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Stop That Bickering!
Author: Alyice Edrich
While sibling squabbles and bickering won’t usually cause a permanent family rift, bickering children can give any parent a full head of gray hair. So how can parents stop the constant bickering?
As a parent, you could try reasoning with your children by explaining how important family is and how much better life would be if they just found a way to get along. You could try to find out the underlying problems of their bickering by asking your children why they feel they are fighting so much and how the situation could be resolved. Or you could simply insist that they stop. But sometimes, talking with your children just isn’t enough. In fact, it often doesn’t work.
If you’ve tried to be cooperative, patient, and rational, but find your children simply won’t stop the bickering, set them down and explain that you have had enough of their constant bickering and are no longer going to tolerate it. Explain what their bickering is doing to you emotionally and what you fear it’s doing to their relationship. Then try these tips:
Break Them Up
Sometimes, all your children need is a break from each other. Separate your children into two different rooms, send one child outside while you keep the other child inside, or find someone to let one of your children have a sleep over.Remove The Object
Are your children bickering over a single object? Take that object away from both children for an entire week. Sometimes, just removing the object stops the bickering.Give Them A Nap
Take a peek at your children’s eyes. Do they look red? Are there dark circles under their eyes? Do they look watery? Are your children rubbing their eyes or constantly blinking? It could be time for one, or both, of your children to take a nap.Make Them Watch A Movie
Find a calm, family-oriented movie for your children to watch. Let them know that they need a cool-off period and if they don’t behave while watching this movie, you’ll have to resort to another form of time-out. Christian themed movies work great because your children become a captive audience and learn a valuable life lesson.Distract Them
Spend a half hour baking a cake, doing a craft project, or playing a board game with your children. If you can’t get them to cooperate and play together while you spend quality time with both them then send one child in another room to play while you spend time with the other child. When a half hour has passed, do the same with the other child.Give Them Chores
If your children are being really horrible to each other, give your children an extra set of chores to do.Give Them A Time Out
When your children simply won’t co-operate with your attempts to break up their squabbles give them each a time out. One minute per year of their age usually works.Have Them Write Standards
Make your children write standards: “I will not fight with my brother. I will be nice to my brother.” Just make sure that your children are old enough to write standards.Have Them Write Essays
If standards don’t work, have your children write essays on the importance of having family, why their sibling is a valuable asset to your family, and/or what they like best about each other.Tattle On Them
Threaten to call the other parent to resolve the situation. And if both parents are there, threaten to call your children’s grandparents. (Okay, psychologists would probably hate this answer but it’s worked on more occasions than I care to count. My kids hate it when their Nana knows when they’ve been acting up.)Put Them On Restriction
Let your children know that they will be spending three days in their rooms, on restriction, to think. Let them know that they cannot continue bickering the way they have been and that a time out is necessary.
Ask them to think about why they bicker and what they can do to stop it. After three days, get your children together and ask them what they’ve learned. More often than not, you’ll discover little pet peeves each child has about the other child. Listen carefully, and then help your children find ways to resolve the issues at hand.
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