Help - please tell me how you tackle aggression between siblings (long, sorry)

[alittleteapot]

dd has just turned three and we are having problems with her aggression towards her 10 month old brother. I'd love to hear from others going through similar, but also those with older children who can give a bit of perspective on how much of this behaviour is age related, ie a phase, and how much can be managed by how the parent deals with it.

Her behaviour ranges from overzealous teeth gritted "cuddles" to aggressive snatching of any toy he happens to be playing with, to pushing him over or pulling his hair, hitting, etc. I know this is all to some extent normal or at least very common behaviour but we are struggling with how to deal with it. It seems to me there are two levels on which it needs to be tackled 1. To make it very clear this is unacceptable, but almost more importantly 2. to try and create a harmonious relationship between them as they grow up together and out of this particular "threenager" phase. Obviously there will always be fights but will there always be random acts of horribleness? it's really upsetting to see our previous lovely girl behaving like this.

We are experimenting with a version of time out when behaviour hurts or threatens to damage herself or others. It doesn't work very well as she won't stay in one place and it seems to fuel an even bigger tantrum/power struggle which I worry will further antagonise things i.e. that if she associates these episodes with her brother it will give her a negative view of him which could exacerbate behaviour. At the moment she is probably 50/50 quite nice to him, kind and sharing, enjoys cuddles and making him laugh, then 50% horrid.

This morning after a hair pulling incident that really hurt ds dp made her sit on her bed to think about what she'd done. It took about half an hour and a big tantrum to get her to stay there then she eventually did and came out and gave ds a hug and a kiss and said sorry (unprompted) so maybe it did have some effect. But this technique doesn't sit quite right with me - i don't know if that's just because I find it hard - I haven't exactly come up with the right alternative solution, except to make clear it's unacceptable and hope she grows out of it. In general my style is a constant drip drip drip of "this is how we do things" and I do think she has very sound moral foundations and a good understanding of right and wrong.

Any ideas, reassurance etc would be gratefully received!

Thanks and sorry this is a bit long

Have you tried ignoringher behaviour and cuddling ds

then when she's in a happy mood just explain how it's not nice to pull his hair and how she wouldn't like it if someone pulled hers

do you get much chance to do things just with her when ds naps, like Reading stories etc

Thanks compo. There is definitely a problem that we don't get enough quality time together without ds. he only sleeps for 45 mins twice a day and that's usually when we're on the move.

I think the ignoring point is good but feels inappropriate at times, e.g if she's just snatched a toy away or if she's just walloped him.

Having said that I think my instinct against time out etc is because I feel very sorry for her as I think being three is really hard, and I do feel like in amongst all the nappy changing, food prep, tidying etc I don't get enough quality time with her. But I also don't know how to resolve that...

Mine are now 2 and 4.2 so just the same age difference. We are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, they play together really nicely sometimes and DD2 can hold her own in a fight so I don't feel so bad for her when DD1 is unkind (not that I encourage fighting, I just leave them to resolve their own differences when it's possible).

My mantra was 'we are kind and gentle to each other.' I must have repeated it 100x a day: 'Stop pulling DD2's arm, we are kind and gentle to each other.' 'Give the toy back, we are kind and gentle to each other.' Anything very aggressive or mean merits the naughty step, but DD1 will stay on the step. At first I had to stay with her and sometimes sat with her. Lots of talk about kindness etc.

For prevention, I would sit with them on the floor or at the table etc (still do.) Or take DD2 with me to the bathroom or wherever I was going.

It does get better, it gets lots better, my 2 share a room now and they have little sweet games they only play with each other. They comfort and look out for each other and it's all very nice and sisterly. They other day when I was putting DD2 for a nap, DD1 came up to hear the story and she gave DD2 a lovely kiss and cuddle. I thought she'd come up for a pee so after DD2 was in her cot I started off to the bathroom. "Oh, I don't need a pee mommy," she said. "I just came up to give [dd2] a kiss."

Good to here it gets better letsblow. We do get moments of lovely kindness (finding ds a toy or rushing to give him a kiss) so there's hope in that... also, we have similar mantras. She does know, as well.

How did you decide what warranted the naughty step? My fear would be that she'd be on it all day some days and I don't see that that achieves anything except alienating her further and making things worse.

anyone else have thoughts on this?

For us, the naughty step is for any egregious aggression or refusal to make amends. For example, hitting hard, shoving to the ground, whacking with dangerous toyanything that could really hurt. Taking a toy and refusing to give it back or provide an acceptable alternative always warrants the naughty step as does refusing to apologize for a lesser offense (I don't always force an apology but the refusal to give one usually points to a malicious motive iyswimif DD1 didn't mean to hurt DD2, she will immediately apologize without prompting.)

I've found that adopting a we're in this together attitude with DD1 is helpful. sometimes she just tries her luck and I give her the face and she undoes whatever it is. Naughty step days for us are the ones where we don't do anything. If we've got nothing planned and they start fighting it's off to the playground/soft play/library whatever.

I have several friends with children with slightly longer age gaps and although they've started out better, now the younger ones are starting to come in to their own, the older ones are not so happy about it. DD1 is pretty pleased now that DD2 doesn't take up so much of my time and can play. I feel they respect each other as people in their own small way whereas children who started off smitten with their baby siblings are a bit shocked when they turn into little people.

Thanks. I guess what's hard is working out how much of this short fuse behaviour is age related and taken out on sibling and how much is sibling related. Will keep plugging away...

DS is 3.5 and DD is almost 1 year and we have a terrible time with aggression. DS loves his sister, they give kisses and cuddles all the time, but pushes her over at least once a day. Today I left DD at home with DH, took DS shopping just the 2 of us to give him some time with me. I bought him a new tractor and we had a lovely time. He came back, shoved DD over then kicked her. I was gutted and actually furious.

We're doing the naughty step combined with stickers on a reward chart for days where DD doesn't have any aggression towards her. He hasn't achieved a sticker in that row yet

Sorry to hear you're also going through this Caro - it's hard isn't it. How long have you been doing the sticker chart? Is your ds minxy in other ways?

My latest thought of the day is how important it is to use the same language with ds even though he is really too young to understand, so that dd sees that they are treated equally and fairly. So, I am trying to explain to ds as well as dd that we don't snatch, don't pull hair, etc. She's been really nice to him today but part of that is just a power trip knowing she can decide to be nice or nasty.

I would second the 'ignoring the aggressor, comforting the wounded party' strategy, based on my experience. I've got the same age gap as you and dd did hit/poke/throw things at/try to jump on etc etc ds when he was very little. She certainly knew that we're meant to be nice to each other and not hit etc, so whenever she was aggressive towards him, I ignored her and made a big fuss of ds 'oh, poor ds, did dd hurt you? Dd knows how to be gentle and kind and she forgets' type thing. This took the wind out of her sails and reduced the frequency of incidents dramatically. I combined this with letting her know that she could SAY that she didn't like ds, or didn't like his crying etc, so gave her an outlet for her feelings. She had just turned 2 and wasn't ready to be usurped from being the baby, which I empathised with, but he's here to stay!

The most useful piece of advice I received (via Penelope Leach's Baby and Child book) was to not worry about getting the older child to like the baby but focus on getting the older child to believe that the baby likes them, so lots of 'oh, he's copying you', 'you make him smile the most', you're his favourite' etc. This gave me a positive strategy and was, I think, the main thing that helped them develop a good relationship.

DS is now 14 months and they're the best of friends. HTH.

Thanks for posting Rosebud, that all rings completely right to me. In fact we've had that approach at various times but it's got a bit lost recently and we've felt like we needed to come down harder. But I think it's the right approach - as you say it takes the wind out of sails, but also kind of gives the older one the benefit of the doubt and a get out in which to learn to be nicer.

We'll try and get back to this approach and see how it goes.

hi again rosebud - just wondered what you would do in following situation.

This morning dd twisted ds's arm , so i did the comfort the victim thing and explain dd sometimes forgets that certain things can hurt.

Then she yanked ds's hair so i did it again but then she very deliberately yanked it twice more and ds was really very upset.

What would you do in that scenario? Finding this so hard!