They Are Angry Over Invasions to Their Personal Property or Space
Lesia Oesterreich, Family Life Specialist for the Iowa State University Extension Service gives some great tips for this situation. Just a few of the practical suggestions she has are: 1. Put a Please Knock sign on the kids' bedroom doors. 2. Find a way to mark off personal space in shared rooms. 3. Have a place in your home where people can go to be alone. 4. Buy each child her own toothpaste, her own color of washcloths, towels, etc. 5. Buy games and toys that children of different ages can play together. These are just a few ideas that I hope will help you think of some creative ways to give each child her own personal space and possessions. The next step will be to teach your children to respect each other's private things.
More Ideas:
*Warning* These links go directly to the pdf documents published by the Iowa State University Extension Service. You must have the Adobe Acrobat Readerto view them. PDF documents take a little extra time to download but they print out beautifully so I encourage you to visit the site by right clicking the link and opening it in another browser window. Let the document download in the other window then print it out to read offline.
- Getting Along: Brothers and Sisters
- Getting Along: When Siblings Fight
- Getting Along: When I'm Angry
- Reducing Fights Between Brothers and Sisters
Establish some family rules. We do not allow name-calling (hitting, fighting) in this family. If you do it the consequences will be . . . Then, teach your children the skills to get along. If your children are fighting and you are feeling patient and prepared to teach them, then try this. 1. Stop the action, send them to their rooms until they calm down, then call them into the living room or kitchenfor a talk. 2. Explain that the way to work out problems is to use words not fists, to negotiate rather than attack the other person. 3. Let each child tell his side of the conflict then reflect back the feelings behind his words - You were feeling angry because Billy was bothering you in your room and Your feelings were hurt because you wanted Tommy to play with you. 4. Ask each child to think of some ideas that will help the other one get what he wants -What can Billy do when he wants to ask you to play with him? and How can Tommy let you know when he wants to be alone and doesn't want to be bothered in his room? 5. Praise them for coming up with some good solutions and learning the important skill of negotiation.
More Ideas:
- Family Meeting Guidelines
- Peace Building Skills
- Rules for Getting Your Mads Out
- Those Pesky Angries
- Rules for Fighting Fair
Next > They Have Taken on Roles of Aggressor and Victim
