Tips to help reduce

By Carol Dores

Our boys are three years apart. I remember how sweet and gentle the older one played with the younger one. Until the younger one could get around and get in to the older one’s stuff. Then not so much. In fact, they fought constantly.

“Mom, he’s bothering me!” “He took my stuff!” “Get him out of here!” “Mom, he hit me!”

Sound anything like your house?

This went on for years. And trying to be a good mother, I would intervene. Take things away. Separate them. And the younger one always provoked the older, and the older got in to trouble for hitting the younger. We finally learned this when they were in college.

What I’ve now learned is different ways to deal with kids fighting. Here’s some solutions to try:

· Safety comes first. If you are truly worried about one child getting hurt, separate them. You can suggest that they each let you know when they have calmed down enough to talk about what happened. This is not meant to be punishment for either child, but rather time to cool themselves down.

· If you are in the room with them, walk out of the room. Many times, kids fight to get our attention, which is what intervening is. Often, they will stop fighting if you are no longer involved.

· If you feel the need to stay in the room, say nothing, and ignore them. Again, without your attention, they are more likely to stop.

· Send them outside or in to another room to work it out.

If the problems occur in the back seat of the car, you can let them know that you will pull the car over when it is safe to do so, and read until they are both (or all) ready to stop fighting. Ask them to repeat back what the agreement is about fighting in the car. It is important to ask each child what the agreement is, and how many of them need to be ready to stop fighting in order to continue on the road. When the fighting begins, pull over and say nothing. Wait patiently until they each let you know they are ready to continue. They will test this and you, so you should plan on leaving 15 minutes early! You may need to do this many times before they understand you really mean business.

Now that we have adults, they get along, and this is no longer an issue. We can look back and laugh at all the crazy things we did to try to get them to stop fighting. I wish we had those tips then!

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