Parenting Multiple Children

The question is, what do you do when you have two or more children close in age, and you have to be King Solomon and decide who is the instigator and who is really the culprit?  To begin with, you have to know your own children and what their pattern of interaction is with each other.  That being said, you may be wrong and you have to also know that.  If your children spend a lot of time together, especially in the summer, you may need to separate them with different activities, different camps at different times, or even playing in different rooms in the house.  Siblings tend to spend a lot of time together and it may be difficult for them to be generous with a younger sibling they experience as annoying or an older sibling they experience as mean.  With multiple children, it is more challenging to have a parent to yourself and not have to share.  If possible, it is helpful to spend time alone with each child, even if it is just going out for a walk or an ice cream.  

When your children are fighting and refuse to cooperative, share, or get along, instead of trying to figure out who started what, the bottom line is that everyone involved participated in the acting out.  Since everyone involved participated in the acting out, everyone gets a naturally occurring consequence, whether that be a time out (in different rooms with no toys), or a chore, or both.  After the consequence is completed, debrief your children and have them explain to you why they received a consequence.  If they are not able or willing to explain, than extend the consequence a short time and try again.  All consequences should be immediate, concrete, and short term.  Another chaotic time for families with multiple children is bedtime.  Rather than trying to put all your children to bed at the same time, stagger the bedtimes.  If you have a child that frequently gets out of bed, try sitting quietly with them as they fall off to sleep.  You may feel that you are losing time you could be doing other things, but in reality, you are probably gaining time and experiencing less frustration.  Children are not little adults and they do not yet have well developed problem solving skills.  You have to teach them problem solving skills, which is why having them explain why they were given a consequence is so important.  You want your child to learn to own their behavior and not just say you are a mean mom or dad.  By the way, if they do call you mean, or even the meanest mom in the world, accept it as a compliment, it means you are doing your job.

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