by Raynie

Created on: October 09, 2008

Working through conflicts with your children can be tricky. You will want to becareful not to take sides. Children have strong since of fairness. If you take one side more then the other, they'll remember. In a childs eyes that would mean you 'like' one more or less then another. Young children have a black and white view of most situations, the grey areas don't come in to play til they are older. I think the best approch is to have set, consistant rules with a very clear outline. That way when one hits the other you can point out the rules. What happens if you hit your brother? She knows she's going to be in time out for ten minutes. If her brother hits her back they both have time out. The rule is NO hitting. He should have came and told you when his sister hit him. That leaves no question as to what's expected.

When they get older teach them to work out their problems themselves. They need to learn how to communicate to work out their differences. It's a skill they will use the rest of their lives. What a better time or place to start learning than right under your nose? Sit back and see what solution they can come up with. It may not be the same solution you would've come up with but if they both agree and it could work, let it go at that. Then they will see that you trust them enough to decide who going to play the playstation and for how long. You will also get a chance to watch them and see how they're going to deal with certian situations and you'll know if they could use a few pointers.

My two yougner children fought and argued daily, it's bad to say, but I dreaded having to deal with them. I had clear set rules and they knew time out was in comming. They'd take their ten minutes and when I let them go back to play, I'd hear one say to the other.. "Thanks alot! For getting me in trouble!" to which the other would reply "It's not my fault you started the whole thing!" Here we go again... We do time out again, we try early bedtimes, no game, no T.V.,ect I was at my witts end. Then one day the sky opened up and angels sang as I had a revelation. I realized these two children were in second and third grade and they knew right from wrong, they just wanted to get at eachother. What they didn't know is they were getting at me more! What I needed was to reflect and come with a new plan. These two children had me going "Why did you say that? You did start this and you did that." I found myself taking sides and I really didn't intend to. I decided what they needed

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