How can I get my daughters (ages 8 and 5) to stop fighting?

Question

They fight for my attention, over toys, what they are going to watch on TV, and just little insignificant things. HEEEEEEELP!!!!!!!!!!!

I am looking for advice from parents only please

Answer 1

let them fight, take toys away and tell them you are throwing them in the trash (put them up in a closet when they are not around) do thing with both of them one at a time

Answer 2

My boys arre the same way i separate them whenever they start fighting and give them a cool off time. If they are fighting for a toy i usually let whoever had it first play with it but only for a certain amount of time and then it's the other ones turn. When it comes to watching tv i toss a coin and the winner gets to watch his show and then when it's done they watch whatever the other wanted to watch. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't i have come to realize that siblings will fight no matter what. I'm 32 and i still fight with mine. Good Luck though.

Answer 3

Any toys they fight over--take them away.
If they argue over what to watch on tv--take the tv away.

Eventually, they'll learn they better not fight if they want to keep those things around. If they still fight after taking those things away then it sounds like a spanking is in order. They are the perfect age for that and spankings work wonders if used properly. Good luck.

Answer 4

You have my sympathy. Most of the squabbles tend to be for your attention. They fight you pay attention to them. Also there is the little king of the hill type thing.

When it comes to toys you decide and let one play with it for a set amount of time then the other one gets their turn...providing they're still interested.;) You choose what they watch... but only do this is they are fighting. Get creative on them.:)

Mine use to do stuff like that and it took a lot of trial and error to find ways to divert them. Now they're all grown up and the very best of friends. One thing that helped mine quite a bit was I set aside time for them one by one every day. Fights would cancel that out.

Good luck.:)

Answer 5

Hmmm... same age differance as between my two daughters. Firstly if you tell your oldest she is in charge of the youngest while you are out she will not treat her like a tender mum, she will treat her like a slave driving tyrant and WWIII will begin in your house that very day. Secondly yelling at them both turns a two-way fight into a three-way fight, which is hardly useful. Thirdly trying to apportion who is to blame by investigating a particular incident with each of them will take the issue all the way back to when the oldest swears on the Bible that they heard the younger sibling cuss at them while still inside your womb.

You tell us what they fight over (all normal) but not how they fight, or who wins out (99.9% the older child). Assuming the fights themselves are normal the best mechanism is to enforce co-operation via the actions of a more powerful third party, you. Demand reasonable behaviour as a group, not as individuals. Lecture both of them as a unit, apportion blame to individual behaviour as little as possible and make sure that its not always on one child over the other. In other words if they cannot agree on what to watch on TV, they do not watch TV. If they cannot reasonably share a thing the thing gets taken away from both of them. Usually, however, the eldest ends up monopolising things more because of this approach. This, in itself, is not necessarily a bad thing, as research suggests that younger siblings often come out better able to deal with the stresses of everyday life because they have learned to compromise more and still feel good about themselves when things don’t go their way. However if the oldest is taking too much advantage of the situation you need to step in and demand better behaviour towards the younger sibling and on occasion enforce sharing. I follow the idea that it is better to try and privately ‘lift up’ the younger sibling rather than publicly ‘push down’ the older sibling in front of the younger one. Appreciate that they have a relationship between each other you are not able to directly change, only ‘push’ in the direction you feel it should go. If things degenerate beyond the point where they will listen to you because they are more interested in the fight then send them off to different rooms to cool down. You might be their mother but they are sisters only to each other and that is a dynamic which will (if things work out well) outlive even you.

Answer 6

It's called sibling rivalry and it may never stop. My suggestion is to stop letting them have television at all, then have them EARN television time, no more than an hour a day during the week, this way they only get 1/2 hour each IF they earn the privilege. It will also force them to get other interests besides the television.

Answer 7

i always remind my boys 9 nad 6 that they are brothers for life, and they better learn to get along now or i'll sit on 'em!! it always lift the tension at the moment and makes 'em laugh together, they usually forget what they were fighting about.
other than that, they'll eventually grow out of it. my sister and i 22 and 26 are now the best of friends even though we fought alot as kids.

Answer 8

it's so normal for siblings to fight for trivial things whether they are children or grown ups. I think u'd better ignore them and just monitor them without interfering, they'll handle it soon, if not, try to make bargains between them, like u take this and u that. let one of them sacrifice sth one time and the other the next. tell your eldest girl that she's like in charge of her sister if you happened to be away so she'll treat her like a tender mom

Answer 9

The only thing that has ever worked for me is positive reinforcment... promise them a small reward for each day they go w/o fighting.

Answer 10

My grandpa took my brother and I (we were 6 &8) out in the back yard and told us to get it all out of our systems. He said fight it out til one of you isn't standing and then I don't want to hear a peep out of either of you again. We were so stunned that he was telling us to fight it out that we never fought again.