Normal 9 yr old behaviour or am I am crap parent OR are they just little sods?

[BoysDrivinMeMad]

I have 9 yr old twin DSs and the following behaviour is pretty usual for them:

Screaming, fighting, punching and generally attacking each other for the slightest thing.
Namecalling, shouting and arguing.
Running round (they literally make me feel dizzy) any store we go in, touching and picking things up, sliding down the aisles on their knees .
Will not go to sleep in evenings as constantly mucking about (have tried separating them but they run between the bedrooms).
Messy eating, slapping lips, slurping (hilarious to them), leaving crumbs in every bloody crevice in the house no matter how hard I try to get them to eat at the table (talking snacks here, meals we eat together obviously).
Have to be told constantly to get ready in the mornings/when we are going out, i.e. upstairs supposed to be getting dressed but I will find them lying on the floor reading or colouring.
Have to supervise their nightly baths as they will cover the floor and all surfaces with water sliding down the back of the bath!
Have 'lost' both of them on occasion as they will just wander of and not look where we are going and will not be able to find us.
Jumping on the sofas/beds and a special favourite of mine - standing on the back of sofa and divebombing it while I am sitting on it!

This behaviour would be pretty normal for 3 year old say, but 9 year olds? None of their peers seem to do this and when I walk around a shop and see other kids walking round nicely with their parents looking at mine like they are in shock, I just want to cry.

Now they get told off and punished for all this behavior so it's not like I have always let them do this, it's just like a bloody groundhog day all day everyday. They have very good diets, in fact the 'worst' one eats a LOT of fruit and veg as that is his favourite food. Dh sometimes says that it's because I am a vegetarian and while pregnant with them, they did not get enough protein in their brains (am starting to wonder now)!!!! Neither of them have SN btw.

Alot of it sounds ok, however the behaviour in shops is not and nor is physical fighting and namecalling all the time. Similarly divebombing furniture with people on it, is unacceptable for 9 (or 3!)

You are not giving yourself enough power here and need some more practical strategies, for example with shops, I don't take DS in them unless I am going to get him a little something. Then he has an incentive to be good and put up with the boredom. I think encouragement works better than being punitive so I would say "DS, remember you're going to have a (insert name of treat!) If you carry on being this good, I might even be able to make it a (slightly more of a treat)" etc. I wouldn't say "don't slide on the floor otherwise I won't buy you your treat" because obviously you have the kind of kids who are always ready to bring the fight to you and it seems clear they will respond better to positive encouragement than to punitive strategies.

I think you and your DH could perhaps sit them down on a 'good' day and say how incredibly proud you are that they are now so grown up and not fighting like little boys and you have decided that yours is now a 'no fighting, no insults' house, and there will be 'grown up' treats each Friday because of it. or something along those lines.

Only thoughts for what they are worth, obviously you know your kids best but it does sound to me as if they are quite willing to be your 'enemy' so you need to disarm them in a way by being more positive about the good stuff.

I would also consider involving school re any continued 'bad' stuff; if you think it woould work, say that their teacher was ASTOUNDED to hear that they still fight like little boys/run round in shops like toddlers and has asked to be kept informed. That's about as punitive as I would get.

Also think your DH needs to be very active being as they are twins and should be backing you up fully and be fully involved, is he?

My 9 year old DS is well-behaved, polite, calm and delightful to be around - UNTIL HE IS WITH HIS SIBLINGS! Then he sinks to the 3 yos level and is utterly unbearable. In fact I nearly posted about it today.

I have 3 DSs who vary in degrees of naughtiness, and sometimes display the sort of behaviour described by the OP, so I do think it can be normal. The extra problem for the OP is that she has two of them together all the time.

You may have to accept certain behaviours - eg the fighting etc - but perhaps start with the bad behaviour in public. Divide and conquer I reckon!

Normal, but don't let them get away with it.

My DS's are 7 and 9 and TRY to do most of the things on your list. IMO boys are hard work at this age, god bless mothers of sons I say .

I don't think it is normal, tbh. With the exception of having to tell them a million times to do something ie getting ready in the morning.

I have a 10 and 7 year old. There is no way on earth I would accept that kind of behaviour. That doesn't mean they are perfect angels but FFS. I would be mortified if they did half of what you have put on that list.

I don't think it is normal for boys to punch and kick each other. Why should that be acceptable?

I am so relieved to see this thread. My Ds are 9 and 7. Individually they appear to be relatively normal human beings. Together they are alternatively moronic/demonic and I fantasise about abandoning them on layby off the M5.

I have 9 year old twin DS too - they fight over EVERYTHING - and they know exactly which buttons to press now. I think we have experienced most of what the OP has mentioned, and we dont tolerate that kind of behaviour either.
However parenting multiples is a unique learning curve and "unacceptable" behaviour seems a bit strong to me unless you have inhabited twin world.
We have found that encouraging individual activities have helped, space away from each other and time alone with us too. My Ds share a room and ideally we would change that but is not an option at the moment.
They have a younger sister and they are incredibly good with her.
OP it sounds as though you are doing a bloody good job with two very active kids, I can absoloutely sympathise and on thoses "shouty" days I always make sure I sit down with them and explain exactly why i have lost it with them and apologise.
Its tough though!

"...normal 9 year olds simply don't attack their siblings on a daily basis..."

...some of them do!

My brother and I certainly did, for fun. My DSs (as mentioned near the beginning of the thread) also do although mostly its DS1 attacking DS2.

For what I see as the nasty fighting (pinching mainly) I will make them write lines (I must not pinch DS2), DS1 hates writing lines and its good handwriting practice

I don't take them shopping either. The delivery charge is more than worth it for less stress (plus I figure shopping takes over an hour and I am easily worth more than £5 an hour so delivery is cheaper)

Mine also do not listen to me and I think I am fairly strict. They don't seem to learn that the same consequences apply every time. If they fight over the TV, it goes off. If they fight/are gross at lunch time then they eat one at a time (whoever is worst eats last). If they jump on the furniture then they are banned from sitting on it for a day.

Bedtime is a hard one as you want them calm so shouting isn't great (although I do resort to it sometimes). I find reading to them helps them wind down - we are currently reading The Chronicles of Narnia (onto Prince Caspian now) and the chapters take around 20 minutes to read, by which time they are fairly relaxed. They really enjoy the stories and know that if they mess about I'll just put the book away, their 3yo sister is more hassle during story time than they are!

They don't seem to learn that the same consequences apply every time. If they fight over the TV, it goes off. If they fight/are gross at lunch time then they eat one at a time (whoever is worst eats last). If they jump on the furniture then they are banned from sitting on it for a day.

Oh, they learn all right, Beckle. And one of them takes great gloating smirking delight in seeing the other one suffer because of the punishment. The punishments can be applied evenly but they aren't taken evenly, because in the end one of them always cares a lot more about watching TV/eating soon/sitting on the furniture.

Cunning little monkeys.

'Zactly Lij; ds1 will often kick off when Wii is on as he isn;t arsed about it anyway; once it goes off (we have a rule that if tehre's arguing when it's on then we turn it off) he trots upstairs grinning becuase he got what he wanted, and goes to read his book. Whilst teh others get upset and understand perfectly well that ds1 won again- except ds3 whoc an't even process that (ASD) so just cried.

Dh tells me he and his brother behaved like this as kis. I certainly fought daily with my sisters. none of us have criminal records, all have (or had) good responsible even caring jobs. Keep piling in the structure and rules but don't panic about the future quite yet.

I have 4 kids, 2 girls (14 and 13) and 2 boys (12 and 7). Sibling fighting/name calling/winding each other up is pretty usual IMHO. My oldest boy is very lively and we have had much sofa jumping etc over the years. He's grown out of it though.....mostly!!!!

I think that what many people are overlooking is that the OP is dealing with twins, my DD's are only 11 months apart but looking after them was nothing like having twins.

I've two ds', youngest aged 3 and eldest 7. Your two sound EXACTLY like my 7 year old! He loves to run down aisles when at the supermarket and then skid the rest of the way on his knees
I've found that the way to stop him is to threaten tell him before we go in that if he even tries it I'll hold his hand all the way round the shop like a toddler. Then actually carry it through and make him hold it all the way round so he's forced to walk nicely with me. Hardly does it any more as he knows I'm serious and doesn't want to hold my hand in case he bumps into anyone he knows and they think he's a baby!
As for the winding each other up at bedtime, yep that happens on a regular basis here as well. Doesn't help they've got to share a bedroom. What we do now is put eldest in our bedroom then when they're both asleep transfer him across to his own bed. Works a treat.
Jumping on sofas, yep he does that too. But knows he won't get away with it cos if I catch him doing it he gets sent to his room or a favourite toy taken away.
AS for the running off, that's definitely NOT acceptable, and if mine did that I'd be getting out my 3 year old's old toddler reins and tell him if he tried it again he'd be wearing them!

Sorry I haven't read every post but I have boys and the only way of calming them down is sports, sports and more sports! My dh brings them training several evenings during the week and our whole weekend is taken up with various matches. Its a big commitment and takes up a lot of our time BUT it means on a Sat evening we can sit down as a family to watch TV in peace! They will have no energy left for divebombing off the sofa believe you me.

at lljkk - that's very true...

it's because it's the 2 of them together

mine are just under 15 months apart and I know what you mean (they are 10 and 9)

I am on leave today so thought I'd take them to a lovely Nat Trust place with woodland gardens etc. Let them run off their energy. Except ds (the 9 year old) touched a tree fungus with his leg. Dd told him it was poisonous (and despite me saying it wasn't, she was nodding silently behind my back that it was and he completely believed it). Cue ds running around the whole park asking whether he looked like he was dying. Trying to roll in the grass to get the fungus off his leg. Eventually he got completely hysterical much to dd's delight and we've come home and he's jumped straight into the bath .

Nothing is ever simple with the 2 of them together ffs!

oh and I saw twin boys there. About age 6. Running and jumping on bark that had fallen off the trees and pretending they were skateboards. Until they realised they could use the bark as swords and poke each other. You can imagine how that game ended