Little brothers fighting all the time!

[miss_honeyb]

Argh, my two boys, ages 4 and 2.5 are seriously fighting all.the.time.
They cannot play together for more than 5 minutes without fighting about a toy or how one looked at the other or something one of them said. The hardest part is that my 2.5 year old is very aggressive and tough, while the 4 year old is not very tough but a teaser. So the younger one will often be physically aggressive to the older when he gets teased. I'm concerned about them because there have been times when biting or hitting has left marks. I'm worried one of them will seriously hurt the other! I don't feel like I'm a newbie in this whole discipline/training thing, but I feel at a loss on how to get these boys to treat each other in a loving way and to use their words instead of being physically hurtful. I fully expect that they will squabble from time to time, but I want them to learn to be friends and work out their problems. I'm worried that their getting into the habit of aaaalways fighting when there's the slightest annoyance or difference of opinion. Any ideas mamas??

[Lisa1970]

No solutions here. Mine are 6.5 yrs old and just turned 9. They just spent a week grounded when one gave the other a bloody nose out in public. I realized the other had bruises on his face. I am sickened by the fighting. We are total attachment parenters. Loving, kissing, hugging all the time. How can this be my children doing this?

uuggghhhh!

[ChetMC]

Siblings Without Rivalry is a great book. Because of their ages, it's not going to solve all of your problems right now, but it's a really good book in terms of understanding how parents can either support or sabotage a sibling relationship.

I wonder too, if your boys are just going through a rough spot. We've had spurts where two of our kids were just a bad match developmentally. At 4.5 and 2 our second and third were a horrible match. Now that they are 5 and 2.5 they play together really well. Our girls are 16 months apart - and they've also gone through phases of being perfect playmates and then worlds apart.

If you play with your boys can you catch a lot of this stuff before it happens? Maybe with a few weeks of intense facilitation you could replace some negative behaviours with more positive ones.

This depends a lot on how verbal your 2.5 year old is, but one thing I've done is insist that the kids say what the problem is before anything else. Develop the habit of saying what you want, need or don't like. Before our kids could really negotiate and problem solve this gave me a few valuable seconds to intervene. And once they could problem solve and negotiate they were already into the habit of articulating their issue.

[miss_honeyb]

Originally Posted by ChetMC 

Siblings Without Rivalry is a great book. Because of their ages, it's not going to solve all of your problems right now, but it's a really good book in terms of understanding how parents can either support or sabotage a sibling relationship.

I wonder too, if your boys are just going through a rough spot. We've had spurts where two of our kids were just a bad match developmentally. At 4.5 and 2 our second and third were a horrible match. Now that they are 5 and 2.5 they play together really well. Our girls are 16 months apart - and they've also gone through phases of being perfect playmates and then worlds apart.

If you play with your boys can you catch a lot of this stuff before it happens? Maybe with a few weeks of intense facilitation you could replace some negative behaviours with more positive ones.

This depends a lot on how verbal your 2.5 year old is, but one thing I've done is insist that the kids say what the problem is before anything else. Develop the habit of saying what you want, need or don't like. Before our kids could really negotiate and problem solve this gave me a few valuable seconds to intervene. And once they could problem solve and negotiate they were already into the habit of articulating their issue.

Great ideas! Thanks so much. I realized I did just need to "be there" with them a lot to help them work through problems instead of just expecting them to play together in the other room. I'm sticking with it, and seeing lots of improvement! Also seeing the 2.5 year old making small - but real! - steps in being able to deal with frustrations. Trying to empathize with him a lot - it's hard to be two!! Also seeing my 4 year old maturing as well. They're not "over the hump" yet, but it sure is encouraging to see some growth.