Kids 7 and 4 bickering. Hep please I can’t take anymore.

[calmingpompoms]

Obviously we are at the last week of the school holidays so it’s not exactly a normaL picture of our life but my god I’m so sick of the kids bickering.

What can I do to nip this in the bud? I think
we should have a family meeting and put some
ground rules in place. Rules they can think of too even. But what works in your family? This is a recent thing, it hasn’t always been like this.

Typical causes: one child winding the other up about being first/fastest/best. Or pulling faces at each other. Not wanting to share toys. Normal things but I’m ground down by it.

Mine bicker a lot too - I’ve got twins and they are terrible for it. Biggest threat I can give them is “if you carry on bickering, I’ll separate you both” - done it a few times by putting them in different rooms for 5-10 mins, and they get SO bored without one another, that the threat is enough to stop the arguing.
I feel your pain.

Mine are a bit younger and do their share of bickering, but a couple of things I find helpful are:

• Getting involved as "referee" as little as I can. I know sometimes my older DC deliberately provokes the younger because when he hurts her, she gets cuddles and he gets told off which is a win / win for her. So instead of getting involved myself I try to teach them how to solve problems themselves. Literally rehearse what to say and do in the situation at hand e.g "No thanks Johnny I don't feel like racing at the moment" or "I don't like it when you make that face" or just move yourself away or whatever. And then limited involvement from me beyond that - just "have you tried doing x / y / z?"

• Going hard on praising them any time they do share / play nicely together / resolve a problem themselves etc. If we're going through a rough patch I sometimes go even further and give actual rewards to reinforce this - e.g. putting bits of dried pasta in a jar each time they manage it and then a treat when they fill the jar. Then they're working together and getting positive reinforcement of the behaviours I want to see.

• Making sure they both have a space where they can go away from the other if they need space.

Sorry, mine are 12 & 7 and I can confirm that it doesn’t get better. 🙈 I wanted to put them both straight in the bin yesterday.

Yes mine don’t like to be split up either actually. So thanks for this

I’m definitely going to do the jar suggestion as I know they’ll like that. Thanks for that!

Mine had the same age gap and when younger I couldn't leave them in the same room without them fighting.
I know it's no help to you now but if it's any consolation, they're now 34 and 31, great friends and have been on holidays together.

Good luck!

@3ormorecharacters what a great summary, that's what I try with 6 and 3 year old, although the reality is slightly different, there's more shouting than there should be.
The only difference is our pasta jar is "family points" and I give them out like water all year round, however there's no actual reward, they just accumulate invisibly!
One other thing that you alluded to @calmingpompoms is getting them to come up with solutions, so saying (child 2) is not calm, how can we let them calm down? And then you can suggest a family rule "when someone is not calm, tell them to let you know when they want to play again"

I got this book in a second hand book sale - it has the best title. There were several takeaways but the one that sticks in my mind is not to specify which child - so if they’re arguing it’s “kids, stop arguing” rather than getting involved in the nitty gritty of whose turn it is to have the best cup

www.amazon.co.uk/mom-Jasons-Breathing-Me-Bickering/dp/0345460928

One thing to watch is are you and DP/DH bickering?

It's amazing how this can trigger it in the dc.

I have twin 4 year olds and an 8 year old - this summer has been brutal - best will in the world 4 year olds aren’t going to understand a “family meeting” - they’ll just nod and say yes mummy and forget about it 2 minutes later and get back to bickering. It’s just normal at this age having spent 6 weeks 24/7 with each other

8 and 5 here. Divide and conquer. 8 year old has a box in a separate room housing just their toys so a means of escape from younger sibling.

Same age as my kids OP! I find taking mine out really lessens the bickering. If we are in the house a lot, it gets worse. We have been out A LOT this summer!

Friends kids are 5 and 9, similar issues. If they're playing a productive game together then it goes quite well, but if they're milling about without a purpose then they inevitably end up playfighting, which leads to real fighting, or the older one will provoke the younger one.

Like yesterday, 5yo was building duplo with me, older one comes over and starts touching the model we'd been building. Younger one doesn't like that as he'll either break it, or just take over and we'd been playing happily for a while and he doesn't want his brother messing with it. So younger one screeches no don't touch it, older one touches it more. Younger one then immediately gets physical. I try to break it up and say to the older one ask before you touch something your brother is building - he asks, younger one says no I don't want you touching it, older one immediately touches it again. When they're in that sort of mood they just need to be kept apart and occupied in different ways really as the older one is winding his brother up for sport.