so tired of the fighting

[jen&james]

I have a 2 1/2 yr old and 5yr old boys and they fight all the time. I can't leave them alone in a room without them trying to beat eachother up. When it starts I go in and stop it and find out what happened and then try to explain why we use gentle hands with eachother and how they can come to me when they have a disagreement. This doesn't seem to work and I finally get so fed up that I seperate them and ask them to spend some time in their rooms to cool down. I usually go in and talk to each of them about being gentle with eachother and how it is unacceptable to use physical means to get what you want from eachother or anyone. I try to model good communication for them. It is just so tiring doing it over and over and not getting the results. They turn around 2 minutes later and attack one another. I have read all kinds of gentle discipline books and haven't really found any info on what to do if their suggestions are not working. Any ideas or help in getting 2 boys to be gentle with eachother?

[mom2grrls]

I don't know if there's a particular way to get them to be gentle when playing together. In my house my son is more aggressive and wants to roughouse moreson than the girls did. Perhaps supervising their play(have them move to where you are to play) and intervening before it gets rough will help. Also give them times when they can roughouse(with an adult) so they get it out of their system

[mom2happy]

They are still pretty little. A two year old cant be trusted to keep his hands to himself if you leave the room. It will get easier, but I think at those ages it's inevitably going to happen about a disagreement over a toy. A 2 year old can not share yet and its tough for the 5 year old to have to always be expected to be the bigger boy who knows better.
My kids are 2 years apart and I couldnt let them play downstairs alone for more than 10-15 minutes till they were almost 4 and 6.

[Cekimon]

Originally Posted by mom2happy

They are still pretty little. A two year old cant be trusted to keep his hands to himself if you leave the room. It will get easier, but I think at those ages it's inevitably going to happen about a disagreement over a toy. A 2 year old can not share yet and its tough for the 5 year old to have to always be expected to be the bigger boy who knows better.
My kids are 2 years apart and I couldnt let them play downstairs alone for more than 10-15 minutes till they were almost 4 and 6.

thanks for posting this. i have a 4 and 2 year old and i was wondering when i can expect the rivalry to slow down. sometimes my kids do really well but for the most part they bicker.

[Tuesday]

I have two boys ... just turned 4 and older one is 7 1/2. It does seem to get better as the children age. Well, I'm sure the conflicts will continue but I see improvement as the older one learns to compromise, let things go and basically "give in" to the younger one. Younger DS is still pretty irritating in his behaviour to his brother but he has started school and seems to understand now that he must "take turns" and "wait". So, I see improvements.

They are actually sharing a room and surprisingly (to me) this seems to have improved their relations. They enjoy the closeness and seem to be getting along much much better since they started "rooming" together last month.

[Kreeblim]

What worked for us, was not caring if they play together. When I have to break up a fight I tell the kids that if they can't work their problems out, then they need to go to different areas because I'm not making a hospital run, and then go back to doing whatever I was doing. Rarely they'll go play in different areas, but usually they get remarkably better at compromising that instant. If not, they get directed to different areas. I don't act mad or take toys away or anything, I just matter of factly tell them that they can't play together if they fight because it's dangerous (and if there is one toy they want then neither gets it unless they both agree on who that should be. In the meantime, toy comes with me and I go about my business waiting for them to come tell me their plan).

HOWEVER, this was with two kids who are less than a year apart, and this didn't start until youngest was at least 3. We have a 2.5 year old right now (older pair are currently 5 and 6) and it's pretty obvious that he just isn't capable of that type of reasoning. He does things that are upsetting and selfish to the older kids because they are pretty good at compromise by now, and little guy just doesn't get it all the time (though he is sloooooooowly getting better at sharing). We have gotten the older kids to react calmly by acknowledging how much it sucks when little guy does something mean, like taking a toy or grabbing glasses. We talk about how babies just suck at sharing and need to learn, so even though he does these things, he's not trying to be mean. We've also sat and looked at old pictures and talked about how much they used to take people's toys and foods etc. when THEY were little guy's age, and laughed about it together. My oldest even broke my mom's nose by headbutting her after he swiped her glasses at slightly over age two...sharing these stories has helped wonders and gets the kids laughing and not feeling so mad at all the hyper and selfish things a two year old does.

We try not to excuse the things the 2 year old does, just explain that he's learning while acknowledging that it sucks in the mean time. We also talk about all the cool things the older kids get to do (like stay up later, go to fun classes, eat different food etc.) so that they understand that growing up and controlling yourself means you get to do lots of cool things instead of just thinking that the baby gets to do things (like hit) and they don't and it's not fair.