Better Times...
I remember one day when Addy was about 3 1/2 and Faith was just about 1. We were driving in the van and I could hear Addy chatting in the back seat, talking to her little sister. She was so sweet and gentle with her, and then she said the most precious thing ever, "Faith, you will always be my best friend!". I almost had to pull over because I could barely see to drive for the tears in my eyes. Beautiful Memories...
And here is a picture from this week.
Addy- "Faith, STOP HITTING ME!"
Faith-"Addy kicked me!"
Addy-"I don't want Faith to play in my room. She always messes everything up!"
Faith- "I don't like Addy! She is mean!"
Can I just say that I am about to lose my mind?! These girls fight ALL. THE. TIME. It's like the never ending battle. I spend most of my day trying to get them to get along, and when that fails, just trying to keep them from harming each other. It's like they just can't help picking on each other and doing things to annoy the other. Just for fun!
And let me just say that I have 3 sisters, so I know that girls fight, but I honestly don't remember fighting this much with my sisters when I was so young, (now cut to our teenage years and you have a different story!). If this is what they are like now, I cannot imagine what the preteen years are going to bring...for any of us!!!
And it's not as if we haven't tried to stay on top of it. We do time outs, take away toys, (and YES, I have packed up their entire rooms before as taken it all to the garage...I'm not playin' here people!), have missed out on fun things they wanted to do, and have even resorted to spanking on occasion when behavior has been severe. We are Trying, but nothing seems to work!
Is anyone else having this problem? Has anyone gotten through it and come out the other side, (still sane?)? I need help here folks! If you have good ideas that have worked for you, PLEASE SHARE! Otherwise, the Family Fun Mom, might soon be called, 'Reports from The Psych Ward'...
I don't know if your kids are old enough for this to be effective, but what works best for my two that fight (ages 9 and 8) is to tell them that they lose the privilege of having friends over or going over to friends until they can treat each other like a friend. And it's especially effective if they have a play date planned that is now threatened to be cancelled. This is a HUGE deal to them so they really try coz they know I'm not messing around either!
ReplyDeleteWhen they were younger they mostly lost the freedom of either playing together (playing by yourself gets boring after a while) or if it was really bad, playing at all - in which case they'd have to sit on their beds and do nothing until I let them try again. And if they went right back at each other, then back on their beds! They got it after a while :)