Physical Fights of 11Yr Old and 4Yr Old

Oh J.!

I thought I was the only one with this problem. My situation is a little different however the same. I have an 11 year old step-daughter and a 4 year old son. My step-daughter comes over a lot. Every time my son and step-daughter get together they fight. I like you thought that everything would be fine and they would get along. I was SO wrong!

So... here's what I did and it seemed to work. I wrote down some simple rules (no hitting, punching, disrespect, slamming doors, etc) and explained to them that each time I had to intervene the following would occur:

For the 11 year old: she would kneel in the corner with her hands above her head for 11 minutes

For the 4 year old: he will stand in the corner for 4 minutes

*** my punishment for the 11 year old is harsher because she is the older child and should be setting the correct example.

This worked great in the morning however in the afternoon they were both tired. When they both started giggling in the corner I was forced to add on to the punishment. Therefore I made them run around our house once for each year of life (4 times for my son and 11 times for my step-daughter). Believe it or not, that's all it took and they were great for the rest of the evening.

Day 2... they didn't go in the corner once.

Now, I don't expect the children to be perfect all the time. I only intervened when I thought their disagreements were going too far.

Good Luck!! I hope this helps!!

Hi J.,

Well it sounds as if you are doing the right things. Can you figure out why they are in constant conflict with one another? If you solve that issue, you may have the solution to your problem. Do they get enough time with you one on one? Or with Dad? Or with friends? My brother and I were almost 6 years apart, and I must say that we did fight--every single day. We would hear our mom tell people that we fought constantly--and, honestly, we really didn't. (I'm in no way, shape, or form saying that this is you by ANY means!!) But, we needed to have a tussle every day to get it out of our systems. We would be physical about it for 5-10 minutes, and then be on our way. Of course, there were the days when it was more often, but pretty much every day there was one occurrence. Also, we had been known to have it out verbally, too. We really did get along, but we needed that outlet. What would happen if you let one incident run it's course? Since I've never seen one, I couldn't tell you how bad they really are. I absolutely hate the phrase "boys will be boys," but maybe they need that bit of rough and tumble each day? Certainly, it shouldn't get to the point where they are killing each other, but maybe they need to let off some steam, and then they will go about their business.

I'm not sure how clear this is. If you need me to clarify anything or whatever, please let me know. For all I know, you have been here, done this, and it hasn't worked. Good luck with them. I would have thought the same thing as you. I did toy with waiting longer between mine, but we decided to wait to have our first and the women in my family have a history of very short length of fertility, so we wanted to make sure that I would still be able to conceive.

I don't think that your sons are fighting each other, they are fighting for your attention.you have to be really careful about the language you use to describe them and their behavior even when they can't hear you and you have to be especially careful when they can hear you. Do they understand that when friends and parents are gone they only have each other and what a blessing that can be. You did bring a little stranger into your older sons life, does he still have one-one time with you? Taking away stuff is a fable, this is America there is always more stuff, teachthem to value each other more than anything . There is still time.

Hi J.,

I have a 4yr old and 9 yr old...sounds like I was the one who wrote your request. I can relate big time. Recently I was so overwhelmed with how my boys were treating eachother I did something drastic to them..not so drastic for me. I would not allow my boys to watch t.v. or video games or computer for an entire week. I made my oldest son read to my youngest and took a huge step back. The boys took turns reading to eachother. I also sat them down and explained how there is no more precious of a gift than a family that loves you and that in life they will be able to count on eachother. It took a few of those sessions but it really did the trick. I refused to get in the middle of the fighting..no tattling was excepted by me..I simply said "I refuse to listen to it" if it wasn't something nice they were going to say about eachother I had a closed ear. I also gave them each chores that they needed to accomplish together. At the end of the week it was almost like I had been dreaming. I realized that alot of the frustration with the boys was my oldest feeling a little superior because of his abilities and my four year old being frustrated at his limitations. I learned alot from them that week. I think they learned even more about eachother.

Good Luck
L.

hi. i dn't know if this will help, but here goes.
my sister and i used to fight ALL the time. it was horrible. now, at almost 46, i can look back and realize that we lived in an environment where it was CRITICAL to be right all the time. since we were so very different from each other in almost every way, we each thought the other was WRONG all the time. i'm an extrovert and generous. she's an introvert and a hoarder. i believed if you want me to "forgive" you for an incident, you need to apologize. her way of apologizing was to ask me if i wanted to play Monopoly.
it might be helpful to look at your boys' personalities and see how they move in the world, how they perceivet things and situations and people.
best of luck

O my. You've just put into words what I struggle with at home with my 6 and 13 year old girls. I'm at wits end. Now that we also have a new 3 month baby boy it's only worse. If you get any helpful advice please pass it on. Good luck.

Read the book Siblings Without Rivalry by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish -- It's amazing and works. It's one of my childrearing bibles, along with their other books.

Hi. There's a few ways to look at this: all siblings fight with each other - be it verbally or physically. But that's quite an age difference for your boys: 4 and 11. Are you ever scared the 11 year old will hurt the 4 year old? Is your 4 year old really annoying and deserves your 11 year old son fighting back with him? Or maybe your 11 year old is getting pushed around by his friends or classmates and he is therefore just emulating those kids with your 4 year old son? Just a couple of things for you to think about. Only you know which son is the main instigator of the fights...

You've gotten some great suggestions. I just wanted to add my mom's own unique approach to bringing my brother and I together as children: she made us work together. She assigned daily chores and we both had to do them together. This doesn't sound like fun, and it wasn't, except that we frequently wound up finding ways to have fun while we worked. But not until we'd finished grumbling and complaining to each other about how mean mom was making us do all this work (wash and dry the dinner dishes or dust the livingroom or some such). It was a little like the idea of giving two adversaries a common enemy to unite them, and mom, with her extraordinary foresight, didn't mind being the 'bad guy' who forced us together.

We've appreciated it ever since!