Need advice - kids are fine apart, maddening together

In My Humble Opinion
1

My daughters are driving me insane. My 7yo is generally very well behaved and sweet. Right now we are working on being respectful to Mom & Dad even when she doesn’t like our answers, and not lying by “forgetting” if it suits her purposes. Normal stuff for her age group, I’d say.

My 2yo is spirited but also normal. On occasion she will try to slap at me if I pick her up to change her or get ready for nap time. I just hold her arms and tell her we don’t hit people. She’s pretty spirited (much like older sis was) and is extremely persistent about getting into things, doing naughty stuff like touching the TV to see if she can get away with it, and so on. Nothing I can’t handle.

But when they’re together, I want to run screaming from the house. Any item one has, the other MUST HAVE. If the 2yo has it, the 7yo will whine, or snatch the item. If the 7yo has it, she will taunt the 2yo about it, and the 2yo will wallop her trying to get it. Cue victimized crying from 7yo.

Also, the 7yo will incite the 2yo, pushing her face into her face, teasing her, or instigating roughhousing and then suddenly deciding she doesn’t want to play, but still semi-laughing as she says, “No.” 2yo winds up screaming, hitting, kicking, and/or biting her.

I have tried time outs for the 2yo, and it just is not making a dent. While I’m generally against spanking, I tried it twice, and it just makes her laugh and clearly gives her license to hit people.

As for the 7yo, we’ve tried and tried to explain what behaviors are likely to end in her getting clobbered, and why. Does. Not. Sink. In. She gets sent to her room or privileges revoked if she’s being obnoxious. Again, it doesn’t seem to keep her from doing the same behaviors with Baby Sis.

I’m sick and tired of being constant referee, and I am fresh out of sympathy for the older one when she gets attacked in these circumstances. I’m currently reading Siblings Without Rivalry, which seems like a great book, but not geared for toddlers at all, and I’m not sure how much empathizing is doing to help this situation. I’m also an only child so I haven’t the slightest clue about sibling relations!

Help!

2

“Let’s play the game ‘Who can be the nicest?’!”
Or, the techniques that the SuperNanny uses seem to be pretty effective on the show. Timeouts, apologies, rinse and repeat.

My 19 and 17 year-old boys used to fight like crazy, but now pretty much ignore each other, so hey only another 12 years…

3

Is seven old enough to play the Ignore/Walk Away/I Can’t Hear You Game?

Maybe if both of you – you and the 7yo – leave the room when the 2yo acts up, she’ll stop. Lots of bad behavior stops when there’s no audience.

It is summer – a great season, but kids do get bored. I feel for ya.

4

My kids are closer together in age, so these techniques might not work.

We never used the word “share”. We always said “taking turns”. It seemed to sink in better.

“Would you like a turn with Hamster Girl’s doll? Okay, you can play with it for ten minutes, and then you have to trade it back so she can have her turn!” Once the “I can keep it away from you indefinitely to torment you” aspect of sharing is eliminated, a lot of the fun of being grabby goes away.

(A few things were exempt from the household “take turns rule”. You didn’t have to take turns with your bedtime stuffed animals for example, or with a brand new toy you were playing with for the first time. But with virtually everything else in the house, it was expected that part of playing with it was letting your sibling have a turn. And part of taking a turn was relinquishing it graciously when your turn was over.)

We also were extremely quick to nip “inciting” behaviors in the bud. We had a zero tolerance policy for teasing, taunting, or name-calling. Call you sister a “dummy” and you get a sharp warning. Do it a second time and you get a time-out. The goal was to short-circuit the escalating cycle of tit-for-tat that eventually leads to hitting and tears.

5

The problem is the 7 year old. She’s old enough to know better. Yeah, the 2 year old should not hit, but um, she’s 2 and how do you expect her to react to a bullying older sister. I’d try and find out why the older child is treating her sister so poorly. Why would a 7 year old want to play with a 2 year old’s toy in the first place. She probably really doesn’t but is just doing it to torment the sister.

6

It sounds to me liket he 7 year old is responsible for much of the conflict.

The 7 year old needs to learn to act her age. She isn’t a baby and she needs to be made responsible for her misbehaviour. I wouldn’t keep trying to “explain” what is appropriate. She knows this. Now you need to keep on quashing it until she realizes that she doesn’t get warnings, she gets consequences. Tell her she’s a big girl now, and you won’t tolerate babyish behaviour. And stick to it. Since she’s not stupid (because she’s a child of a Doper, after all!) she’ll figure out the the reward isn’t worth the punishment. And why should a 7 year old want to play with a toy that’s age-appropriate for a toddler? Maybe you can reinforce the “You’re getting SO big” aspect, by telling her that those are baby toys.

Spoken from someone who isn’t a parent, so take with a horse-sized grain of salt.

StG

7

with a 5 year age span they might never be very close as kids, but I agree with the other posters that this issue is with the 7r old, not the toddler.

Keep in mind that this might not go away for years, so the best solution is the one that makes it stop in a manner that is easiest for the parents to manage, and that’s usually separating the kid who is having a problem getting along with other family members.

Rather than explaining in the moment why it’s a problem to be mean to a 2 year old I would just explain that it’s unacceptable and then…don’t accept it. Send her to her room every single time it happens and if it happens again the minute she comes out send her right back in. Do it every single time, even if santa is standing right there in the living room and might never come back ever, picking on her sister means getting sent to her room. No exceptions. The less angst about it the better too, like when they are potty training and have an oops and you say oh rats, looks like we need to change your pants, no drama (7 year old girls LOVE drama).

Something else that might help would be to find some kid books on bullying. She may not realize that that’s what she’s doing, and a clear understanding about what being bullied feels like could help a lot.

best of luck to you

8

Much sympathies from here - I’m also a non-sibling-experienced parent trying to work with multiple Small Folks at the same time. Fortunately for me I only have ONE spirited child, and two calm mellow ones!

One thing I’ve noticed about the difference in approach between me and my husband (who had two sisters very close in age) is that he spends a good deal less time and effort on working out exactly who’s to blame. Fighting over the TV? It goes off. Fighting over a toy? It goes away. This stops them fighting with each other almost infallibly, since now they are locked in disapproval of YOU!

I agree with StGermain too - the 7yo is a big key to the problem, she needs to be held to a higher standard. One way that we try to do this in a way that doesn’t get the bigger kids backs up is to make all the standards abstract. “People who can talk” have to ask to get down from the table. “People who’ve turned four” have to do a daily job. “People who stay dry all night” get to stay up till eight. And so on.

9

You could magnetize them both with the same polarity.

10

I was going to recommend the “Siblings Without Rivalry” book but I see the OP is reading it already. I agree that many of the solutions in it are not exactly tailored for children of such a large age difference, but there are still some useful tips in there.

OK, so. I have an 8-year-old, a 6-year-old, and a 3-year-old. We have encountered the problem you are now having (and so many other problems as well - ha).

Here is my advice. Pick one or two specific behaviors that you want to see from the older child, i.e., “I want her to control herself when there is a toy dispute,” or, “I want her to show respect toward her younger sibling.” Ideally these will be positive things and not negative things, i.e. “I don’t want her to hit.”

When she displays the desired behavior, and I mean EVERY time she displays the desired behavior, without fail, even if it’s really a minor display and there’s some other lame stuff in with it, praise her. Immediately. “Oh, I notice that you let your younger sister share your toys! I really like that.” Or whatever. If you think it will help, you can even do some kind of sticker chart or something along those lines. The key here is consistency.

On the flip side, if the child does something inappropriate, particularly if she hits her younger sister or grabs a toy away from her inappropriately or whatever, have her redress the wrong (i.e. if she hit her sister, she has to ask her sister if she is OK and apologize for hitting, or if she took a toy she has to give the toy back) and then remove her to another area. Preferably do this with a minimum of drama or attention-giving. The goal here is to give praise and attention by the truckload when she does something right, and deprive her of attention when she does something wrong.

OK, so, the issue with the 2-year-old and hitting. IMO kids don’t really grok the concept of time-out until they are closer to 3. Younger than that, for hitting my typical response is to immediately make a huge, major fuss over the hittee – “Ooh! Are you hurt?! Let me see that! Oh no, I am so sorry that you were hit” and do a brief demonstration for the hitter of “gentle touches” – “This is a nice way to touch. This is gentle” – and then redirect the 2-year-old to some other activity, away from big sister. Again the goal is to deprive negative behavior of attention, and to be very consistent.

FWIW, I have used the above techniques with very good results with my own kids, one of whom has ADHD and impulse control problems. I’ll admit that I’m not above screaming, “I AM SICK OF THIS NONSENSE” and sending everyone to their rooms to clean up for the rest of the afternoon, but I usually get better results with the consistent praise method. It is somewhat less viscerally satisfying, however.

11

Welcome to parenting of multiple children. Maybe it’s time to go from man to man defense to the zone. If they get in yours or each others zone when the other doesn’t want them there they go to the penalty box.

12

I agree with MsWhatsit’s approach. The problem with punishing your older daughter is that she will come to associate punishment with her sister, rather than her behaviour, which will not help the situation. Changing the focus to how you would like her to behave, and delivering praise, will allow her to associate positive feelings towards her little sister. And you can use it on the little one too “Look at you sharing your toy - you’re becoming a big girl like your sister.”

13

Thanks guys. I’ve talked to the 7yo and given her new rules of behavior. It’s hard because usually her “teasing” involves hugging or being close without being violent or “mean,” and it’s hard for her to understand that hugging when the huggee doesn’t want it is unacceptable. But she’s learning.

I’m also letting some natural consequences prevail. She knows now if she doesn’t lay off the baby, and the baby hits her, I won’t give her any sympathy.

14

The Montessori preschool my kids have gone to uses the language of, “Please respect others’ bodies.” I find that this is a good way to get across the idea that even if you don’t think you’re hurting the other person, you still need to stop touching them if they don’t want to be touched.

15

This. Maybe the older one is having some incredible jealousy about not being the baby any longer? Maybe a little therapy might help everybody get over that.

16

You can’t sneeze in this forum without having therapy recommended.

17

What you have here is what we call “being a shit” in technical child development terms. You are doing the right thing by allowing the natural consequences of her actions to occur, but you need to go a step farther. Tell the older one that she will get additional privileges for being a good big sister and pay up when she is. It might help to give her some responsibility as well.

18

Why so hostile? Maybe you should talk to someone about that.

19

Some good advice in this thread. I’m going to chip in a bit in the 7 yr old’s defense, I do agree with most of what people have said but… as the younger of two siblings I can remember, at a very early age, deliberately winding my brother up so that he’d get into trouble. I can pinpoint this to when I was between 2 1/2 and 3 and he was 8. Whenever my Mum left the room I would get in his face by dancing about in front of the TV or snatching his toys or whatever, he’d hurt me in some way and I would scream my head off (out of proportion to the hurt irrc). Mum would come in and he’d get punished. After a while Mum got suspicious about what was happening, pretended to go to the kitchen and listened at the door. That got *me *into big trouble and I stopped doing it. So, don’t assume the little one has no idea what’s going on.

My second “but” concerns wanting something the other has. I can remember doing this as well and being old enough to realise it was illogical to forget all about a toy until I saw my brother with it and then having a passionate desire to have it myself right then, immediately, waaaaaaaaaaaaah. It *is *hard for a kid to control that feeling. Again, though, I think there’s some good advice.

I dunno if it’s any comfort but my brother and I with a five year age gap started getting along consistently when I was 11 and he was 16 and we started to share tastes in books, music, tv etc.

20

Careful RR someone might accuse you of having a sense of humor!