Your chidren and your mates chidren bickering and fighting!!!

[moosh]

I meet with different friends one at a time for a coffee and chat e.t.c. and we want our kids to play together happily. They are all the same age 4 going on 5yrs boys too, but it only lasts for a little while. Only about 30 mins, and then they begin arguing, fighting and generally what would be a nice couple of hours urns out to be a horrible couple of hours. We have threatened to go home sometimes one of us has even left early. Yesterday for e.g. I went to see a mate at her house and we have boys same age and babies same age too we only were there for 2 hrs and her son and mine began arguing and fighting. Weleft early because her son began to get really violently physical and throwing toys e.t.c. he was told off but we just left fearing one of the toys would hit his baby brother or my ds2. ds1 handled it well but began to hit back so we left which was a real shame. We have decided to get together when they return to school next week but sometimes it is nice for the children to play together too. We keep all visits short no longer than 2 hrs for the children's sakes but how can we avoid some pretty firey situations between the boys. Any suggestions would be gratefully received thanks.

Are you my mate, moosh? Don't think so (I rarely meet up for coffee) but I'm having the same problem with my nearly 5-year-old. It seems he bickers with any child of the same age he plays with, even (and especially) his closest friends, whose parents tend to be my closest friends. I wonder if it's the age? They seem awfully competitive at this age. If one appears to be "winning" at something, or if one has a "bigger" or "better" something (toy, portion, whatever) they seem to go bezerk. I have no suggestions except constantly reminding them to play nicely, and keeping a no-tolerance policy on physical fighting. I do wonder, sometimes, if I'm not being too precious. . .if maybe they should be left to sort it out on their own. I don't know.

Don't know if it will help (my DS is 3.8 but his best friend is 4.6) .. when we get together we try to leave them to sort it out amongst themselves

so we interfere only when there's screams of outright pain

its difficult but I think sometimes you can jump on boys' behaviour too soon to allow them to work it out themselves

we've heard them apologise to each other without being prompted and share beautifully too

oh best mate has a 2.6 year old brother too (and I have a 6 month old but she stays with me )

We have this too but our ds's are younger - around 3.5 yrs. Ours play happily for a while and then, as is normal, it all goes wrong. What we do is initially try to sort out the argument (usually over who has what train!!) and if it doesn't work we'll get them focused on a different activity and we'll maybe join in for a bit with a game to get them settled again. It usually works.

If they get really hyper - ours do around 4.30-5pm and we are still chatting () we just put a video on and they'll sit and watch that for a bit because it's a novelty as they don't have TV usually when they are together.

Like Twiglett we let them try and sort it out among themselves and they sometimes do and sometimes we have to intervene - obviously we don't jump in straightaway as they quite often settle it themselves.

Thankgod ours are not the only ones. Totally with you on the competition and winning expatkat. everything they do is turns out to be a "I am better than you" competition. we tend to leave it for them to try and sort themselves out, but it does get out of hand so we tend to intervene all of the time. I think it is an age thing too, but haven't tried the distraction thing, I do it at home but have never thought of doing it when I am with friends. We also may try to get together in the morning rather than late afterb=noon as we hope they will be less tired and play better. So will defo try the distraction thing next time which is tomorrow aaaaaggggghhhhhh wish me luck!!! We are going to need it greatly.

my ds and my friends ds's fight all the time but its not really nasty. they love each other to bits but boys will be boys i guess. we only intervene if someone is really getting hurt and dont listen to telling tales as they constantly wind each other up. if they start fighting around one of our babies that is different but if its just a bit of rough and tumble we generally let them sort it out between themselves. its taken me a long time to do this but you cant protect them all the time i surpose...me running in to stop it would only make things worse. but then theres a bit of a row and nasty bullying...nasty bullying i wont stand for and if things do get out of hand, myself or my friend will step in. i think thats all you can do really. hope that makes some sense somehow!