Kids Fighting And Sibling Rivalry Are A Natural Part Of Life That Parents Can Use To Teach Their Children Conflict Resolution Skills That Will Stop The Fighting And Will Serve Them Long Into The Future

Kids Fighting is a common occurrence in all homes during one time or another.

Brothers and sisters often fight for various reasons, and this is known as Sibling Rivalry.

Setting Limits is a parenting tool that will go a long way towards taming sibling rivalry and other such issues.

Consequence Parenting shows parents the wisdom of preventing these childhood behaviors from becoming a way of life.

Kids who play together and who spend any amount of time together will also get into arguments and fights from time to time, and this is just a part of growing up and a normal part of life in general.

Heck, we even annoy ourselves at times, so it is only natural that others will feel the same way about us every now and again, and the same holds true for your children and their friends.

Disciplining Children, especially when they are arguing and there are Kids Fighting more often than what feels right to you, is a natural response yet an inappropriate response when you have children other than your own in the mix.

As parents we should only discipline our own children and train them up to be good examples of what they have learned.

Some Tough Love Parenting may be just what you need, since what is needed when you have Kids Fighting on a consistent basis is a long-term parenting strategy designed to educate your children on better ways to handle arguments and disagreements in order to eliminate the fighting and to bring true compromise and win-win solutions to the everyday disagreements of life.

Now granted that this is easy to say and hard to do, not only for parents who see their Kids Fighting but also for peoples and nations as a whole, as the many serious wars and conflicts around the world clearly attests to.

Since our goal here is to help our children to live in peace with each other and with those with whom they interact with and not to somehow solve the world’s conflicts and problems, we’ll keep our eyes focused on that narrowly defined parental prize today and on none other.

(Did I digress?)

You may be surprised to know that there are many homes where Kids Fighting is not an issue, as parents have been successful in teaching their children to love and respect each other, and where mutual friendship and assistance just flows naturally amongst the siblings and with their friends.

Of course there are some homes where Arguing happens on a regular basis, and where the children seem destined to compete with and annoy each other to the bitter end of their childhood existence.

This may occur as Sibling Rivalry is driven by jealousy, competition, children’s individual temperaments, a desire to control others, a desire for attention or revenge or to right a real or perceived wrong, boredom, stress levels, and even the amount and duration and intensity that Kids Fighting in the home has been allowed to continue until it has become an institutionalized habit and accepted way for children to interact with each other within the home.

All problems are easier to solve and correct when they are identified and worked on in their early stages, yet harder to eradicate the longer they are left to do their damage and become an accepted part of a daily routine or way of living.

That is why we stress So Strongly the wisdom of proper parenting and parental example from an infant’s earliest moments, as this is the most effective, long-lasting, and eventually the most ‘auto pilot’ way of successfully parenting children there is.

Never-the-less, as parenting wisdom, desire and motivation comes to all parents at different times and stages of our lives, we must accept where we are as parents to our children today, and then learn and strive and work our parental ways upward and onward from where we are to create for ourselves and our children and our family a better and happier tomorrow.

Only you know at what stage of severity the Kids Fighting in your home poses to you and to your own domestic tranquility and personal sanity, and that is also why you as the parent of kids who argue are uniquely qualified to figure out what it’s going to take to make the course corrections your children need to bring the harmony, peace and compromise back into your home and into the lives of your children.

The good news is that once learned, these lessons of compromise, conflict resolution, controlling aggressive impulses, open communication and developing empathy for others will stay with and benefit your children now only today and not only within your home, but will benefit your children and the quality of life they will live all the days of their lives.

Roberts Referees Fromberg © Mdt1960

Sometimes parents may feel like referees as they try to sort out who did what, how bad the infraction was, and what the penalty ought to be.

Do we see the RED CARD coming out, or do they get away with only a verbal warning this time?

Parents have enough to do in their quest for proper parenting than to take on the role of Referee on top of all the rest of it.

Besides, a referee decides between two different sides and in order to stop Kids Fighting your children must understand that they are actually on the same side, and that they will either sink or swim together as it pertains to the issue of arguing and fighting.

Kids Fighting is a ‘team sport’ and can only be remedied on a team level.

That being said there sure is a lot of information about Kids Fighting to be found on the internet that in my humble opinion is not worthy of your time or consideration.

(Pssst. Guess What? Not everything you can read on the internet makes sense, is true, or has any merit).

I know that I am speaking as if I just dropped down on the planet yesterday, but it’s true: there is a lot of inferior advice smelling up the internet these days.

Walk with me down a path for a moment that I will call:

Bad Advise On ‘Kids Fighting’ That I’ve Read On The Internet Lately

Before plunging headlong down this rabbit hole of sorts, let me clarify that the following section is what I consider to be Bad Advice regarding Kids Fighting, and in each case I will explain why.

Somebody must have thought these items were worth noting as I did in fact find them on Websites dedicated to helping parents with this same issue.

Please read further and you can decide for yourself . . .

1. Just Ignore It

This piece of Parenting advise never seems like a good idea to me as ignoring problems NEVER makes them go away, unless they are imagined problems, in which case how would you know if a problem went away if it never really existed in the first place?

‘Sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich’ and pretending things are ok does not make it so.

If you have Kids Fighting and arguing, ignoring this problem is a problem in itself, and you need to start parenting this problem away as quickly as you can.

2. Kids Fighting Is Really Healthy

Now if having our children argue, fuss and fight were really such a good thing, why are almost all parents everyone in agreement that it needs to be done away with?

Can all the parents in the world be wrong about this one issue, or is this just a nutty piece of advice?

3. Don’t Tell Your Kids To Stop Fighting

Unless this is an attempt at reverse psychology, not telling your kids to stop fighting when they are fighting will not help to solve the problem of Kids Fighting.

This is not to say you should repeat yourself so often saying the same thing to your children that you cease to be a Parental figure and become a comical figure instead.

It is up to you as the Parent to make yourself heard and obeyed.

Certainly the path to helping your children to stop fighting starts by telling them it is not acceptable to be fighting and to explain the reasons why, and also the consequences that will happen if they don’t find other ways of solving their conflicts.

Once the consequences begin to set in, your children will certainly be listening to you the next time you tell them something and really mean it.

4. Don’t Punish Your Kids For Fighting

Family Rules and Expectations, along with normal, healthy and age-appropriate Discipline and Consequences are a normal and expected part of proper parenting.

To not punish your children for doing something that is not acceptable within your family rules and expectations is just plain wrong as a parent or a guardian.

Of course punishment does not have to mean physical punishment, though in some cases in may mean just that.

Punishment is a way for the natural consequences of wrong choices to be felt by those who need to understand that wrong choices lead to negative outcomes, and hence correct living is extolled and championed and hopefully achieved.

5. Avoid Competitive Games

Honestly, I am NOT making these suggestions up.

The theory behind this one is that since competition sometimes leads to Sibling Rivalry and Kids Fighting, if you forbid your children from participating in competitive games then you take them away from a source of conflict.

Under this same line of reasoning, since food sometimes causes indigestion, if you stop feeding your children they will never suffer from indigestion.

They may end up starving to death but at least they won’t have indigestion while they wither away.

This is so ridiculous that I want to slap my computer screen (but I won’t since I love my computer screen).

Parents need to help teach children to live in the world in a successful manner and not to isolate themselves from the challenges and competitions and victories of the world in which we all live.

Competition is healthy, fun and exciting, and competitive games are wonderful character building experiences for our children to participate in and to enjoy.

Teach your children not to argue and fight while competing, but don’t suggest they stop playing competitive games as this is not the right answer to an inherently wrong question.

6. Just Let Your Kids Fight

I just had to re-read this one as I thought there must have been a mistake.

Nope – I read it correctly the first time.

Kids Fighting is not an appropriate behavior, just like Kids Lying or throwing Temper Tantrums are also not appropriate behaviors for our children when we can help to show them a better way of doing things.

Is someone suggesting that if you can’t stop your kids from fighting then you should just let them fight?

Some people may feel that if you allow your children to fight that they will work out their own problems and the problem of Kids Fighting will just go away.

Letting your kids fight will only allow a culture of fighting to exist in your home and/or one child will bully and dominate the other as the strong dominate the weak, either which case is not an acceptable outcome for any loving and involved parent to accept within their home.

We don’t stop parenting when parenting becomes hard; for that is the exact time our children need us to parent them and to help them the most.

Belfasteko Umeak - Kids From Belfast - © Larbelaitz

We have bright, intelligent and energetic children who have better uses for their time and intelligence than to be fighting with one another.

As the above section pointed out however, we also have to be bright and intelligent about how we go about being proper parents to our children.

So what can a parent do to help stop Kids Fighting?

You can even try this Free Offer of a Highly Praised Behavioral Program that helps parents to stop the fighting fast!

Following are some suggestions and ideas that you will find to be both rational and helpful in your quest for the answers to this parenting dilemma:

• Giving your children quality, one-on-one parent-child time on a regular basis is a great way to lessen the urge for Sibling Rivalry. When our children truly feel loved and cared for they are less likely to have conflict within themselves or with others

• Be a quality Role Model to your children. Show your children through your own good example that screaming, yelling, throwing things and fighting are NOT the way to solve conflicts nor resolve difficult issues in our lives.

• Teach your children conflict resolution skills such as sharing, open communication and compromise. Once your children understand how to avoid fights and work out disagreements, allow them ample time to try and solve their own problems before stepping in to direct the flow of resolution as it were

• Be available to help your children when needed, but once armed with the necessary knowledge and skills to get along well with others, allow them to practice these skills as suggested above

• Separate children who are in the midst of fighting and insist that they work on solving their problems once they are calm. Coach and help them as needed, but don’t allow other activities to commence again until they have gone through the steps to work out the reasons for their fight in the first place. The best learning occurs when a lesson is fresh in a child’s mind

• Make sure to set the ground rules for what are acceptable behaviors for your children to live up to, and remember that parents need to obey the same rules of conduct expected of their children or said rules will never be enforceable in a practical manner

• Help children learn the ‘forgive and forget’ principle, as long as it is not used by one side to justify continued bad behavior against another

• Help children understand that life is not always ‘fair’ or ‘equal’, and often it is neither

• Allow children to make up their own minds on as many things as possible so that they can feel empowered and valued. It is often the lack of these feelings that leads to conflicts and fights

• Help your children to enjoy activities apart from one another from time to time as space and time apart often lessens the stresses that build up over time which results in Sibling Rivalry type fights.

• Give your children positive reinforcement when they do get along and begin to live in harmony with one another. In other words, look for and ‘catch’ your children doing the right things and emotionally reward them for their good behavior. This is a classical Authoritative Parenting Skill that really works wonders.

• Strive to foster a feeling of togetherness and cooperation between your children and within your family as a whole by working on projects that require team work and unity; play games and work on puzzles together, take family vacations or just spend time together doing things the whole family enjoys doing and which puts each family member in their own best light for others to see and appreciate.

• Remind each other from time to time why your family is so great and why you are so lucky to be in one another’s lives

• Allow each child appropriate amounts of privacy and autonomy according to their several ages and differing needs

• Never play favorites with your children, and always make sure your children know that you love them always and unconditionally. Your children should NEVER question your love and commitment to them, nor should they ever feel like these are things that they have to earn from you

As regards Kids Fighting, your ultimate parenting goal is to motivate and incentivize your children into better ways of conflict resolution than the usual arguing and fighting.

By incentivize I mean you need to make it obvious through well-understood consequences that continuing to fight with brothers and sisters, friends or neighbors will lead to negative results that will not be worth the price paid.

As parents we need to take the incentive out of Kids Fighting so that it no longer becomes about ‘winning and losing’, but about how we can all get along so that all of us are not punished and suffer alike.

That is why consequences are so necessary to our parental arsenal, for without them there literally is no incentive to change negative attitudes and behaviors or to find better and happier ways of living.

Kids Fighting Is A Normal Part Of Every Child’s Life, But It Doesn’t Need To Be A Permanent Fixture As You Teach Your Children To Love And Appreciate Their Siblings And Friends In Healthy And Natural Ways And Thus Show Them A Better Life Without The Arguments And Fights.

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