Squabbling children

[nooschmoo]

Am I being unreasonable to hate my squabbling children?! 😣 They never stop. About anything-who gets to shut the car door first. Full on meltdown rows about whose turn it is. Who pushed into who in the hallway. One of them is ‘staring’ at the other. One of them is sitting too close to the other. One of them is breathing too loudly and it’s ‘really annoying’. Who’s turn it is for just about ANYTHING. 😭😭
I start off being quite reasonable or try to stay out of it, but end up yelling and tearing my hair out because they JUST. WON’T. STOP.
They are 7, 10 and 12.

Watching with interest. My two have just started this. I am trying to nip in the bud with limited success. I try being calm and referring them to the rules they came up with where there's no fighting and separating them/ time out but I'm not sure if I just need to persevere or take a different tack....I await advice from someone who has come out the other side!!

I leave them to sort it out themselves most of the time. I can't spend my time being a referee and trying to get involved in every little thing was terrible for my mental health and that of my husband.

Obviously if someone is hurt then I'll comfort or if one goes too far, then I will Have Words. But honestly, just leave them, it's not worth it 9 times out of 10 and getting involved often escalates it needlessly.

My boys were like this a couple of years ago,10 and 16 at the time. It got so bad with the ' he's staring at me' etc I had to put cereal boxes in the middle of the table so they couldnt see each other.

Always fighting on the stairs and kicking each other as they passed in the hall. I was pulling my hair out.
Luckily it's all stopped!

Mine are 12, 13 and 15. They have 99% grown out of it now

I have two daughters who went through a phase like this when they were 11 and 13 and I found just the threat of them getting a smacked bottom was usually enough to stop it escalating