To not care who had the bloody hobby horse first

[cherryredretrochick]

I really fing don't care, now shut up!!!!

lol- that's the spirit!

FWIW that was my attitude over squabbles and they do realise that there's no point coming running to you if you never get involved

I thought you were referring to a squabble on a mumsnet thread. Arf.

Oh yes, I always want to shout "I don't f-ing care!" when these sorts of squabbles arise. So far I've managed not to.

Imagine being the child that always has things taken from them and everytime they asked for assistance the parent said 'don't involve me, I don't care'

Well, 99.9% of the time there is no proof who had the disputed item first.

Generally speaking, I simply remove the disputed item if there is any bickering.

Stoped fighting and joined together to shred a feather boa while I am MNing, serves me right.

and for the 0.1% of the time when you know who had it first, it turns out that they'd put it down to play with something else and only want it because the other person has dared to touch it.

So true.
Just throw all the toys in the bin and they will have nothing to fight over, ha ha ha.

dropdeadfred - honestly you can't win if you get involved, believe me! Sounds cruel but they soon learn to sort it out between themselves.

If you get involved you run the risk of being hoodwinked into believing it was always the one that looks as if butter wouldn't melt who was being 'hard done to' when in fact it's the other way round.

No one fights your battles for you at school, much easier if they learn that young IMHO...

I know my older two are just as guilty as each other as starting fights - so I do tell them I don't care who started it NOW STOP IT! (or words to that effect.....depending on how long it's been going on, and whether it's the 15th, 25th or 250th time since DS1 came home from school that afternoon )

Well I agree to some degree that if you know your children well enough to know they are pretty evenly matched temperement wise etc then you could leave them to sort it themselves more.

But personally speaking one of my brothers got away with taking anything and everything from me and my younger brother as mum always said 'I don't care, not interested' and my brother used to gloat over his victory every time

DDF - I had the opposite when I was little. I was always doing things which my brother ended up getting the blame for. Most memorable (for my mum) was when I learned to stack all my toys at the end of the cot, climbed up and out, across the chest of drawers to the bookshelf at the opposite. Took books off and ripped them......I'd them climb back into my cot - dislodging the pile of toys in the process and go to sleep.

Of course my mum didn't realise this for a long time and so my older brother constantly got into trouble for not looking after his books properly.........until my mum came upstairs one evening and caught me in the act

Dropdeadfred . Not like that here thoug, i usually end up joining in and end up at there level. I had already reprimanaded dd2 for attacking dd12 and then dd1 would not shut up about it, like I won type thing.

Clearly dd1, 12 dds would be quite a handful wouldn't they?

Poor ddf - it was probably quite character building though, presumably you could have just done the same back to him without fear of retribution though!

On the other hand my middle brother was an absolute git and used to goad me until I snapped and then I always got blamed for everything!!

My brother used to tease me until I hit him and then I always got told off. Mum even remembers it now and tells my dd's how unfair it ws on me.

If she remembers it then why did she tell you off in the first place?? my mum was in blissful ignorance at least.

Did your brother do the really annoying dance type jig while pulling faces behind your Mum's back as she bollocked you as well [grin}?

Oh Yeh, git, he used to get all his friends to tell me that a moron was a really pretty girl and ask me what I was. Oh it all comes flooding back now.

She must have thought she had to tell me off as I had hit him, smug git.

This thread has gone cold now, but...

I gave both hobby horses to the charity shop after months and months of hysteria over who was riding one/both at once.
And they played with them. Both. Everyday.And they cried when they couldnt find them

So does this mean i am more unreasonable than you then?