Dear Your Teen:
My tween boys are always fighting! I can’t even leave them alone for two minutes without an argument escalating into a huge fight. And sometimes it gets physical. No matter what the situation, they get into it with each other, and I just don’t know how to get them to stop. What should I do?
EXPERT | Dr. John Mayer
Let me comment on several aspects of this concern.
3 Steps to Stop the Bickering Boys:
1. Separate them.
First, your tween boys are certainly showing you that they CAN’T cope with being together, so don’t force them to be together. And I would be rather dramatic in that endeavor. If possible, don’t even let them sit next to each other in the car. Or they are required to be in separate rooms when at home.
2. Enact consequences.
Next, double check your discipline to each for the brothers fighting. In other words, first you should be giving them discipline/consequences for this behavior and it needs to be strong enough to stop their fighting. You have to make the consequences for fighting sooooo hard that they just won’t go there. And in this case, it doesn’t matter who is to blame, who started it, caused it, etc. They both get consequences.
Make these consequences individualized. A mistake parents make is that they give the same consequence for each sibling of different ages and different life situations. When the consequence works for one child but not the other, the fighting will continue.
3. Teach them mediation skills.
Finally, try and get to the root of why they are fighting and teach them alternative ways to resolve and solve this conflict. Once they can articulate why they fight, the will hopefully be able to figure out ways to handle their aggression in a more productive manner. And then you can teach them problem-solving techniques.
Hope that helps.
