When Siblings Fight, Mistakes Are Made

If you're a mom of two or more I'm positive you've been in this situation before. You're kids, for whatever reason they've deemed worthy, are fighting and bickering with each other. And, as always, it happens at the most inconvenient times during the day. Let's just face it, kids whether they are related or not will fight with each other to some degree at least a handful of times every day. Once we accept to not freak out about their arguments and blatant cruelty to each other, it gets a bit easier to deal with. And I use the phrase 'a bit' very loosely because I have yet to find that easier part that I'm sure is somewhere down the road of life.

Before I got together with Joey I only had my own daughter to deal with who played by herself or with me or with my mom all of the time. If she ever did play with kids, it was her cousins that are all at least 3-4 years older than her. It has been quite a challenge for myself, my kids, and my husband to deal with Julia's transition from being an only child to being the youngest of 3 until March/April of 2014 when Oliver decides to come out.

Lately, Julia has been hitting her brother and sister a lot. Mainly she's been 'beating up' her sister Leila. Currently, I'm at a loss with what to do and how to fix her from using her hands. The zinger is that (as far as we know, and we've observed many times to be sure) Leila doesn't do anything to Julia. An example, is that last night Leila was laying on our love seat down stairs watching a movie on the tv with the other kids. Julia was sitting on the big couch, closest to Leila, and decided it would be a good idea to stretch her feet across the floor and be laying on both couches. All the while, her feet were literally right in Leila's face. Leila asked Julia many times to 'please' remove her feet but Julia just wasn't budging and flat out ignoring her requests. Finally, Leila started to lightly 'slap' Julia's feet to get her to move them. (We corrected Leila later about how she should handle those things in the future. Such as getting me or Joey to help, or simply moving to a different seat) Julia began to freak out and cry, she ran upstairs and began to tattle on Leila. Oh how LUCKY am I that my husband saw this whole thing and was able to help guide Julia in telling me the truth.

Now that situation has Leila putting her hands on Julia, but if it isn't obvious to you who the instigator is, it's Jules. *Sigh* Now don't get me wrong, there have been times when Leila doesn't make the right choice and needed to be redirected and needed help in how to handle situations with a little sister who just wants to be exactly like her. None of our kids are innocent in the aspect of picking on, being mean, hitting, or excluding another sibling. And compared to when they first met and started to get to know each other, they have improved.

Our other child, Jett, seems to either be Julia's BFF or he wants nothing to do with her. The normal with Jett and Julia is that either Jett will automatically go straight for anything in Julia's hands and try to take it/insist that he needs to play with it OR he'll watch and wait for her to do something that he thinks is wrong to come and tattle tale to Joey or myself. And most times, before telling either one of us he'll try telling Julia a million and one times that she needs to stop, which, of course, she won't listen to him as opposed to listening to mommy and daddy.

Yesterday, thankfully, I got to have a day with all 3 of the kiddos instead of just Julia. We had a nice afternoon of icees with popcorn at Target and grocery shopping before heading home for me to put everything away, get our craft stuff put into our bookshelf/cabinet, make dinner, and wrangle the kids all at the same time. They behaved as well as they normally do out at the store, obviously getting distracted and forgetting that they can't just pick up and drag things or climb onto the displays of chairs and cribs. But, oh man, once we got home, it was like something went off in their minds to start bickering and fighting over EVERYTHING. And I mean everything.

I finally had enough when it was bed time and they only had one task left to do before our good nights and prayers with them in their own beds. Brushing their teeth. Now you'd think that having a double sink in the kids bathroom would be more than enough sink space for a 7,6, and 3 year old. Well, if you thought so like I did, then you were mistaken. As they're standing and brushing their teeth, all of the sudden Jett starts crying and having a panic attack. (I literally had only walked a few feet towards our own bedroom so I could take one of my many prego potty breaks.) I walk in and the only thing I can gather from the girls brushing and doing exactly like they're told is that Jett hurt himself somehow from brushing his teeth.

Well my dear mommy friends, this was not the case. He had began this fit over the fact that Julia was not 'hurrying' to his standards in spitting out her toothpaste so he could spit out his. And instead of using the sink that Leila was using, who coincidentally was standing halfway away from the sink brushing her teeth so there was plenty of room, he decided to fight with Julia and make a scene. Now we had just changed their toothpaste from the young toddler fruity tooth past to colgate with a light mint flavor, and because of this, which I had warned all of them about the new taste, he was complaining that his mouth was burning and it was Julia's fault because she was just refusing to move. Being the mom that I am I saw a very simple fix, scoot Julia over a few inches just for a moment so Jett could spit it out and move on. Well, that just caused Julia to scream and cry. And I don't just mean crying, I mean a spanken worthy scream and cry.

So lil miss Jules got just that, 3 whacks on the bottom. (In case I haven't mentioned before, I am a very strong beleiver in spankens. I was spanked and whooped with a belt as a kid, so was my husband, and both of us turned out just fine. Although, I only use my open hand, I could never use an inatimate object to inflict pain.) The second my hand touched her bottom she let out this blood curdling scream as if I had just shot her. This is something my husband and I do not allow. Yes the kids are allowed to cry, obviously spankens aren't pleasant, but to scream a high pitched scream like that, we view as outright disobedience and disrespect. When kids do that, or at least ours, it's like they're trying to tell us off, and let me tell you that that message was written all over Julia's face last night. I wiped her mouth free from toothpaste, rinsed her toothbrush, and took her out of the bathroom to talk to her. She was beside herself and was just crying until I was able to get her to understand she needed to calm herself down. At least a little anyway.

Jett, however, I turned to and made him put all of his things away too and told him that he had made a big deal out of nothing and could have used the other sink. You could say that this wore on all 3 of us about the same. Thankfully, my knight in shining armor came to take over. Unfortunately, situations like this can bring on my pregnancy mood swings. So I removed myself, continued to put away laundry in my closet and did my best not to burst into tears. My hubby got all of the kids in bed, calmed down, prayers said, and tucked in. Bless him, I would be lost without him!

After some much needed hugs from Joey I calmed down and went to talk to both Jett and Julia a bit more level headed and clear minded. Both of the kids were very forgiving and apologetic for their own fault in the situation as well. I reminded each of them that I loved them very much and I never intended to get upset with either of them. After some hugs, kisses, and smiles with laughs everyone was over the situation and feeling 100 times better.

As parents, we need to remember that whenever we make a mistake no matter how small, we need to own up to it and apologize. If we don't, our kids will never learn to admit to their faults and take responsibility for their mistakes.

Kids will fight, and kids will do everything they can to test the ropes and push your buttons the best way they can. In the end, as a parent, we need to do our absolute best to remain as calm as we can. If the kids are just having a rotten day, try resetting them by finding something that calms them all down and helps them to get along. In our family, we make our kids hold hands when they're just having trouble getting along and playing nicely together.

In the end, we need to be fair, consistent, and able to admit if we lose our heads to our kids and apologize. Children are incredibly resilient, they will forgive easily, and love you even harder than they did before. Don't be afraid to look human to your kids. But most of all, don't be afraid to be the role model that you want them to be.

-Mrs. C

Patience. Ain't no body got time for that!

Some of you may know that throughout my entire adult life, and through most of my teen years, my main focus as far as a career has been working with kids. From babysitting, to teaching Sunday school classes, to day care teaching, to my current job as a group home worker. One thing that everyone always comments to me is that if it were them they would lose their minds because they don't have near enough patience to deal with as many kids as frequently as I do.

Can I be the first to say that one of my biggest struggles in life is patience?! And can anyone guess where in my life I struggle with patience most? That's right. With kids! But you've devoted almost your whole adult career to children in one form or another, how can you have an issue with this? Shouldn't you have it down to a science by now? Please excuse me while I just giggle for a moment. ;)

The thing that I've realized is that despite my issues with patience, it's my deep desire to be with children and help them grow that allows me to learn how to be patient in different aspects of caring for kids. Whether it's kids that I'm working with or my own kids at home. In either surrounding I can get easily frustrated and very impatient with the kids that just seem to be having a rough day. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a constant fire cracker going off on them, but let me say that sometimes I do feel like ripping out my hair would be less painful than having to repeat myself twenty times over again in a matter of minutes.

With kids, I've always had the mind set that at a certain age kids should "know better" than to do or say certain things in every day living. About a week ago I was listening to my Christian radio station and the topic was about teaching kids. From teaching them right from wrong to teaching them how to avoid certain accidents. I also read my good friend, Sarah's blog that touched on this subject as well. (Check her out you won't be disappointed! mudpiesandminivans.blogspot.com)

When we're born, as infants we know virtually nothing. Other than when we're hungry so we cry, we're dirty so we cry, etc. we have everything to learn! So, when dealing with children, we have to remember and understand that until it is taught to be second nature to them, they truly don't "know better" like we've always tried to insist upon.

Kids have to be taught that tipping an open top cup completely upside down is going to cause the insides to completely fall to the floor or on themselves. They have to be shown the proper way to do things. From setting things down nicely, to putting toys away, to bathing themselves, so on and so forth. Literally, everything in life needs to be taught to our children. And no matter how many times we repeat ourselves over and over and over, they won't truly "know better" until they have been shown, taught, told, helped so many times that it becomes etched into their minds that 'hey, when I grab a book from the top shelf that's under other books, the rest of them are going to fall down.' or 'If I climb on this bookshelf that looks like a mountain, my weight is going to make it fall and hurt me or even kill me.'

As adults, we've already gone through this process. We've already been taught the things that we should do and the things that we should avoid doing, no matter how simple or dramatic those things might be.

Something I have to constantly remind myself while I'm working, is that these kids all came from very bad backgrounds and homes. They don't just have to learn how to do things and how to become independent, but they also have to learn how to deal with emotions and scars, both emotional and physical, that kids should never have to deal with. There's a whole other layer on insecurities and fear that's smothered on top of every child's already wavering insecurity in themselves and fear of failing.

Children actually aren't that different from adults. They have similar fears to what we have. Fear of failure, fear of being rejected, fear of authority. Or even some more simplistic fears, such as, being afraid of the dark, or clowns, or insects, or heights. (All of which, I myself am afraid of in some degree.)

It's harder with my work kids to soothe and comfort their fears and insecurities because they're less likely to open up or trust that someone truly cares for them because the family that was supposed to always be there for them, mistreated them so badly that they were taken away. Or they were just given up of the family's own free will, which to some degree seems worse! With my own kids, it's easy to pick them up when they're crying and hold them while giving them encouraging words to calm their fear and ease whatever insecurity they might be dealing with.

My step daughter, Leila, has had many insecurities that she's been dealing with in recent months. From getting a new family with her daddy getting married, to her mom being busy and Leila feels like she's been forgotten. The whole situation with my husband's ex is not only personal, but it's an entire story in and of itself. The point, is that Leila has been struggling with her fear of being replaced by me or my daughter or the new baby in her dad's life, to the fear of her mom never spending time with her during the week. I love this little girl very much and love spending time with her, but I have to say that it breaks my heart to see her hurting. Or any child for that matter. Because in all honesty, it should never hurt to be a child.

Ultimately, we need to remember as adults, as parents, as teachers, as mentors, as aunts and uncles and cousins, or anyone who deals with kids in any form, that they are still learning, they don't have all of the knowledge and know how that we do from our lives. God has definitely helped open my eyes to the fact that I need to be more compassionate, more understanding, and of course more patient with the children that are in my life.

Having the understanding that all kids are at different stages in their lives and that they each have different issues that they're dealing with that needs to be taken into account as well, will truly help you in being more patient and more understanding towards that child. Granted, this isn't something I've always thought about or known, but in recent days it's helped tremendously!

-Mrs. C