Who among us loves it when the kids are fighting?

I hate chaos and loud ugly voices. I didn't realize how much until my own kids were very young and fighting over a toy one day. So I did what I think most young parents do; first I tried talking to them about sharing and being nice, when that didn't work we progressed to "fixing it for them" you give that back to her!!! Over the next few days it seemed like the arguing was getting worse and I was yelling a lot and no one was every happy about anything.

This was not working for me and it wasn't the feeling I wanted in my house. Enter the egg timer.

I sat down my young children, ages about 3 and 4 and talked to them about sharing, talked about helping mom be happy and not yell, talked to them about negotiation and egg timers. The gist of which goes like this:

When you fight over toys it makes you mad and your sister mad and mommy mad.

When mommy gets mad she just wants to take the toy and throw it in the garbage and that would make you very sad.

When you share and speak kindly to each other it makes you happy and your sister happy and mommy happy and toys are not in the garbage.

You are old enough to learn how to share and how to be nice to each other. Mommy is not going to be around every minute of your lives to fix your problems so you need to learn how. So this is the way its going to work; I have an egg timer, when I hear you start to fight I will set the timer for 2 minutes. Lets set it now so we can see how long that is............

During that two minutes you have to talk to each to each other about how to fix your problem. You have to decide, can we play together? Can you take it first or should I? What can we do that will make us both happy or least not mad?

If the two minute timer dings and you are still fighting and haven't figured out what to do, then mommy will come in and take the toy and it will be mine for a while. But if you can figure it out then whatever you have decided we will do as long as you can be happy.

Now parents, these were very young children and this took practice! When they would fight I would pick up the timer and walk over to them and tell them I was setting the timer and then set it. Several times I had to calmly remind them what they were supposed to be doing and maybe give suggestions about how to resolve things. You must remain calm when doing this so you don't become part of the problem. You must also be willing and able to recognize those times when you have to step in.

I had a box that I kept in the top of my closet. If I had to take away whatever was causing the problem it went into that box and stayed there for a week or month or as they got older until they could tell me the plan to use it cooperatively.

This is a very hands on parenting act at first and for a while you will wonder if there is any chance of it working, but it will! It will work on even older kids and teens, although you have a lot of old habits to break through so stick to your guns!

What I noticed is that over just a few months the arguing was greatly decreased and that over the next few years even when adding more children or having friends over to play, if the voices became raised I would just ask if we needed to set the timer and you could immediately hear the negotiations start. It was wonderful!!

Kids will never learn to solve their problems if you always do it for them. They will never learn how to cooperate or negotiate or just plain get along with others if you are the one doing all the work. Your job as parents is to teach them the skills they need for success in life. So be brave! Be willing to do the work and follow through, and pick up those egg timers.