Siblings (physical) fighting. What to do?

[Scrappydoo668]

DSs aged 6 and 8 physically fight quite a lot. The younger one really goes for it and can hurt his brother.

I didn’t grow up with brothers and I have no idea how “normal” it is - I also have no idea what to do!

Any advice?

Should I be stopping them from watching anything fighty on tv? (They don’t want much, but do like Spider-Man etc.)

I expect a number of posts will
twll you it’s normal and not to worry about it.

Personally we had a zero tolerance for violence. Any physical violence AT ALL and the perpetrator was removed from the situation immediately. That started when they were tiny. “I don’t care why you hit your brother, the second you did, you were in the wrong. Please go to your room.”

It was pretty effective. They did watch “fighty” telly, but knew that was television, not how people behave in the world.

My sons are in their twenties now and have never hit each other (or anyone else) since they were very small.

Excellent advice

I agree with pp.
It's awful. And if they feel no guilt about being violent with siblings, then they probably won't with other children either.
Zero tolerance from me too.

I have two boys and we always had zero tolerance for physical violence. At your boys’ ages I would separate them every time and send them straight to their rooms with an immediate consequence eg. no screens for the next hour. Repeat every single time. If there is an obvious aggressor then he gets punished, the other doesn’t. Nip it in the bud now, normalising violence is never the way to go.

I intervene the moment I see it (always have) and have always said the same - I don’t care what happened, the moment you hit you were in the wrong. They get separated etc.

But my younger effectively covers his ears at this point.

I think that’s where I’m at a loss. Should I get angrier? Should they lose a privilege?

The younger lets so much rage loose during their fights that it worries me for his brother!

I have this issue with much younger (2 and 5). We always intervene but so far it's not stopping it. How long before they stopped hitting each other, for those who adopted the zero tolerance - or did it still continue while they were young?

It seemed to work with my DC when I explained that they should no more hit their sibling than they would someone at school. Could they imagine how much trouble they would be in if they did that to another child etc.

I also told them that violence within families could lead to police involvement if their sibling as hurt.

It should not be normalised and it is not a boy thing, my DCs 2 and 3 are girl/boy.

My two boys do this too. It used to be the younger, but now the 7 year old (usually a gentle, sensible soul) has started lashing out abd quite vicious with it. I am going to start ollowing the advice, seperate rooms and lose a privilege.

The younger has also started taunting his brother, in a "ner,ner na ner ner" type way (hope that makes sense) calling him names.