Question
Over the past year, we have spent more time together as a family at home. While some of this has been good, we have also seen conflict between our oldest boys, ages 4 and 6, increase. Sometimes conflict is caused by the youngest boy, age 2, destroying a fort or a Lego creation.
We have worked to let them solve problems by themselves, but this generally leads to a meltdown by one child, a verbal insult leading to hurt feelings, or a child getting physically hurt (like scratches and punches). We know these conflicts are two sided, but are finding these conflicts harder to ignore. In theory, we want to let the boys solve conflict on their own. In reality, leaving them to themselves seems to lead to more chaos.
We would love any suggestions on managing sibling conflict.
