playing with that. Give it to me. Give it back to me. I mmmmaaaaaaaaddddddddd at you give it back give it back" and then eventually she dissolves into helpless tears.

And here's me--

DS doesn't want to play with the item he takes. He really just wants to watch his sister go crazy. He gets far enough away from her that she can't reach it, and just watches, with a big silly Ronald McDonald grin on his face. You can see how delighted he is with the huge reaction he gets. He's all like, "wow, I'm awesome, I can make my sister do THAT."

I don't know how to handle it. If I intervene, and we go have a time-in about it, and talk about it, usually DS loses interest five seconds into the whole thing. He really doesn't care about the item he takes, and once the big show is over, he's already on to something else. If I talk to DS about how his sister feels, etc., it seems to make the behavior MORE frequent, because now he's getting a whole lot of attention from ME too, in addition to the huge reaction he gets from DD.

I've also tried empowering DD a bit. I told her that she doesn't have to put up with that, and that if he doesn't listen to her words, she can go up to him, put both hands on the item, and take it back. We practiced a lot, and she tried it, but it didn't work. DS can hold on longer and tighter and run faster, and the end result is DD in a puddle on the floor, mad at ME because I told her that would work and it didn't.

My mom's advice was to give her permission to hit him, if she's tried everything else and nothing else is working. That doesn't sit right with me. I want her to feel empowered, but I don't want to set up this idea that it's okay for them to hit each other.

I would be really grateful if anybody has any advice. How would you handle it, especially in view of the fact that we go through this at LEAST six times a day, and often more. I'm so sick and tired of it.

[Callimom]

Don't you love the twin dynamic?

Yours sound like mine. If it is any consolation it was a short phase and they are super close now.

So a couple of ideas:
~ More interaction/supervision with you which is hard I know but it will probably only be short term. Either hang out with them while they play, or invite him to do something with you while she plays. He may need more help learning how to integrate himself into play. In addition to empowering her, try empowering him with phrases like: Can I play too? Can I share that? Can we do it this way?
~ Multiples of coveted or popular toys. At the very least you can have your daughter start with the one she wants the least and then she won't react as much when he takes it.
~ Setting up group play for both of them with something that is easy (ie things you have lots of or is easily shared - things like blocks, duplo, playdough etc.
~ Prepping them for success before they play and with regular reminders. So if your daughter is starting with something, a reminder to the two of them to play together, no grabbing, sharing, kind words (whatever your spiel) and some regular check ins might prevent this.
~ Reacting less to your son when he takes something. I would limit the conversation to: You may not grab toys from your sister. It's not kind. Either you return it now or I will. If you do this again you will need to go to your room alone until you are ready to play kindly (or whatever consequence would work for you). If you want help to play with Sister, I will help you.
I'd use my calm, whispered low, don't-mess-with-mum voice.

Good luck!
Karen

[Dandelionkid]

A technique I read about once was to pay a lot of attention to the wronged child and none to the perpetrator. So maybe you could get the toy back without talking much to DS and then go to your dd and spend a couple minutes playing and interacting.

If you do it fast enough the meltdown from dd will be minimal and your ds will 1) not get the satisfaction of the "chase" and 2) he will see that his actions only detract from himself to sister.

[DeerMother]

Hope it is a short phase for you like Karenwith4 suggested. However, my twins are 2.5 and this has been going on for a year. Same thing, ds always takes from dd. I've lost my patience with it already. I too try to empower dd to take it back, sometimes she does and sometimes she just screams. My ds, like yours, doesn't usually have an interest in the object. It's just to get a rise out of her. So subbing for some great ideas!

[titania8]

mine are 4.5. when one is upset, the other says how very happy he is, that his brother is upset. is it a power issue? your comment about how your ds only wants to get the reaction resonated with me, maybe that's all my boys want too, and maybe its about power. hmm....twins are something, aren't they?

[Tjej]

My DS isn't a twin but he loves to do it to his sister as well. What I do is:train DD to talk to me about it - my general thing is that if the kids have a problem they talk nicely to the other child and if that doesn't work talk to Mama. That way DS gets less of a rise out of DD. She does forget to get me sometimes, but it helps.

Then when it happens and I see it or DD gets me for help I wait for DS to physically hand it back to DD (usually it isn't hard for him to do because he doesn't really want the item anyway) and take him to sit for a minute across from me on a bench. I say something like "we don't grab" and wait until he is ready to go back and say "sorry for grabbing" to his sister.

It doesn't totally and aboslutely solve the problem, but it does seem to happen less frequently, and when it does happen I think that DD feels like there is some justice, so I think that helps.

Tjej

[crowcaw]

With my twins (almost 5), doesn't like to have her sister involved in an activity that doesn't include her. She doesn't always grab what sissy has but gets in her space, pesters her, sometimes it's grabbing. I encourage the one who's being pestered to tell her sister what she's doing that is bothering her and that she'd like her to stop and then I have the one who is doing the pestering heed her sisters wishes, fix anything she's disturbed (i.e. give back anything grabbed, pick up crayons she may have pushed on the floor, etc) and move out of her sister's space and then I'll try to find something to interest her. If she refuses to give her sister space or continues to be disruptive, she has to go in another room to play. I'm trying to teach the pesterer not to pester but also the pester-ee an acceptable response to being pestered rather than lashing out or screaming.

[Anastasiya]

In that situation, I would quietly and calmly walk over to DS, remove the item myself from his hands *without saying a word*, and give it back to DD and use the words on her, giving HER the attention.

[Lolagirl]

Originally Posted by Llyra

My mom's advice was to give her permission to hit him, if she's tried everything else and nothing else is working. That doesn't sit right with me. I want her to feel empowered, but I don't want to set up this idea that it's okay for them to hit each other.

Yikes, this is really, really bad advice from mom! My twins are obviously a bit older, but really the best way I've found to deal with this sort of behavior is to intervene each time it happens, explain why he should stop, and then redirect him to something else. Rinse, lather, repeat ad naseum until it just becomes no more fun for the twin in question to keep up with whatever he's doing.

Unfortunately, my twins just started hitting each other every time they had a disagreement pretty much as soon as they could walk. We never hit in our house, so I just chalked it up to normal baby/toddler behavior and have tried to deal with it as constructively as possible to get it to stop. I have to say I simply can't wrap my mind around trying to encourage my non-hitting kids to go ahead and hit each other as a means of conflict resolution.

Good luck, and just keep repeating to yourself, this too shall pass!

[poppan]

Originally Posted by Dandelionkid

A technique I read about once was to pay a lot of attention to the wronged child and none to the perpetrator. So maybe you could get the toy back without talking much to DS and then go to your dd and spend a couple minutes playing and interacting.

If you do it fast enough the meltdown from dd will be minimal and your ds will 1) not get the satisfaction of the "chase" and 2) he will see that his actions only detract from himself to sister.

Originally Posted by Anastasiya

In that situation, I would quietly and calmly walk over to DS, remove the item myself from his hands *without saying a word*, and give it back to DD and use the words on her, giving HER the attention.

My b/g twins are almost the exact same age as yours. I think the above two posters' advice is what I would do if I think he's just trying to get a rise out of her. If it's that he wants the toy she has (which is more the situation I deal with) I've been teaching them that they need to ask the other one if they can have a turn when the other one is done, and then wait until it's given to them, but it sounds like that might not help in your case.

Edited to add: Oh and something I used to do when they were younger if both wanted a certain toy was, I would put 30 seconds on a kitchen timer and say when it bings, then it's the other person's turn. Gradually I lengthened the timer so I wouldn't have to go back as often. They seemed to think it was a fun game and it tended to diffuse the situation and become more about the countdown to the handoff time. I haven't had to use it at this age so not sure if it would work or not.