[dlhall]

Need some advice on how to handle problems between my two children. I have a dd who is 7 and small for her age (43 lbs and 44 inches); her brother is 3.5 and is big for his age (38 lbs and 40 inches). He is very aggressive with her--always pushing her, sitting on her, hitting her. Most of the time he is either playing with her and not intending to hurt her or trying to push her out of the way so he can have all my attention. She's a drama queen and whines and cries everytime he touches her, and I know for a fact that most of the time she is not actually hurt. Additionally, she also eggs him on (poking at him, taking things away from him etc.). I'm at my wits end!

Today there were at least 4 whining, crying incidents where he was either sitting on her, pushing her and had thrown something at her (and that was just between 3-7pm and she was gone for an hour at gymnastics!) I end up yelling at both of them and punishing them both because I know she's not totally innocent, and I want her to stop whining and to start defending herself, but at the same rate she knows she'll get in trouble if she hits him back, so she is definitely in a catch 22. Any advice?

Thanks,
Liz

[justmp]

No advice because you've pretty much described life at my house this past summer. Things are a little better now that school is back in session and DD is gone all day, and DS has turned 4 and matured quite a bit in the past month or two, so the late afternoons/evenings haven't been too bad and they've actually been better about playing together.

I punished both of them most of the time, too, because I couldn't stand the over-reacting on DD's part. In the past few weeks when they've had a problem like that, I've been sending them off to their individual rooms. Not so much as a punishment, but to separate them. Good luck...I KNOW how trying it is!

[catmele]

Wow.. we have the same situation here also.. 5 yr DS who is very small for age (35 pounds wet) & a 2 1/2 DS who is on the bigger side (32 pounds & only about 2 inches shorter than his big brother). The younger one is also more aggressive than the older one ever was. They love each to death but my 5 yr old is always crying/whining that his little brother is hurting him. We are worried as we know one day his little brother will definitely be bigger than him For now we feel we have one soccer player & one football player.
I feel your pain though & have no great advice!
Cathy

[dlhall]

Well it's at least good to know that I'm not alone! They started again this morning while getting ready for school, and I immediately separated them making my son stay in the bathroom with me and sending my daughter to another room. We at least had a few moments of peace.

Liz

[TweetyMom04]

We've had the same problem here.

We are ALWAYS telling the Boys, play nice together or sit with your hands in your lap with nothing to play with for awhile. It took about a week of them sitting in separate corners, nothing to play with, before they 'got' the message - be nice, share, play nice, no yelling or pushing or sit facing the corner and be bored. Yes, they still have their moments, but, it has gotten better.

Follow through is the key.

[ddahl]

I woul dsay that you need to find out what their cuuency is.. so that you can use it to your advantage. I had the same issue when my niece live with us for a year. Punnishing them both was what we did as well. They would both nit pick eachother and it would end up causing a lot of unnecessary confusion beyond the normal sibling style issues that are bound to come up. If I have a dollar for every time I would say " the two of you need to_____________! or you are both going to time out/in whatever.... OMG! I am stressing just thinking of those days! The key for me was not letting them break me down in terms of the rules. Once I laid out the rules I really had to manage my own behavior the most. Wha tcan I say, when you are exhausted or just done hearing it you tend to give in and thats not good for curtailing those naughty behaviors. Of course a lot of it has to be ignored but some of it you really have to intervene on. My heart goes out to you. Do you have ear plugs? :0)

[angelkisses0102]

My two were closer in age but we did something I read on here I believe?! I had them sit face to face on the floor and hold hands until they could be nice to each other. And I walked away and let them work it out. I do think it is a vital lesson that they learn early...'to work it out' without parental intervention. I will still at times tell them to go to their won rooms until they can play nicely together...but all I have to say is either you work it out right now or I will and neither of will like my way (rooms.)

One other thing is I do all DD (7) to go into her own room and close the door once in a while...and DS (5) is not allowed in. I feel she needs her alone time and since my DS is very active(SPD and probably ADHD)..she gets tired of him.

Good luck.

[Bcelli]

I have learned from personal experience that kids will act in ways they are allowed to get away with. I am not nearly strict enough on some issues of behavior, but with others, I am very strict. The issues with which I have zero tolerance have all but disappeared from our family dynamic, the ones I let slide - usually because I'm too tired or otherwise distratced to deal with - continue. Sometimes it's tough to run a tight ship, but the payoff comes when they are older and big enough to do damage, but don't because they've learned better. Children have to be trained; they don't come into this world knowing how to appropriately interact. The hand-holding facing option that Angelkisses mentioned is one of our tools. I have 2 boys, so they REALLY hate it. We do timeouts and priviledge losses, also. I highly recommend the book "1, 2, 3 ... Magic." DS2's behavior therapist recommended it to us and I was floored at how quickly it actually worked. We have VERY FEW sibling behavior issues now and life is HEAVENLY. Good luck.

[GCS]

My kids have to kiss and hug each other any time I catch them being mean to one another.

Hasn't worked yet that I can see but I am still hopeful!

[hg808]

Similar situation here, except that DS is older, but is smaller for his age (about 50% percentile) and DD is taller (at 100% for her age). DS used to be more agressive at first, but now DD gives him a run for his money. I would say that now they kiss about 1/2 of the time and fight 1/2 the time, but are truly inseparable. (We brought DD home 5 months ago).

What helped us was that we started to tell DS, "Now you are a BIG BOY, and M. is just a LITTLE BABY, so you need to be very gentle with her and protect her". Ironically, now they both think of the other one as a "little baby", so when I ask, "where's the baby?", they point at each other (DS is 3 years 3 months old, DD is 19 months old).

I really liked the book "Sibling Rivalry", but found it being geared towards older kids. The takeaway for me was that you should enforce and explain a different role for each child in the family.