I thought I would try a new way of dealing with the recurrent problem of the DSs fighting in the back of the car. They are 4 and 5. I decided that rather than respond to "he hit me", "he kicked me", "he's being nasty to me", "he's going to put his hand next to me", ad infinitum, that I'd just ignore the fighting and leave them to their own devices.
My usual technique is to say "stop fighting, stop telling tales, stop screaming" as that covers most bases, and ocasionally threaten to stop by the side of the road and leave them there.
Anyway, today, after 15 minutes of "boys, I'm not going to intervene, you need to work this out yourselves", where apart from saying this a couple of times, I just ignored the shrieks from the back, we got home and I found DS2 had scratches all over his face, DS1 had bitemarks and DS2 had wet himself from rage (also because he hadn't been to the loo since after breakfast and it was tea time).
Parenting fail
How the hell do you deal with children terrorising each other in the car? I was shocked at what they'd done - I couldn't see in the mirror (and tbh I was concentrating on the road) and I gave them both a talking to at home, and have banned TV/computer for a week. They're fine - it's all superficial, but I'm shocked at how quickly they reverted to Lord of the Flies style kiddie armegeddon when I didn't intervene.
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parenting fail
7 replies
rocketty · 01/09/2011 22:16
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