defiance
Apparently my children are under the impression that they are already 2. Here is an example of our recent conversations:
Me: "Isabel, can I have the broom?"
Izzie: "No!"
Me: "Izzie, I'm going to count to three and then I need the broom."
Izzie: "No...mine" (as she turns and scurries away from me)
Me: "One"
Izzie: (turning and smiling innocently) "two"
Me: "oh boy..."
Izzie and Elijah are in a horrible phase of fighting over every single toy they have. My day consists of setting them each up with an activity, then spending three out of every 5 minutes teaching one or the other that it's not okay to hit each other. Anybody have any advice on this one? Neither my living room nor my wallet can afford doubles of every toy...
On the upside, the twins continue to shock me with the new things they pick up. They both know their abc's up to about letter f, and then they repeat after me. It's very charming. Body parts and animal sounds are old hat. Now we're working on parts of the house (door, wall, windows, ceiling, floor, light, etc). At just about 19 months, they each have over 50 words, and are learning new ones every day.
posted by jayme @ 4:06 PM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
I don't know if this will help or not, but around here, the minute a toy is fought over, it goes away. No discussion, I just go and take the toy (or whatever is being fought over). It disappears for at least a day. They have been warned in advance that this is policy. On a particularly bad day, I'm not sure some little boys I know had any toys left, but for the most part, I have very little fighting over 'things'.
I went to see Wayne Dyer 2 weeks ago, and he actually addressed this kind of thing. He said that unless bloodshed is imminent, you trust them to handle it/work it out, themselves. When you consistently interfere, or rescue, no matter how good the intentions, you reinforce that they are incapabale of finding their own solutions, and yet those solutions/compromises are innate.
He suggests, that even with very young children, you tell them that "I am right here, but I will not fix this for you. I trust you to know what to do"
And, remember, I say this from a ONE CHILD home, where every toy (and yeas that includes the broom!) IS hers! lol
here's the thing: for the most part, I do leave them to figure things out on their own. But Geremu is much more sensitive than Tsege. She will take his toys, no problem, and then leave him sobbing. He comes straight to me and collapses into my arms. If I don't pick him up or only verbally respond to him, he throws himself onto the floor.
I consistently empathize with him and tell him to go tell Tsege "no, no. That hurts my feelings" which he will do, but she just walks away and ignores him, leaving him even more upset.
argh!
Ah! This is so tough. And this is one of those twin-challenges that I truly believe really makes raising twins different than raising non-twins. Kyle and Owen go through phases where they fight over everything. Even if they have two of the same thing they'll still fight over which one is 'better'. Then they'll go through peaceful phases. And we just keep going in and out, in and out. When they fight I do try not to interfere, but often that is impossible for one reason or another. And we have a zero tolerance policy on hitting/biting/kicking/intention-of-physical-harm... so they'll get an immediate Time Out of I see any of that. When it is really bad and they're fighting a lot I say, "O.k., one more fight and you have SEPARATION!!!!" Separation = they each have to spend some time alone in separate rooms to get a break from each other. This works for us because they HATE (absolutely HATE!!!) being separated. When they do get separated they often come back together at the end to happily play as if they haven't seen each other for a week! LOL!! These things are just really tough, though, and I'm sure no one thing would work for all twins. Keep on keepin' on until you find something that seems to work relatively well for you and yours! :) Thinking of you, Heather
Oh, Jayme, do I know your world (well, not the speaking one, the hitting/fighting one!). Do they bite too?! Ours are getting equally monstrous! Honestly, I let them work it out by themselves most of the time (woops, just read you do this too. . . ). . . but poor Bereket is the sensitive one (nothing hardly bothers Tsega except binkie fights!). It crushes me to see him get so upset and he is getting pretty possessive these days; like the other day he held onto a spoon for about an hour and just collapsed if any brother came near it. B's face has even been a little sad lately because I think the stress of so much stimuli with two brothers is getting to him. Last weekend I spent lots of alone time with B (seems he schemed his way out of lots of sleeping to get all my attention!) and he totally thrived!. . .so much so that he seemed tons happier playing with his brothers later in the weekend.
We've been thinking that a little separation at this age from sibs, for even just an hour, is probably healthy, gives the child some quiet time to reorganize.
Also, try and get the kids out and about to blow steam as much as possible (you probably do this already). We had a family melt down last Sat morning and finally dropped everything to get the heck out (same thing Sunday afternoon) to just drive or stroll around, go to the store, cruise the mall--too cold outside for anything else! And by Sunday night the trips were playing like old days--lots of laughing, smiling, chasing, sharing, playing. What a wonderful sight and sound to behold after so much fighting lately!
My only other advice, start buying three of things (woops, I mean two--that was my own advice to myself!) or things they can share more easily like blocks sets and balls and big cardboard boxes. I also find that if I engage in rough-housing on the floor with them (like chasing everybody on all fours) everybody gets wildly excited and gets along better (weird).
Other than that, well fed, well rested, coddled, and steam-blown toddlers seem to get along better!
Last night I taught Tsega to “pet nice” instead of hitting (sometimes they just hit for fun, not because they’re mad) and that went over pretty well and suddenly everybody was hugging!
Best of luck and if you find helpful hints along the way, please share with me!
P.S. Tsega has a fond love for brooms like Izzie and all things involving house work! :D
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