Squabbling siblings, for the love of God someone advise me

[ImFree2doasiwant]

Dc 4 and 6. 18 months apart. Boys. They do a nicely sometimes but every day, sometimes every hour, or more,they're squabbling.

Eldest annoys youngest. Grabs him,wants the toy he's picked up just because he's picked it up. Snatches, hangs onto him,pulls clothes. Abd so on.

Youngest - reacts, in general. Pinches, hits, kicks, stamps. This sounds really bad, but he ONLY does it when his brother winds him up.

Eldest then cries.
This is not all, and sometimes it's the other way round. Some days I barely leave the room (go to the loo/make food/take a call) before one is screaming.

I just don't know how to deal with this. I tell youngest off for scratching or whatever. He always says "but he did x,y,z". I tell oldest off for winding his brother up . I try to talk to them I ask if it was kind, ask why. Ask if he'd like the same doing. I praise good behaviour.

I have bought parenting books which are mostly unread because honest by the time they're in bed, I don't want to read them.

Yeah….sounds familiar.

I’ve actually massively backed off. Unless there are real tears I just don’t get involved. What I realise is sometimes they were acting badly just to get my attention. For small children any attention (even negative!) is great. Now that I mostly ignore the squabbles they seem to sort it out between themselves pretty quickly.

My only other tactic is to make them play in different rooms :)

My advice is not to have a third, like wot I did. Even more arguments and three lots of views being shouted at me at once as to who is in the wrong/started it. I'm hoping they grow out of it because it is very trying. The one thing that I've found helps is if we have a play date with younger children. They are magically transformed in to caring decent human beings who look after the little ones! Mine are 6, 9 and nearly 11.

No 3rd, I'm separated. So dealing with it mostly alone.

What Fred said.
Plus my third tactic is to give them extra chores (as they're so bored all they can do is squabble!)
Fourth (and desperation) tactic is to take them out for a run.

@ScamTheSchool yes, usually see improvements when outside and occupied with park, bikes etc. Bit like puppies, need walking twice a day!

I have two boys. 9 and 12. The bickering has ramped up recently due to bursts of hormones from the older one. They do get on quite well actually...but my word,there w
Are times when they do my head in.

Does your 6 year old act like this with other children or just towards his brother? He is old enough now to know that he shouldn’t be behaving like that and tbh I don’t blame your 4 year old for standing up for himself and if it happens that often then the elder boy should be able to learn that if ends up with him crying then he shouldn’t start it. I appreciate that it’s not fair to “take sides” but the elder child needs to set the example.

,@Fredoftheforest how do you deal with them coming to tell you "he did/said this" wailing and going on?

@SweetBabyCheeses99 I'm not sure, I do think he can try to control the way games go, for example. But I don't think he persists in anything like the same way

You're right, and I do find myself saying "well he wouldn't have scratched you if you hadn't done. .." because it's true. 4yr old NEVER randomly lashes out. Dobt get me wrong he's not an angel, he's far mire difficult to me to deal with, the 6 yr old is otherwise very well behaved. 4 yr old less so.

I wonder if I expect too much though, others have sayd they're well behaved! (I did query this....they aren't destructive, generally listen and do as I ask and are polite etc, when out)

I have a 7 and 6 year old. I tend to stay out of it. If they come to me whining I tell them that if they can't play nicely together they can't play together at all. And if it carries on I separate them, one upstairs, one downstairs. That usually does the trick. I also have a rule for when they're arguing and I do need to step in, instead of shouting over them I clap three times and put my hand up. The rule is "my hand goes up, your mouths go shut" (shamelessly stolen from WWE) then I ask each of them in turn what happened and deal with it appropriately.
Usually they're pretty good at sorting out their own problems now they know I'm not interested in petty squabbles. But if not a bit of time apart does them good. They soon want to play nicely together again.
I'm a single mum too and it can be absolutely draining when the bickering is constant but you've got to pick your battles. And teaching them to deal with conflict themselves is a good lesson.

no advice from me but I found listening to books on audible far far more manageable than reading them.

Actually I’ve found having three kids better as there’s more entertainment for each other! No real advice but we also separate them if it gets bad.. easier to do that than to try and get involved in the squabbles

Best advice I’ve had is to think of yourself as a coach instead of a referee. Don’t just jump in unless child in danger - ask if they need your help to sort it out. If they do, then ‘sportscast’ - “I see two frustrated little boys. Child A, how did you feel when child B did that? Child B how did you feel when child A bit back?” (Make sure both kids feel heard and try not to take sides). Ask how they think they might solve it. If they need some time to calm down before they are ready to talk about solutions, help them to have time to calm down, not a timeout as a punishment but just time to compose themselves (you can also use this time to take a couple of deep breaths!). Then if they can think of a way to solve, great. If not make some suggestions and they can choose. This method takes some practice I’ve found - I found it helped to role play out some scenarios with another adult, but once you have the basic tools in the box it works pretty well. And the idea is that eventually you raise kids who know how to manage conflict in a healthy way.

@Slacktacular that sounds really good, thank you. I'm going to try it out. Youngest has a fierce temperature, shouts and wails and most definitely needs time to calm down. (I don't mean in the squabbling scenario, it's mostly with me he does this, but your advice will be useful to help me with him too).

I know you said you're struggling to read but the book Siblings without rivalry made a massive difference to my two. Its basically about empowering them to figure it out for themselves so you are no longer judge and jury. Honestly, I read the book and thought that wouldn't work but it really, really did.

DH is better at ignoring.

I often put both boys on stairs to sit quietly out of arms reach from each other but stuck there together, if there was any doubt about "who started it" for sure.

They both could have de-escalated things & calmed things down, I told them. That's why they both got on the stairs.

They united against me, so bonding I suppose.

@Piapiano I'll see I I've got it it's a distinct possibility! If not I'll look it up. So many seem to be so long.

Personally I don’t think ignoring is appropriate if one child is persistently persecuting the other. That’s bullying and I have a zero-tolerance policy for it - one warning for teasing and then time-out.

Only thing that works here - and it’s not a quick fix - is to ask each of them to explain how they saw things. So not ‘why did you hit your brother’, but ‘tell me what happened’. Eventually they start listening to each other and figure out where the rows are coming from.

Siblings without rivalry summarises things in cartoons too (IIRC) so doesn't need to be a long read

I just bought the kindle edition for 1.99. Just got to read it now.

I've started reading siblings without rivalry, I'm not too far into it, but I can see it helping so thanks fir the suggestion. I think it being on the kindle is helpful, it's less overwhelming. The others I've bought have been SO big, and small print, I've been put off reading them in the evenings. This might be the same but I can't see it as such on the kindle

That's good news. If you get on well with it there's others by the same authors which deal with other life stages.
I am really no paragon of excellent parenting, but having siblings who (so far) get on pretty well is one thing I feel good about, and it's that book which helped.
My other thing is having kids who (so far) still talk to me about stuff and express themselves, which was helped by How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so They Will Talk by the same people. But that's for another day off you're already overloaded!

My boys are 2&3 in December and the squabbling has JUST started for me the last few weeks!... I'm so done already! 😂
And yes! I'm having a 3rd!... wish me luck!
Although whatever they are fighting over (usually a car of some description) I just take it away!
Then I sit down with them and "try" to explain to them that they can have the toy back if they share!... obviously completely different age group to yours OP

Or just walk out of the room and leave them too it 😅... I'm presuming they are just testing each other's boundaries
Obviously if there is fighting involved I do have to intervene as the hair pulling gets pretty bad!

@AlexandraEiffel I've already got and not read that one. I'm going to read a bit most days even if its only a couple of pages.

I do struggle to ignore it tbh. And if I do they come to complain/cry to me anyway.