so tired of all the squabbling....help me help them please

[sacbina]

dd is 3.8, ds is 22 months so obviously both still learning about sharing. sometimes they are very good and willingly share toys, snacks, books etc telling me they are doing so and so gaining praise. other times it's just a constant battle.

dd has taken to claiming a room, space, bit of sofa, speck of carpet as hers and will get quite rough with ds, to the extent of biting him. he has taken to copying her and biting back then all hell breaks loose. he's also a thrower which is a whole other problem.

playing with the train track, megabloks, in the sandpit frequently cause a meltdown. I have taken to removing the offending item from both and saying if you can't share/play together then neither of you can play with it. but I'm sure that's not the best way to deal with it, trouble is I don't know what else to do and a search through mn only brought up a dozen other posts. surely we can't be the only ones

dd is at playgroup and the complete opposite. frequently helping out the new arrivals, getting others to Join in and they say they've never seen any problems

really need some help before I turn into my own mother and just start shouting

sorry it was a bit long.....

I have dd's 5.5 and 4 and found the book Siblings Without Rivalry really very helpful. I was actually quite surprised that when I used some of the simple techniques it taught how much it totally changed things.

oh god, i bought that book shortly after ds was born thinking I'd be all proactive and prepared.....haven't read it yet and can't remember where I put it! .he turned out to be a difficult, high needs boy (which dd definitely reacts to and gets fed up of)

Watching this with interest! I can sympathise though my boys are older, DS1 is 6 and DS2 is 2. Obviously DS1 is old enough to know to share etc and thankfully they aren't violent with each other (yet!!!) but there are a LOT of squabbles over any toy DS1 is playing with, DS2 immediately wants it. I have no idea how to deal with it. Some days I do better than others!

Some of it might be because the little one is spoiling what the older one is doing. I can remember my dd1 being heartbroken when dd2 lifted the train track up and sort if waved it around whilst it disintegrated. And she would just take things out of dd1's hand that she was playing with.

Things like that were really frustrating for dd1. Sometimes it helps to put yourself in their shoes. So imagine you were knitting a jumper for example and someone walked up to you, took it from you, pulled one of the needles out and then threw the lot on the ground.

I can certainly understand dds frustration, and that's why she bites. ds frustrates me too most of the time she is loving and affectionate to everyone

but she does the toy grabbing too, for things that she has shown no previous interest in, then ds explodes. when she remembers she swaps it for another toy, but often just snatches. but the whole personal space thing is a new issue. I can't ban ds being in the lounge and she won't go and play on her own in her bedroom

I feel I can't leave them unsupervised whilst I even make their lunch

any wise weekend words
today has involved endless tantrums from both about which toys they would play with in the paddling pool. pool has now been put away

Use a timer? So if they start squabbling over something, then say 'right, dd can play with that for the next three minutes, then it's DS's turn'.

I constantly remind my older DS that babies have got really short attention spans, so if he lets DS2 have something then he can have it straight back once DS2 notes onto the next thing.

If DS2 is spoiling a game, then he gets told no and moved away over and over and over again until I find something interesting enough to distract him. The kitchen bin lid seems to work a treat!

DS1 is 4.3 and DS2 is 16 months