my 3 year old and 17month old fight A LOT !!

Heather - posted on 10/18/2010

HAve you tried any of the following:
1) explain when a naughty behaviour happens how that makes you feel adn how it would make the other feel and you don't want to feel like that so don't do that to her?
2) haveing special time with each one every day even if it is just 10 quality minuts so they feel specail about their relationship with you,
3) Praise, praise, praise, every time you see them getting along or working together or being kind to eachother praise it. 4) don't over react to naughty behaviour but make sure you are consisitant with what behaviours are acceptable and what are not adn what the consequences for innapropriate behaviour is?
5) when you see things going down hill redirect and give them a task that they need to work together on so you can get their focus off the fighting?
6)when one child is bullying the other, grab the one who is being bulled and have a cuddle conversation with her about how you know that it makes her feel sad when she it hit or pushed or whatever while you are ignoring the other child but they can hear the conversation and see that that child is getting the cuddles.
7)Make sure you have conversations with each ot them about what makes them specal and all the things you love about them both in private and in ear shot of the other child.
8) let your kids overhear you talking about their good behaviour and how proud you were of them when they worked together o n something or did something kind for or to the other one (even if it is a fake conversation on the phone with no one on the other end but they still think there is and they think you are bragging about them and then they are more apt to repeat those good behaviours :o)
Good luck!

Brandy - posted on 10/16/2010

this is hard because of the age difference for sure! but lucky for you your 3 year old is at the perfect age for this kind of problem solving. now im definately not an expert but i used to be a preschool teacher and then a pre kindergarten teacher and before that i worked with toddlers. with the 2 year olds we mostly worked on no hitting, and sharing and using manners. but when there was a conflict with the 3 and 4 year olds we had to teach them to use communication respect for others how to recognize feelings and the appropriate response for the situation. maybe you can try the same technique we used with your daughter. address your 2yr old first telling her not to hit or whatever the situation is if your 3 year old is trying to tell you her side tell her ok i want you to tell me about it but i have to make your sister quiet so i can hear you. once the 2year old is calmed down and shes going on about her business. take your 3 year old aside and ask her calmly what happened, try to let her tell you until shes finished without interupting her and then repeat the message that she gave you so shes aware that you understand, if thats not what she meant you know she will correct you. then its question time! do ask her anything that sounds incrimnating like "so you wanted the ball so you hit your sister" because then shes going to go into defense mode lol instead say why, why did you, what did you, just follow the what, why, how ,where, and when rule like youre a reporter. then you can try to talk to her about it and give her suggestions on how she could handle that situation better, for example if she wants a toy from her sister she should ask if she can play with it (of course her sister is 2 so that probably wont work but that doesnt matter) then she could offer to give her sister a toy to replace the ball. (which might work) but the point is you tell her the things she can try and give her the option to come and ask you for help. then you could talk about when she took the ball and let her know its ok to be angry but its not ok to hit others etc...you might even ask her what she thinks about that and how she feels when people hit her, has anyone ever did that to her etc... im telling you after you practice this with her consistantly pretty soon she'll start doing it on her own.
also, i read in a magazine that sometimes in situations like this it helps if you allow the older child to have special privleges because theyre older like picking a movie or just having choices in general. i hope this helps good luck!