Bickering

[EmmaNZ]

My children are driving me to distraction. I'm so mad I just swore at them. I never swear! Now I'm mad because I swore.

 

How can I deal with this? It's a totally new issue, but I'm exhausted with it. I have 3 kids (5.5, 4 and 2) and they spend their days bickering and fighting with each other. I am constantly breaking up fights, taking toys away, modelling what should be said instead etc etc. I feel like it started when the new baby arrived (nearly 10 weeks ago).

 

What's so irritating is that everybody else is always telling me how well-behaved and well-mannered my children are. I wish I felt that way because I am totally drained by their behaviour. I want to leave them all in separate rooms all day long!

 

Any advice?

[Jean in Newcastle]

Put everyone in time out right now - including yourself.

 

Apologize to them for swearing.

 

As far as the other goes, I'm afraid that there is just no substitute for what you are already doing. :grouphug:

[Remudamom]

Once I made two bickerers hold hands until they could stop. It worked. You could use duct tape.

[Snickerdoodle]

Bickering to me means they are not doing enough work. :D

 

Are all the toys cleaned up?

Isn't there any sweeping or vacuuming to get done?

Even the 2 yo can clean out the pots and pans drawer. Or give her (him?) a spray bottle and rag and have her clean the baseboards or the sliding glass window.

[MBM]

I thought this post would be about the Valedictorian thread. LOL.

[EmmaNZ]

My time out was posting on the forum!

Loving the cleaning idea - there's always LOTS of that!

Things have calmed down again thankfully - it's morning tea time! Things always seem worse when I'm trying to do some school with the oldest.

 

I know it will pass, just wish it would hurry up!!

[cylau]

My kids are like that too. I ended up had to do "homeschooling light" whenever we stayed home during summer. This gave them less time to fight and more time apart from each other.

[holdoll]

I'm not sure this will work since yours are so young, but when our two dd's went through that stage of bickering, I forbid them to speak to each other (for however long you choose). Kind of a reverse psychology. Since they played together most of the time, and there were no others to play with, it was extremely difficult for them. I gave them extra chores to do. Then after said amount of time was over I had them apologize to each other (and I taught them to be specific about the apologies - no attitude-filled "I'm sorry!") You see, when they bickered, they were over it in a few minutes, but I was stressed all day!

 

I only had to do it twice. The last time was for about 3 hours. It was heaven. My ears actually stopped hurting. :tongue_smilie:

[laurad1125]

Yours may be a little young for this but mine go to the get-along chair. They sit in a large chair together or in 2 regular chairs that are touching and can't come out until they can each tell me three things.

 

1. What he did wrong.

2. What he needs to do about it. (This is usually apologize.)

3. What he will do differently next time.

 

This helps each boy focus on the choices he made and less on what his brother did. They generally end up discussing the situation and work out much of it before they have the answers to these 3 questions.

[Garga]

Here are a few things that I do with them:

 

1. Give them jobs to do. We do them together (fold laundry, put away dishes.)

 

2. If one of them is clearly the instigator, that person has to stay with me--helping me clean, watching me to whatever I'm doing, walking with me EVERYwhere I go. I get to decide when they're free. It is based on when I can tell that they're really sick of watching me do stuff and are desperate to go play again and willing to play nice.

 

3. Since my boys generally adore each other, I make them go to separate rooms. They hate that because they like to be together.

 

Thinking it over, #2 seems to work the best. Usually it's one boy clearly aggravating the other. But if I can't see who started it, then I move to 1 or 3.

[Pamela H in Texas]

Two things:

 

1) blessing one another. Pick a number of times per day to bless one another. People who are LOOKING to do something nice or kind for/to someone are less likely to be ugly to one another.

 

2) Raising a Thinking Child by Myrna Shure. Read just a tiny bit at a time, implement a very tiny bit at a time. HAVE FUN WITH IT. And in time, you'll see them using the skills and tools you provide them with :)

[hmdavis02]

When mine were that age (and still sometimes) I would make them sit at the kitchen table or whatever room I had something to do in and be quiet. They could do nothing but be near each other and be quiet until I was done with whatever I was doing. It really did cut down on bickering, because the loss of freedom was not worth the fight in the first place!

 

The only exception to this was if I could give them a job to do in the same room I was in. Then they could quietly help me fold laundry or whatever was going on. No talking until body language showed calmer attitudes and supervision by me were keys, and when they were calmer, we would discuss the heart issues behind the fighting, boiling it all down to "treat others the way you want to be treated..." Hope that helps some!

[Rosie_0801]

My mother used to send us outside. "You want to argue? Fine, go outside where I don't have to hear it. It's cold and dark? Well if your argument is really important, you'll go anyway. If it isn't that important, it doesn't need to happen at all."

 

Most likely they'll be too lazy to get up and go out.

 

:)

Rosie

[BikeBookBread]

:grouphug: I have two bickerers, as well. Just :grouphug:

 

It is hard to stop it until they learn to value each other. I suggest reading the book "Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining and Bad Attitudes...In You and Your Kids". Great book.

[EmmaNZ]

Thanks for the support, ideas and book suggestions. They're being ok at the moment - I've got them hoovering, tidying their rooms and bringing logs in for the fire.

[~Tara~]

Once I made two bickerers hold hands until they could stop. It worked. You could use duct tape.

 

Ha! I just did this today. Though I assigned an hour to 'test the waters'. Over two hours later and we're bicker free...so far so good ;)