Sunday, March 18, 2012

Whinge, whinge, freaking whinge......

Am sick to death of it. Well, not literally, but fair dinkum how much whinging do I have to listen to?

Our two youngest kids seem to bicker, fight, argue and tease almost continually, which results in Megan whinging and whining.

I cop it every afternoon during school pickups. Starts the minute we get back in the car, sometimes before. Then we have about a 10 minute wait at the high school for Zac to finish the day & let me tell you, those 10 minutes are excruciatingly long. Stupid things. "He looked at me". "I don't want him to look out the window". Tears. "Don't touch my chair". "I got to see my friends today & you didn't, haha".

For Pete's sake, be NICE to each other! It's not that hard.

For the past 2 weekends, the whinging & whining feels like it has been non stop. It's really doing my head in. I don't know how to stop it. I don't know how to get a bit of peace & quiet so I can work out how to tackle this problem. I am constantly playing referee or telling them to stop. I have to yell so they can hear my voice over their own.

Tonight I hauled them out of the bath & sent them to their rooms. They were arguing over a face washer. 2 kids in the bath, 2 face washers in the bath. Why is that a problem? "She put water on me". Newsflash - you are already wet. "He's got my cloth". Get over it princess. That's not gonna be the last thing a guy takes from you in your life.



They were allowed out at dinner time. I threatened to smack their bums if there was ANY arguing at the table. It's now 1.5 hours later & they haven't argued. Yet. (Don't you just love my confidence in them lol).

I KNOW our kids don't fight ALL the time. Most of the time they don't. I see how they play together & help each other & they have a very special relationship. But WHY do we find it so easy to forget that when they fight?

What do you do when your kids seem to be continually fighting?

Please give me some ideas before I tear all my hair out.........

Karen xx.

3 comments:

tahlia @ the parenting files said...

im a strong believer of time out. Time out from each other and just a moment to sit and calm down (maybe the bath would be a little hard). Once they have calmed down a little you can ask them, "what is it you are frustrated over?" ; "What is upsetting you?"

As they are each trying to assert themselves and become their own independent person this bickering is to be expected.

And remind them about respect for each other and what that looks like and "we don't do this", and "you wouldn't like it if..."

hang in there...

Anonymous said...

I say give Mummy some well-earned time out! You can come and sit on the naughty step here if you like ;D
xNat.

rambling mum said...

Hi Tahlia!
Thanks for your ideas, our peace lasted 24 hours. Yesterday their bickering made me cry & they saw it so I think that frightened Liam a bit. He's been very subdued since. Did his homework with no whinging, got ready for school this morning without complaining. I wonder how this afternoon will go?! The school principal is strict on respect so I have been trying to reinforce that at home. Will keep on trying - persistance & consistancy has to be the hardest part of parenting. Karen xx