Struggling to cope with my children together more than apart

[pickingcowparsley]

My children are ds(5) and dd(3 next month.) I am struggling a lot with them together and it is affecting so many areas of my life; my mental health, my physical health, my relationship, friendships, work and general outlook on life.

Apart they are mostly fine, not perfect because no child is. My dd is probably the more tricky. She seems quite defiant and generally difficult at the moment but i don’t think anything out of the ordinary for this age and stage.

Once they are together though things become manic. Dd will frantically try to take anything ds has or wants away from him, charging around the house in pursuit of him screaming and sobbing ‘mine MINE’ while he laughs manically. I’ve tried being consistent and taking the item away but in practice this just means ds doesn’t get something. Half the time it’s not even anything ‘valuable’ like a toy or snack.

They scream in the car, throw things, grab one another, generally if one is quiet and happy the other will intervene promptly to change that.

It has really been tipping me over the edge lately and I have said awful things I don’t mean. I just feel so helpless as when together they listen to and look to one another not me. It’s awful thinking I’ve potentially got another thirteen years of this.

I have three DC, and two of them have always been at each other's throats and we've had more than one trip to hospital as a result. I have a friend who had twin sisters who hated each other and were violent if left without adult supervision. It's SO HARD. For us, we needed to find ways to keep them apart. There was no question of leaving them unsupervised together even when they were old enough to be left alone. (We can now but then one of them is an adult now.)

How much time do you spend with them? (Do you work part time / full time out of the house, or are you a SAHM? If the latter you urgently need to put as much structure as you can in to keep them apart!) I assume your DS is at school? I would figure out a way to keep them apart as much as humanly possible, and try to ensure you are giving each of them quality 1:1 time (in reality likely to be for a couple of hours at the weekend if you have a partner who can have 1:1 time with the other).

Sending you solidarity -- it's EXTREMELY hard to manage.

Thanks @JeMapellePing . It is so hard to manage. One of the many challenges is it isn’t so much that they fight, it’s more that they whip one another up into an excitable frenzy and when they are like that they aren’t listening to me and I feel helpless which increases my stress responses which impacts us all.

I really wish I could separate them but I don’t see how. I work part time but I have then three days a week. Ds is at school but the silliness starts in the morning. I can’t really have ds in his room all evening and dd can’t be left alone yet really.

I hear you. Things were so bad with mine I genuinely considered separating, buying 2 houses and taking a child each just to keep them apart, it was absolutely desperate.

It does get easier, but in the meanwhile do you have a partner / husband?

Can you do after school stuff for the older one to keep them apart?

I didn't find any coping strategies beside separating them I'm sorry to say.

Thanks @Twoweeksinaugust . I said that this morning and was nearly in tears as I said it! This is the problem, it’s making me so stressed I’m saying things I don’t really mean for shock value which is awful parenting but I can’t get through to them.

I do have a DH but he’s generally not around during the week. He also has fairly recently (since the start of the year) started suffering with chronic and severe pain in his joints and hip. We’re still waiting for a diagnosis. That means he just can’t take a child because he can’t manage them, so I have them all the time!

They are nice apart, mostly. Nothing I wouldn’t expect for this age at any rate.

Can you swap with another parent with similar age dc?
Can you get ds in to Squirells or football or something a few evenings a week?
Can you leave one with an aunty or grandparent now and then?
My youngest never really gave a shit for consequences either, he couldn't think further ahead than the moment he was in, so nothing really worked. The oldest one ended up getting told off a lot as well, as she'd react hysterically to any perceived threat from him, which just wound him up.
I didn't behave well through it all, and I haven't really got many tips, but I know where you're coming from 💐

Surely your DH can take one child some of the time and do an activity like painting or taking them to the cinema?

You say he’s not around during the week, do you mean he’s at work or in hospital appts? If he can work he can look after one child.

I can see why there's a need to keep them apart sometimes, for your sanity more than anything! But keeping them apart won't help them develop the skills to get along better.
What sort of things do you do with them when you are all together? Do you leave them to play, or do you join in with them? Do they have any kind of structure - for example 10 mins of telly at home time followed by snacks, then a quiet activity, or whatever. Or is it just free play?
In a morning, are they trying to have fun or are they bickering at each other? Sorry from your post it almost sounded like a bit of both... Your 3 year old DD chases DS around for his things, and he then likes winding her up about it?
I know you said about taking it away, but how firm are you being with DD about not taking his things? She's 3 so absolutely at that age it's insanely hard, but what's the consequence for taking without asking? And is there anything you can do to prevent the wanting things, for example ask older DC to keep anything he doesn't want to share in his bedroom?

Mine are 5 and 7 now and they bicker and mess about loads when they are together. If I've just mentally had enough, I put them on their tablets and get half an hour's peace. That helps A LOT! And if I need longer, it's absolutely longer.

In the long run, is there anything you can try and model or encourage to stop the tricky behaviours, just as one example giving them something semi structured to do routinely at the times they tend to be worse, that doesn't involve playing with each other (let's say, get them both a jigsaw as a silly example, or sticking a few crafts on the table. Or modelling how to ask nicely for toys, and modelling how to respond if the answer is no?

In a morning mine respond well to visual charts with their morning routine on which helps a bit with distraction so they actually get ready in a morning. I get them to tick off when they've done something and they like that. I tend to bring them out when they're being particularly difficult one week, I don't use it all the time.

And obviously, siblings do just do each others head in and it's normal to feel like a referee the majority of the time. I'm sure you're doing great, but I hope some of that helps in some way x

I do a lot of team mum/parents Vs team boys (mine are both boys so maybe get them to come up with a team name) so it's who can build the biggest Lego tower... Oh team boys beat team mum! Who can get their shoes on quicker? Team boys beat team parents. It's not going to be life changing but it's small steps in getting them to work as a team and seeing eachother as something other than competition/annoying.
Some might go wrong at first.... Lego tower might be ambitious to start with but come up with some races etc might help.

Thanks all. I really do appreciate the replies.

DH is at work during the week and theoretically yes he can work and look after one child but in practice he just can’t (not safely anyway.) He can do bits but it’s like @Piedpiper99 says, they have to be together sometimes (although boarding school is looking increasingly tempting!) and I do worry effectively sending the older one off all the time damages our relationship, and it’s already fraught since dd was born if I am honest.

@Piedpiper99 so I genuinely don’t know what consequence I could issue (and sorry if I’m being pedantic here but she is still two; she isn’t three until mid July.) I do agree she’s old enough to ‘not take his things’ but absolutely nothing seems to make any difference. She sees him with something, she wants it, she screams, she goes after him, he winds her up. It’s destroying me from the inside out. Often she winds herself up into such a state I’m not even sure the original ‘thing’ is even important. I do ask ds to keep things in his bedroom away, but he just doesn’t. So yesterday, ds had a lollipop a school friend gave him. I told ds to eat it in his room; he ignored me and then I had a meltdown from dd because she wanted it, screaming and crying. That’s kind of more understandable when it’s a lollipop but often it’s something stupid and meaningless.

i think we have a fairly OK routine; the routine isn’t causing any issues anyway.

@Poodleeatingnoodle it’s partly that they argue (and I don’t want to think of the screaming when one wins and the other doesn’t) but also just how awful they are together. Hard to explain but it is like they are different people.

Will your youngest get free nursery hours from September? Nursery might help reinforce to the little one things like listening and sharing. She'll see it's not just you who asks her to do (or not do!) these things.

Weirdly, she’s generally OK about sharing in situations outside of the home. It’s purely DS. She used to be quite timid with other children: she’s slightly more inclined to be bolshy now but she’ll just grumble a bit, or cry, nothing like the running around after them screaming.