physical fighting and teenage siblings

[ernesttheBavarian]

My 2 teen ds were home alone today as I went back to work. They start school next week. For the 4 days I thought they would be ok.

Get in from work. They have had a full on physical fight. Mainly ds1 attacking ds2.

They have 3 more days at home and I'm now really stressed about leaving them.

How do you handle /punish/ teens fighting?

(My sister used to bully and beat me when I was younger so it was a very sad and upsetting deja vu)

how old are we talking? mine haven't hit teens yet but I think its pretty normal, I fought with mine too and I was only girl with five older boys (two of whom now in their 30s still break into fisticuffs on occasion). its hard to say though without knowing the age, they could be grounded or have stuff taken away but there comes a time when its not really up to you and you sort of just have to try and tell them to stop it.

13 and 15. The 15 year old is really into fitness and weight training. They do judo. So we're talking strong, fit muscly kids, esp ds1 and I'm worried he'll really hurt his brother. Also, it's not like a fight where both parties want to fight iyswim, but the younger one annoying the older one, and the older one assaulting him.

Do they get pocket money or an allowance? What do they get bought for them each week? Do they still need things to go back to school? Tell them you can't leave them alone so you will have to take a day unpaid leave, work out how much you would lose and then what they would sacrifice to pay you back for this. Financial penalties hit mine hard or turn off the Internet, that's effective as well. We have a no physical contact rule (3 boys 18, 17 and 8) mostly to protect the little one who can be very annoying and it's a long time since it's been broken.