Like nails on a chalkboard

That's it. I've had it. I'm fed up! My older kids are bickering so much with each other lately that when they are doing it I don't even enjoy being in the same house as them, let alone the same room. It's gone beyond normal sibling pestering I think. I was sitting outside on my porch a few weeks ago waiting for the kids to get home from school and I could actually hear my kids before I saw them. A full 5 minutes before I saw them. They were 1 street over and I heard them yelling at each other. When I told them about this E said maybe their voices were carried on the wind and that's the only reason I heard them. (Good thing that kid is cute sometimes!) Seriously, who wants to be those kids' mom? These aren't the kids I've raised. I almost wonder if they are just acting out because their Dad is working so much, who could blame them really? I'm acting up because he's gone so much. Back to the issue though. I have made numerous attempts to end it. I have:


-calmly set them outside and told them they are more than welcome to come back in the house once the bickering is finished because I choose not to hear it.


-sat the offenders together, facing each other and told them they have to name 10 sincere things they love about the other person before they can get up.


-bound their wrists together with a bandana so that they are forced to work together as a team with whatever activites they have to accomplish for the rest of the night. Usually it's homework, eating dinner and doing their dish chore. This one is actually kind of fun to watch. I do let them take it off for bathroom breaks.


I think all of the above ideas are great, creative ways of making it their problem and not mine to solve. But it's just not working. Some brilliant, genius idea needs to come into my brain within the next few days or I'm just going to buy a pair of boxing gloves and lock them in a room together. That's how over it I am. Somebody remind me again why I'm so excited for Kiwi to start talking?