I know there are many challenges, but I’ll be focusing on only ONE in this article.

It gets challenging when your children fight among themselves.

Which child is right, and which is wrong?

..or you remain neutral?

Remaining neutral is NOT an easy task!

If you are dealing with your children constantly fighting it is important to set up some ground rules with them to teach them to…

FIGHT FAIR.

Set ground rules.

It can be such as no physical violence, like hitting or kicking each other. No calling each other names. Being careful not to raise voices at each other.

You never know how useful are these ground rules until you start putting them in place.

When the fights begin, you start by having each child identify what their problem is.

Ask them to come up with a few ideas that would solve the problem.

If they continue to bicker during this process, then ask them to separate into different areas and come back with their solutions within a few minutes.

Give each child a chance to share their ideas. If they have trouble coming up with solutions, offer some solutions that you think might work.

Everyone should agree on the solution. This process can be lengthy but stick it out and you will begin to see change.

Once your children are used to the steps above, its time for you to stay out of it.

When they come to you to tattle on the other, tell them politely it is not your problem and you believe that they both can come up with a solution to work it out.

Let them find the solution to their fights, themselves.

Remember, never ever take sides with one child or the other.

Even if you clearly can see the one child might be in the wrong, try and have that child identify that for themselves.

Remember, taking sides encourages sibling rivalry and teaches the child to avoid problem solving skills by getting someone to stick up for them.

You can learn how to be a neutral parent in situation where your children are fighting with more tips and tricks inside the S.T.O.P & T.H.W.A.R.T Siblings Fighting System.

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1. Anger Management Tips for Angry Parents
2. The Biggest Parenting Myth – Smacking Is Detrimental to Discipline
3. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Parents

With more than 1 child at home, we have to understand that conflict is inevitable.  It will come, sooner or later.

It’s common for brothers and sisters to experience some degree of competition and jealousy at home  because having a sibling always reduces the time and attention they get from you.

Let’s look at this from the point of view of your child.

When a new brother or sister comes along, it’s a situation that can be compared to your spouse bringing home another wife or husband and expecting you immediately to love the intruder.

Doesn’t feel good, isn’t it?

Definitely not.

Remember, children have different temperaments.

Some children are naturally shy, some are naturally sociable while some are naturally aggressive.

What about your child?

Go find out!

Your child’s mood, disposition and adaptability will play a large role in how well they get along. Of course, watching your children fight can be frustrating and stressful to deal with.

As parents, it’s our challenge to figure out how to handle the constant squabbling by not making things worse.

Here are some great pointers from my book “The S.T.O.P & T.H.W.A.R.T Siblings Fighting System“.

#1 – Help Your Children Deal With Negative Feelings Towards Each Other

For example : You are nursing your infant, when your toddler comes up with a sad face and exclaims, “You are always with the baby!”

You could say, “No, I’m not. Didn’t I just read to you?”

Well, that’s not really identifying with the little guy’s feelings. The way you could do that and show him that his feelings are ok, would be to say something like, “You don’t like my spending so much time with her, do you?”

For example : Let’s say 12-year-old Michelle is coming up to daddy while he’s reading the sport’s section and her brother has been irritating her.

What she says to daddy, “He does it on purpose! He always burps when I’m around!”

Well, daddy could say, “Big deal.”

That isn’t acknowledging her feelings.

Instead, daddy could try something like, “You feel he does it just to irritate you, don’t you?”

These are ways you can acknowledge that it’s OK to have negative feelings towards your siblings, and that’s an important message to give the child.

#2 – Avoid The Urge to Compare, Especially Negative Comparisons

# For example : Your 4-year-old is sitting at the table, drinking milk. He’s having a little trouble managing the glass and ends up spilling a little on his shirt. You could say, “That’s disgusting. Even the baby doesn’t spill it all over herself!”

Well, that’s a little negative and could make the child think mommy likes the baby better.

Instead, you could try something like, “There’s a little milk dripping down the front of your shirt.”

Then the child may do something about it himself.

# For example : Your 13-year-old daughter has a hole in her skirt and she wants you to fix it before school starts. She asks you (mommy) to do the sewing. As you are busy patching it up, she says something like, “You are doing it too slow. Why is it taking so long?!”

What you say in response, “Don’t call me slow. Your sister never talks to me that way.”

A better way to handle this situation would be to say, “It’s hard for me to be helpful, when I’m being criticized.”

These are a couple great ways to avoid making negative comparisons.

#3 – Don’t Claim EQUAL Love. Show How Children Are Loved Uniquely

# For example : You are sitting on the couch and your 7-year-old son comes up and asks, “Mommy, who do you love best?”

This is not unusual for children to ask. A common response would be, “I love you all the same. Or… I’ve told you a hundred times, I love you all equally.”

Most children will assume that you are just saying that because you have to.

A better way of handling this question would be something like, “Each one of you is special to me. You are my only Michael. In the whole wide world, there is not another like you. No one has your thoughts or your smile. I’m so glad you are my son.”

#4 – Deal With Fighting Constructively

# For example : Let’s discuss the scariest form of fighting for parents, and that’s when fighting is starting to turn into hurting.

Let’s say that 5-year-old George is standing on a chair, ready to throw a truck at his brother’s head. His older brother is right in front of him, with a baseball bat.

Now you’ve got a situation here where children can get badly hurt. The first thing that a parent should do is describe what is they are seeing.

“I see one boy on a chair about to throw a truck and another boy about to hit with a baseball bat. Both of them are furious. Now, this is a dangerous situation. We gotta have a cooling off period. Quick, both of you go to your rooms!”

This is one way of diffusing the situation immediately and constructively handling the fight.

# For example : Let’s pick a situation where two girls are battling over property. 9-year-old Tara wants to borrow her older sister, Lisa’s blouse.

Their dialogue could go something like, “Can I wear this? It matches my skirt perfectly and we are having a party today.”

“No, it’s mine.”

“You never wear it.”

“But I might!”

“Please, just for today?”

“I said NO.”

“MOM!!!”

This is the situation you come in on. Now, you could side with the property owner and here is what you might say,

“This blouse belongs to your sister. Let’s not have any more discussion about it. Give it back to her.”

In other words, you make the decision for the child. This is not the best way to handle the situation, because it could appear to one child that another is being favored, which will foster even more resentment. Don’t come in and take over.

A more constructive way to deal with this scenario is to let the kids handle the issue themselves.

Here is how it could play out,

“Boy, you two sound pretty upset with each other. Tara, you want to wear it to the party… but the blouse is still special to you, Lisa, even though you’ve outgrown it. Well, it’s your blouse and your decision. But if you want to work something out with your sister- that would be between the two of you.”

Children are very creative. You might see something like,

“I’ll trade you. You can wear my new silver earrings all week, if I can wear your blouse just for today.”

Whenever possible, don’t get involved. Let your children learn how to work out problems on their own. This is an important skill for later in life as well. It’s important to let children learn how to compromise and negotiate, how to value another’s perspective, and how to control their aggressive impulses.

For more examples and tips how to deal with situations where your c hildren are fighting, check out “The S.T.O.P & T.H.W.A.R.T Siblings Fighting System“.

http://www.StopSiblingsFighting.com

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2. Never Tell Your Child These!
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Do you sometimes find yourself yelling, “STOP IT!!” to stop your kids from yelling at each other?

Well, if you have more than 1 child at home, then sibling rivalry is almost unavoidable in family life.

Whenever your children are teasing one another, or bickering over the toys, or fighting about who gets the biggest cookie, then it’s time for YOU to take the battle ground to the peace table.

You, as a parent needs to guide them to settle their quarrels so that they can stop the fighting. You need to teach them how to start a peaceful negotiation so that it will eventually lead to a win-win situation for them, and also you, the parent!

Start looking for the underlying causes.

Siblings can fight over a number of reasons.

To minimize your children from fighting, you need to recognize what is triggering all these outbursts.  Find out the reasons they fight.

Are they asking for more attention from you?

Are they feeling left out?

..or are they just being bored?

You’d better ask yourself and your spouse what can you do to improve the situation if you think these are the causes your children quarrel or fight. Discuss with your spouse and see what are the next actions needed to be taken.

You can also encourage your children to talk to each other about what’s actually going on. Tell them to express their unhappiness towards their other siblings, BUT with you present.

This is important!

Did you know that talking things through eliminates sulking and whining?

You might ask, “I wonder what started this fight?

..or “Are you willing to tell me what happened?”

..or simply say, “Let’s talk about it at the peace table.”

Now, what happens next?

The best way is to let your children sort it out themselves with your presence as a meditiator.

Let them suggest a solution. Never ever underestimate their ability to solve the problems.

As the parent you are the leader in the negotiation.

Ask each child, “What is your solution?”

Remember conflicts are not all bad. In fact solving a disagreement often brings kids closer.

Now, the next time your children fight, try out what I’ve just written above.

And in Chapter 2 – TELL ALL of the Stop Siblings Fighting guide, you’ll learn how to persuade your children to open up their hearts and discuss openly on the situation.

Related posts:

1. How to Stop Kids from Fighting
2. How Do You Stop Your Child From Talking Back At You?
3. How to End Sibling Feuds

STEP 1 - Remember that it is your home and your family. Anything that annoys you is fair game for discipline. If it saps your energy than it needs to be rooted out for the good of all. Once it’s gone think of all the extra time and energy you can put towards family time!

STEP 2 - Explain to your children that you will be employing a new method of disipline. It goes like this – they’ve got three chances to knock it off before they go to time out (or whatever other disapline you can easily follow through with quickly).

STEP 3 – Once you hear any kind of fighting you say, “Joe and Sally, that’s one for both of you.”

STEP 4 - If they continue fighting or if they give you attitude for the ‘one’. Then they get a two.

STEP 5 - If they continue arguing with you or with each other, they get a three and it’s into time out.

STEP 6 - If you follow this method strictly, the petty arguments will cease with in a week – I guarantee it.

Related posts:

1. Stop The Fighting With Talking, Can You?
2. 8 Ways You Can Improve the Quality of The Time You Spend With Your Kids
3. How to Stop Yelling at Your Children