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.

A friend who was 1 of 4 brothers said his mums mantra was “I am not a referee. Sort it out yourselves. Only involve me if there is blood or broken bones”. As a result, he is one of the most skilled conflict resolvers I know ! All 4 boys remain good friends in adulthood

I used to leave/ignore as long as possible and intervene when I could hear it was getting serious

Most of the time it was either sibling bickering that would resolve itself (allowing them to learn their own ways of dealing with it) or attention seeking

Also by not intervening I got a real sense of the roles they played . Eg because dc2 was always the loudest she’d tend to get the blame. By letting it play out if realise that dc1 could be quite the wind up merchant

@ImFree2doasiwant I do too, and I know that in part comes from projecting my own sibling dynamics onto the situation and rushing to defend or telling off the dominant one with what I wished someone had said to my dominant sibling. (I'm dealing with that baggage too)

I used to start with

I dont speak whine

And then dont listen until they can talk in a reasonable voice

If they cant share a toy, the toy goes on time out (see sharing rules below)

If they have a special toy that they dont want to share, then it stays in their bed/bedroom, if it come sout its fair game for other to play with

If a brother asks if he can have a turn.. he has to ask nicely and not touch the item or the brother…he has to ask if he can have a turn “when you are finished”….if that happens then the brother with the toy has to agree to turn the toy over when he is done….if this takes longer than 5 mins then they can come to me and politely request help working out a solution..but usually they are on to the next thing before the 5 mins is up….sometimes I deploy a timer so they can wait more easily, Alexa is great for this…this technique is amazing at defusing the sharing problem.

I do exactly what @HerRoyalWitchyness does, even down to the hand up for silence!! (Are you sure you're not me??) Mine are now 8 and 10 and are generally very good at playing together and the bickering is much rarer these days thank goodness.

Main thing was not to get involved adjudicating between them, they get one warning to play nicely before no more playing together. As they've got older I've actually put them into the spare room together and said they can come out when they've sorted out their differences because I have no interest in getting involved or deciding who started it. I only had to do that once because I think that made them realise I wasn't going to play favourites or give any extra attention.

We also talk to each of them separately at a neutral time (ie. not right when they've been bickering and are not ready to listen!) about not winding the other up/falling for the windup merchant tactics. When they were smaller we did a lot of role-plays to model what is a better response to stop the cycle of bickering and over the top reactions since little kids often don't understand or remember a lot of words. Now I can remind them verbally as they are older. I also reinforce that as brothers they should always have each others' backs, and be as kind to each other as they would to anyone else in the world, assume goodwill from the other, that they were not in competition etc. I know not every set of siblings are naturally friends, but I always felt there was no harm in trying to actively encourage it especially as they are so close in age.