No more yelling, now what?

Sounds like you handled in good...Just saying,"You need to clean it up!" Not getting mad and yelling...kids make messes and they will make more messes, their kids!!

My kids really upset me by putting deep scratches in our beautiful railing in our new home. They didn't realize they were doing anything bad...they were just being curious, picking and scratching at it. I can totally understand them doing it because I did the same thing to this wall in my bedroom when I was a little girl. Every night I would lay in bed and pick at the wall and eventually it turned into a big hole. : I know one day I can take the time to sand the railing and relaquer it. One day the kids will be gone from my home and the scratches will be gone....the memories will last forever. I always try to think of my interactions with my kids..."Will they be good memories or bad memories?" I have no control over what they will have for their memories but I do have control of making each situation to the best of my ability by not freaking and yelling and getting angry.

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How about skipping all this and moving straight to ...

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It's hard for me sometimes to remember that I don't have to tell my kids I am upset every time they do something that upsets me. Spreading bad feeling around doesn't accomplish anything. Action does. Sometimes I just want to yell because *I* am mad and want to vent my feelings, but that's my deal. What's most beneficial for both me and my kids is to simply state what needs to be done to rectify the problem without getting bogged down in what a problem it is. This morning my four year old drew all over the table with glue. I was annoyed, but what I really wanted was for the table to be clean. So I just handed her a wet rag and said, "Please clean the glue off the table."

Namaste!

one of the problems I have run into was that we live in a very small apartment and we dont have a whole lot of places up and away to put things. Most of the time this isnt a problem anymore. A recurring incident is the dvd thing which happens once in a while.. then the fish tank thing. When we got to the fish tank thing I felt like, becuase I hadnt gotten upset at the other thing, she was testing to see if I would if she did that too.. The fish tank is something we had a problem with at one time that we havent had a problem with in a while.

Oh and I do still yell, just not crazy yelling and not yelling for five minutes about nothing in particular..... Im not losing it anymore. I havent been able to completely stop, but I am gaining control. My problem is what to do with the anger... which many of you have mentioned answers to. I just dont always know what to do, whats natural, how to get the point across without yelling...

I guess i need to work on understanding that the anger is more about me and that the kids arent doing anything wrong.....

I like how somebody mentioned that it doesnt matter what the reason is behind the mess, cleaning it up needs to happen and asking that of them is the next step.

ok guys, so what tricks do you have for not losing it when siblings fight (i have asked this before, sledg has answered before).. lately my biggest problem is in the car........

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That's what I was going to say. The quickest surest route to frustration for me is to ask my 5yo why he did something. Because his answer is "I don't know" or else some reason that has absolutely nothing to do with it, and now we are dealing with that instead of the mess/problem at hand. Along those same lines, I am learning quickly not to ask "who did this?" Most of the times it really doesn't matter, and I prefer to approach issues as a family rather than point fingers.

Hmm, tricks for siblings fighting. Well, if I'm at the peak of my game (fed, rested, don't have to pee, hydrated, etc.) I can usually find success with the Playful Parenting type of approach - get real silly about what they're fighting about, fling myself onto the couch dramatically - something that gets them laughing and forgetting about who gets which train. This apporach works particularly well for my older son who is a sucker for anything silly (unless he's really tired and angry).

It really depends on the situation. Like for awhile ds1 was making pictures out of the magnets on the fridge, and inevitably ds2 would wander in and start messing with the magnets. Ds1 would walk back in and have a freak out. The third time this happened I finally got smart, and suggested to ds1 that we figure out a way to preserve his work of art AND allow ds2 to still play with the communal magnets, and we decided to take a picture. Phew.