My children constantly fight: what do I do?

Kicks, slaps and screams. This is what happens in my house from the moment my children wake up until the moment they go to sleep.

My children, aged 2 and 4, fight each other over everything. Whether it’s sharing toys, the color of their plates or even who has the biggest sippy cup – it’s all a competition, and my husband and I are the referees.

The bickering is constant, and I wonder every day if this is normal.

I grew up with a brother 18 months younger than me, and we fought. But my parents and I don’t remember being as volatile as what I’m experiencing with my two kids (although I realize that we adults tend to block out some of the bad times).

My friends who are also mothers say their kids throw tantrums, but no one seems to relate to my situation.

I did a little research and found that I’m not crazy. Sibling rivalry, especially when it comes to children of the same sex, is common — and even more so when they are less than two years apart, according to Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Knowing that I am one of countless parents who experience this problem brings me comfort, but I need to do something to change the dynamic. I can’t deal with the constant screaming.

I know in my heart that I’m not handling their conflicts well: I threaten to take toys away, I try to punish my 4-year-old, and sometimes I scream.

Since nothing is working, my husband and I decided we needed to reverse the script for our sanity. This challenge led me to seek out two parenting experts to change our approach tactics. (They also have children).

Being a brother is hard

“We just have to understand that having a sibling is hard,” said Becky Kennedy, clinical psychologist and host of the “Good Inside” podcast. “A lot of us have kids and we think, ‘Oh, I’m going to have kids who get along. They’ll have a playmate.’”

When that doesn’t happen, Kennedy, better known as “Dr. Becky,” said it might be a disappointment. “You say to yourself, ‘I didn’t expect this to happen to our kids, for them to be fighting all the time.’ But fighting to some degree is a normal part of sibling relationships.”

I thought having two boys meant they would be best friends building castles out of building blocks and laughing, instead of the wrestling-style fights they have before the sun comes up.

Kennedy suggested that I look at it from my 4-year-old’s point of view.

“A first child has a whole family system, and then a second child comes along, and everything the first child knew about how to feel safe in the world, how to get love and attention from their parents, is totally thrown up and mixed up.” , she said.

“The person we want our child to see as a playmate is seen as a competitor,” he added. “It’s not a competitor for the green truck that they’re fighting, but actually a competitor for feeling valuable and worthy, time just for him with his parents and being seen.”

A 4-year-old doesn’t know how to express these feelings, she said, so she draws attention by “walking up to (her) brother and hitting him.”

Replace the word ‘stop’ with ‘I won’t let’

On a typical Saturday morning, I take my boys to our playroom and watch them play. For the first few minutes, everything seems calm, so I head upstairs to reheat my coffee.

Whether I’m with them or not, it’s guaranteed that one will want the toy that the other has. Then there’s a wrestling match, which escalates to screaming and I cry with myself pulling them apart like I’m a bouncer at a nightclub.

I almost always tell the older one to share it with his little brother, and I always find myself yelling some version of “Stop fighting!”

Kennedy said it’s all wrong.

“We can’t say to children, ‘Give the toys back.’ And we can’t say, ‘Stop doing that,’” she says. “Basically, you’re saying to a child, ‘I see you’re out of control, but I’m not willing to step into my authoritative role as a parent. Can you stop doing what you clearly can’t stop doing?’”

She is right. I ask my 4 year old to share because I know my youngest has a harder time doing so.

“This is really terrifying for a kid, because your kid is thinking, ‘Wow, my parents can’t help me here and they’re asking me to do an adult job.’ We can always replace ‘we don’t’ and ‘stop’ with ‘I won’t leave you’”.

Kennedy also said no to punishment, which I resort to if my oldest son repeatedly does something I’ve asked him not to do, like jumping on the couch. “All that happens when you send a child to time out and especially if you hit them is the message, ‘I don’t want to be around you. You are a bad child’”.

She also doesn’t like threats. “You can’t learn to manage a feeling by punishing a behavior. We can tell our children what we are going to do, not what they cannot do. Saying, ‘If you don’t stop jumping on the couch, you won’t get your iPad.’ This requires my son to do something. That’s why threats and consequences don’t really work.”

Kennedy presents various scenarios for parents and caregivers in videos on her Instagram page, and she did it for me.

The next time I saw my kids fighting, she suggested I say, “’I won’t let you take his toy.’ Because what you’re really saying is, ‘You’re a great kid, but you’re doing something that’s not a big decision and because I love you, I’m going to stop you.’

“Your kids aren’t making good decisions because they don’t have the skills to do so,” she said. “You and your husband have to teach them these skills.”

When they’re doing something they shouldn’t, she suggests another option. I should say, ‘I won’t let you jump on the couch, but you can jump on the floor.’ Or, ‘I won’t let you say those words here, but you can go and say them in the bathroom.’

Emily Edlynn, clinical child psychologist and author of “Parenting for Autonomy: Stop Doing Their Laundry and Other Radical, Science-Backed Practices to Raise Self-Sufficient Kids” Based on Science for Raising Self-Reliant Children), agreed that my husband and I can teach them the skills they need to learn.

“Especially at 2 and 4,” Edlynn said, “they have no self-regulation when their sibling is bucking them. I always think that we [pais] we are your brains. That’s why letting them fight to the death doesn’t work. Teaching some skills helps them as their brains develop and will help them later in life.”

It’s important to narrate the matter at hand, she said: “You pick up the toy and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a problem,’ and the 4-year-old will likely say that little brother took the toy.”

“You will need to calmly narrate and identify the problem, and then hopefully your emotions are calming down. Working with them to solve the problem, you could say, ‘What do you think it’s like for your little brother not to have the toy he wants? I think he feels very jealous or angry.’

Then separate the kids and sit with the one having a hard time.

“You are co-regulating [as emoções] with him. They need physical comfort, individual connection,” Edlynn said.

I had my doubts but promised I would try the recommendations. This de-escalated the situation much faster than in the past. Normally, a game room battle would take 20 minutes to resolve, but the first time I tried the new techniques, I was able to resolve the situation in under five minutes.

“A child’s job is to have feelings,” Kennedy told me. “Because if you want your child to one day, as an adult, be able to deal with disappointment or jealousy — which we all know adults feel — you want them to have coping skills for those feelings. A child has to feel feelings. So their job is to yell, ‘No, I want that toy!’”

Practice, practice, practice

Practice leads to perfection.

Kennedy suggested an exercise my husband and I could do separately or together: to take one of the kids and act out a scenario like dinnertime or a toy dispute.

“You’re solving problems when things are easy,” Kennedy said. “It’s the equivalent of practicing a free throw during practice instead of just waiting to practice a free throw when the game is already in progress.”

“Ask your 4-year-old, ‘What would it be like if I had the blue pad? I have the blue block. What can you do if I have the blue block and you want it? I won’t let you hit me or grab me because that’s not safe for anyone, so I wonder what would you do?’”

Both experts told me that teaching at this age is about creating limits in the long run.

“The way we present information to our kids is at the same time building their own understanding and sense of responsibility and their own internal motivation to do things a certain way,” Edlynn said, “versus the more controlling, [que] ends up working in the short term, and then the kids are not learning.”

will never be perfect

Edlynn, who has three children, ages 12, 10 and 7, said we should all take a break, remembering that children’s brains are still developing. “We are their coaches to their brains,” she said, noting that she is always asking, ‘How can my child learn from this moment or situation?’”

“I have a 10-year-old, a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old at home,” Kennedy said. “I am the first to need to read my own Instagram and follow my own advice. I also go through a lot of difficult things with my kids.”

“There is no such thing as a perfect parent,” she said. “We all make mistakes.”