For the Love of God

[MrsBananaGrabber]

My DS's (9 and 7) are fighting, arguing, screaming and running around. Is it just boys? Is it the age gap? Am I a bad mother? I'm ready to walk out the door.

They are up now? It's almost midnight!

I live in abroad, it's 7pm here. they have been like this since they got home from school. Driving me crazy is an understatment.

What time do they go to bed? Could you put the TV on? Is there a game you could pull out for them to play? Can you turn them outside? Make them play in separate rooms? :)

Put them in their rooms...if they come out, take things away...computers and the like...or cut the plugs off stuff.

I am letting them do some experiment with eggs and vinegar . Since having DD it's like they know i'm distracted and don't listen. DH is working away, god bless all the single mothers because I couldn't do this on my own full time, i'm sweating.

So you are happy to let them stay up then?
I have three boys - they are not up this late, not by a long shot!

Tell me about it. I'm starting to face this with my 2 boys who are younger. They love each other dearly and play great much of the time but the tattle telling, whinging etc is really getting on my nerves and I need some coping strategies. Currently I end up sending them to their rooms as it's hard to work out who the culprit is and tell them they can only come down once they both behave.

Sorry OP! Just realised it is much earlier than realtime MN indicates!

As you were

OP when my sister and I were the age of your boys we were just the same. But perhaps with even more violence.

It's not a gender thing, it's an age-gap, same sex sibling thing.

I'm an only child so I don't know what it's like to have a sibling. I find the arguing exhausting, they can't do anything without them ending up fighting.

My 7 year old screams and makes a fuss but I know he isn't innocent, 6 of one half a dozen of the other.

Please tell me they will grow out of it, my liver can't take the wine abuse

chichletteeth - I am 5 hours ahead in Toronto

not ahead, behind. See, wine on a school night is not a good idea.

You need a room that you can lock either them or yourself into for an hour. Give them free rein to do what they have to for that hour, even if it means beating each other senseless. Then send them to their rooms (do they have separate rooms?) until bedtime.

It is normal behaviour, honestly - I don't know how my poor mother coped with the 3 of us either - but for your own sanity you're best off letting them get on with it so long as they don't destroy the house in the process. Can you get them a shed in the garden, as needafootmassage suggests? Then you can send them out to it whenever it gets too much for you to bear in the house. Or send one out and not the other (taking it in turns of course).

Separate them and if that fails tell them you don't want to know about the fighting unless you there's blood!

Seriously though mine are driving me nuts and we are only at the start of the school holiday.

Sorry for the random "you".

I know you were, needafootmassage, but it's actually not a bad idea. Let them thrash it out (don't lock them in then!) out of earshot. :)

Oh, mine are like this. I tend to step over them as they wrestle now. The less attention they get, the less they seem to bother ime. On one memorable occassion, they were knocking hell's bells out of each other in the garden. Despite me shouting/threatening/cajoling they still had each other in a head lock. So I turned the hose on them Much hilarity ensued, and I have to confess it was very satisfying