Children fight, and first of all they fight among themselves. Someone took something away from someone, said something wrong, pushed, hurt, pinched … Why do children fight? There are many reasons for this. The most common reason is that children do not yet know how to resolve differences among themselves by peaceful, civilized means, and a fight at least reduces tension and protects honor. For those who are more aggressive and older, a fight provides an opportunity to gain benefits and benefits: take away a toy or insist on one’s own, exalt oneself and humiliate the enemy … It happens that children fight among themselves, doing this in some respect for adults: for example, to take revenge on an adult who does not want to obey a child, or to test the boundaries of what is permitted when a child is forbidden to fight. And the most interesting reason is that fighting for healthy children is a form of entertainment. They are interesting, exciting and cool. Children love to fight. And even when a child cries after a fight, his fight still attracts …
Often in the literature one can find the assertion that children fight in order to draw the attention of an adult to themselves or their problems, or to inform an adult about his negative emotions, since he does not know how to express them in a different, more acceptable way. Perhaps someday such exotic cases can be encountered, but it seems that such hypotheses are more often a moment of professional deformation of psychotherapists.
What should not be done?
If you caught children fighting (or they came running to you crying and howling to complain that they were “beaten”), you should not do the following things …
It is hardly right to hit children for hitting each other. If you set an example for them that in a problem situation you need to dissolve your hands and use your fists, sooner or later they will learn this lesson, but you wanted something else?
It is not smart to inspire a fighter, hypnotically looking straight into his eyes: “That’s why you hate your brother so much? Why are you such a cruel fighter! The prison is crying for you!” I think your suggestions could be more positive…
It is debatable if in any fight you force the older to yield to the younger. In such a situation, the elder does not really want to be the Elder (by the way, the younger, after a series of such events, will not be in a hurry to become more mature and Elder), and the younger quickly learns to use his weakness and weakness, learns to make plaintive eyes and play Unfortunate Victim. In fact, he quickly learns to be a provocateur. Oddly enough, the support of the Elder turns out to be more effective: “The Elder must be obeyed. He said you did. And if you think that he was wrong, then first do as he said, and then talk to us. Everything is decided by the elders!” Note that in this situation, the Elders begin to lead more responsibly, there are fewer fights between children.
Stories from life…
I separated my fighting children many times and scolded the elder for constantly offending the younger, until suddenly one day I noticed how the younger, during a seemingly comic brawl, himself (!!) thrusts his head into the armpit of the elder so that he would pinch his neck, after which he starts yelling, crying and blaming his brother for always hurting him … Cool provocation!
I once came up with a great remedy for fighting in my children: the “Stop!” rule. I explained to my children (4 and 5 years old) that now neither one nor the other can offend a brother with impunity: “If you are offended, it’s enough for you to loudly and clearly say the word “Stop!”, And then the offender has no right to touch you with a finger. touch, not a word to say to you (cannot call names and blame). You’re protected for five whole minutes! And if the offender does not do this, he will have to deal with the pope!” — The children listened to this with attention, we rehearsed a loud and clear pronunciation of the word “Stop!”, They realized that after this word no one would offend anyone, and I was proud: what a wonderful method of stopping fights I came up with! It turned out that I was proud early: the children continued to fight … How? Fun, still. They only tried to say “Stop!” twice, quickly realized that after that they could not play with each other for five minutes, and confidently decided not to do it again. They continued to fight, and «Stop!» — they didn’t say … they didn’t want to. It turned out to be not interesting for them, not profitable … The only plus of introducing this method is that the children stopped seriously complaining about each other, because they had nothing to answer the question: “Why didn’t you say Stop if you liked to fight with your brother?” In summary, note to parents: for vigorous and healthy children, fighting is a form of play and entertainment.
That is why many parents with experience, having seen a children’s fight (it doesn’t matter, their own and others are fighting. A children’s fight — that is, a fight of children under 12 years old; teenage fights are another phenomenon, they are more cruel), they do not always stop it immediately, but transfer it to fight by the rules. When a fight begins to go under the supervision of an adult, it is already more of a sport, which helps children to release aggression, and to do without dangerous self-harm.
The “Let’s figure it out” method turned out to be more successful, but it must be taken into account that its intention and essence are really completely different than it is seen from the outside. Outwardly, this looks like a demand to tell what actually happened, but in fact we know that sorting out “who is right and wrong” in children’s fights is a rotten, almost unrealistic thing. The correct procedure for the «Let’s figure it out» method is as follows.
Children are divorced on opposite sides, an adult between them. A question to one: “Tell me what happened, why did you start fighting” (calm intonation, without discontent and accusation), a demand to the other: “And your task is to remain silent and not correct anything. Practice endurance. Are you okay?» You understand that it is really very difficult for the second to restrain himself, because he wants to protect himself, and the first tells everything as if only the second is to blame for everything. Well, the first one tells, you calmly clarify everything — in fact, you teach reportage presentation without unnecessary emotions. The second part is all the same in the opposite direction: now everything “as it really was” is told by the second, and the first trains endurance and must listen to him without indignation and interruptions. For indignation and interruptions — everyone squats, along with an adult. The third part — both, also in turn and starting with the eldest, should think and say what they themselves were not quite right about, that is, how they should behave in the future.
It is important that all this happens measuredly and calmly. On the one hand, in this situation, children learn to think, on the other hand, they soon become terribly bored next to such a calm parent, they begin to look at each other, silently agreeing to quickly stop all this and quickly return to their games … Without any notations from their parents, they long ago they themselves decided to make peace, and the proposal to play the game «Peace, make up and fight no more» is met with complete enthusiasm. Nevertheless, it remains in the emotional memory: they will fight again — for at least ten minutes it will be boring to stand quietly next to dad (mom) and speak smartly. Of course, the children do not really want this, and they will not fight too often.