Question
I have three boys, 5.5 and 3.5 years old, and an 8-month-old baby. The older two share a bedroom and are homeschooled. When they are not doing an instructed activity or chore, they disturb the family peace constantly with their raucous playing, wrestling and running through the house, sometimes saying mean words to each other and occasionally ending in tears. They are magnetically drawn to physical contact with each other, so I tend to proactively separate them into different activities or rooms, which lasts at max 45 minutes. In other words, the children cannot have even 10 minutes of truly free time because it devolves into insanity. This process of juggling and directing separate activities and space is exhausting and not leaving me much time or energy to pursue my own interests at home. I am ready to shift the responsibility of playing peacefully to their shoulders. Since they are each individually on the ticket system (the 5.5-year-old a low misbehave-r going through a tune-up, the 3.5-year-old a high misbehave-r), how do I correct the problem of their disturbing the family peace?
