Reply to Sibling physical fight

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "Sibling physical fight - tell me how I did"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Wow.  I don't want to be mean, but unless you learn to control your own anger, there's no chance you're going to be able to teach your kids to do the same.

Seriously.  I get that you were upset and angry about your kids fighting.  And the fact that it got physical.  We all feel that way when our kids have conflict.

But your response seems both out of proportion (punishment upon punishment upon punishment) and full of rage.  This is not effective.  It shifts all of their attention on YOU.  Your anger.  Your feelings.  Your retaliation for their behavior.

What you want to do instead is TEACH them how to make better choices next time they're mad at each other.  To THINK about how they responded this time (hitting/scratching) and how they would do it differently next time (separate themselves physically, use words).  THIS is how they LEARN to do manage their anger properly.  They need your help (1) calming down; (2) reflecting on their choices; (3) planning what to do better next time.

It sounds like you need help doing the same thing.  I think you know you handled this situation poorly.  It's why you posted and asked for feedback.  So ask yourself what you would do diffeerently if you could do it all again.  Would you have calmed yourself down first before addressing the problem with your kids?  HOW would you have calmed down?  Would you have taken a few minutes to separate yourself from the kids? Would you have said, "Wow.  I can't believe you did that!  I'm really upset.  I need a minute to calm down and think before we talk abouit it." And then what would you have said/done?  What conversations would you have had with the kids?  What requests would you have made?  What consequences would you have imposted?

Really visualize the situation now, after the fact.  Think through what you think the "ideal" way of handling it would have been.  This way you'll be better prepared next time you get angry with them.  Just like you want to teach your children to be with each other.

If any of this seems difficult/impossible, get yourself some help.  Learning to manage anger effectively is a really great skill to have.  Both as a parent, and in life more generally.  Any decent therapist can help with this.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics