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[quote=Anonymous]OP have you ever read the book Siblings Without Rivalry?  I just reread it because my kids (just turned 2, and 5 in the fall) had escalating tensions.

The book provides good templates for how to handle a lot of very typical sibling situations.  Not all of it can apply at this point because the 2 year old is still pretty little, and they can't quite talk things out yet.  But, I like the general principles around the book.

One thing I've been trying to do a lot of lately is modeling, by stopping a bad interaction and trying to give them tools to show what I'd like to see instead.

So, the 2 year old will run up and grab a toy from the 4 yo and run away.  And the 4 year old is rightly upset and goes after the 2 year old.

I'll stop them and say something like: "Hey 2 yo, did you want to play with 4yo?"  And he'll say yes.  So I'll say, next time try asking "Can I play?"  Then he'll ask his brother if he can play.  I swear, more often than not, his brother will hand over part of what's he's playing with and say: "You can have these toys."

Or when the 4 year old is trying to grab the toy back, I'll say: "I know he grabbed it from you, but let's try to teach him how to ask.  Can you ask for the toy back?"  And typically little brother hands it over at that point.

One last thing.  I don't know if this is good or bad, but a while ago, I told the 4 year old that if his little brother was really pestering him and he felt like he was going to lose his temper, he should tell me or his Dad.  And he's pretty good about it, so instead of physically fighting, he'll yell "LARLO ALERT! LARLO ALERT" and we know that we need to see what's up.

Hope some of this helps.[/quote]

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