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Sibling Fights

I homeschool two of my nieces in the mornings (2nd and 4th grade). If I leave them unattended for more than 20 minutes (to clean the kitchen, do laundry, or whatever), invariably they start fighting.

My question is: how many of these fights should be refereed, and how many left for them to resolve themselves? There's no physical hitting; it's mostly yelling or talking in angry tones, "Stop it!!" etc. I don't like the disquiet in my home (and try to keep up the school feel) so I step in pretty much every time (with consequences, trying to teach conflict resolution, requiring apologizing, and enforcing time-outs for egregious offenses). My interventions don't seem to be doing much; there's always something one of them does that annoys the other.

I remember my siblings and I fought a lot, though. My mom would usually only step in if we were getting on her nerves (and we would pinch and wrestle).

When siblings fight, do you always step in? Or do you let them "work it out?"

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Permalink Reply by Kathy C. on May 31, 2010 at 1:04pm

I step in only when my kids fights start to get physical or they are screaming so loud I am about to loose my mind. My boys are 4 and 3 so younger then your nieces. They thing that sticks out to me though is that it is during school time. I think I would step in a lot more if it was during school time like that. Is there a way to have them separated further while doing school work so that you don't have to referee so much?

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Permalink Reply by Kara McLaren on June 22, 2010 at 7:48am

I think that they learn what works and what doesn't by working it out for themselves. After all, we will not always be there. However, if there is physical violence an adult must always step in. That is never allowed. I used to send my kids out to play if it got on my nerves. Or give them both separate chores in different rooms.

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Permalink Reply by Mary Brazeau on June 23, 2010 at 10:33am

If I have to step in I focus on it being part of their jobs to create peace in the school room. There are also practicle things you can do like having them work in the kitchen when you do. Either to teach kitchen skills, keep an eye or as a natural consequence of being incapable of being left alone.