Has anyone here had kids who have moderate to severe sibling rivalry and have managed to calm things down a bit?
If so, what did you do?
We have 4 children, aged 13,11,9 and 7, 3 girls and a boy.
The eldest two girls, Y8 and Y7, fight constantly. The eldest says she hates DD2, which really upsets DD2, who has ASD.
There is swearing, name calling, physical contact, and stealing of possessions - this goes both ways. They have their own rooms and if I don't see what happened ( which is most of the time) they both lose their phones and go to their rooms. Sometimes they do go, sometimes they don't- I can't force them any more.
They have had sleepovers, outings with friends and school trips cancelled as consequences for bad behaviour but I do tend to go easy with DD2 as she has social difficulties and I like to encourage friendships.
Now the smallest two are starting to fight more as well. They do have to share a room for now, but next year DH is going to do without his study so all the DC can have their own rooms.
It's driving me crazy as I can't leave them alone in a room for 5 minutes without someone coming in crying or yelling or telling tales.
Up until about 3 years ago, we had very few problems with sibling rivalry at all this has all developed since the eldest turned 10.
I spend as much 121 time with them as possible but this only equates to 30-60 minutes a week, and DH and I each take a child away for the weekend by ourselves every couple of months or so.
I have read the how to talk, sibling rivalry books and a few others too, and put quite a lot of these things into action but my time, energy and resources are limited :(