My children have been on each other's nerves all. day. long. Sometimes they go through phases where they play and play and play together. They are not in that phase right now. I don't know if it's spring fever, the winds of change, or what, but they have been fighting constantly. The days seem so long, probably because I am counting them down, but they seem endless when the boys are fighting.
They are so mean to each other. If they are around each other they are fighting within two minutes. I am not exaggerating. I talk to them about it for a few minutes, ask them not to fight and be kind to each other and within minutes they are at it again. Jack loves to annoy Ben, Ben is easily annoyed. They punch, hit, and kick. Today at about noon I couldn't take it anymore, and put myself in time out. I laid on my bed and cried. Ben eventually came in with a note telling me he loved me and he sat on my bed and apologized for the way he acted. But that didn't end the fighting and they have continued all day long except for when Ben was at school.
I decided the punishment for fighting would mean they lost the privilege to watch tv. That is such a hard punishment to decide to use because letting them watch tv means a break for me and a break from them fighting. While I think that it's an appropriate consequence, what other ideas do people have?
One of my friends said she makes her kids do chores if they fight. Great idea, except for right now my kids love chores. They especially love cleaning the bathroom. So for right now I don't want to make a chore seem like a negative consequence. There will definitely be a time when it will be appropriate.
So, any great ideas?
Some days are good. Some days are bad. Fortunately they aren't all bad. I am hoping tomorrow is better.
3 comments:
Okay- I thought several times today to call you and see how you were doing and ask for you to send your boys over to play for a bit. And did I do it? Of course not. Sorry. Will you send them over tomorrow? Or at least one of them. So the only thing that works right now (at least in the heat of the moment when "talking" to them doesn't help) is to separate them. My logic is: if you can't be nice to each other (or me), you can't be around each other. It's not really "time out", they can do whatever they want, just not around anyone else until they feel like they are in control of themselves to treat the people around them with love and kindness.
I remember the Feil boys telling me Delsa made them sing "Let Us Oft Speak Kind Words" when they were mean to each other. I've never tried it, but it couldn't hurt? I have a neighbor that believes in "hug therapy." We believe in tickling mean people around here...
OK - to put things into perspective... God placed us in families so that we could each grow and progress. To do so, there needs to be opposition. The reason kids get on each other's nerves is that each was chosen by God to help teach the other how to overcome a particular weakness. In time (and yes, that is the hard part), the one will learn not to be annoyed and the other will learn not to annoy. The reason they both know what buttons to push is by design.
Don't lose heart. It gets better.
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