5 Simple Discipline Strategies When Your Kids Are Always Fighting

When we first had our second child, we were concerned about how the first child would handle the change. We also worried about how we would manage the transition ourselves. One child is an adventure… but two or more children??How do we balance everything, give enough attention to both, and maintain our sanity at the same time?

Eventually, the kids will grow up and become 6, 8, 10 years old, and continue growing. They seem to fight about EVERYTHING, and the house becomes noisy.If you’ve ever been in this situation with your family, these 5 simple strategies have helped us, and if you implement them, they can also assist your family in being on the same team.

Pre-condition

We cannot de-escalate a situation if we are in an elevated emotional state. The first step to thinking clearly in these emotional situations is to detach emotionally from the situation. Focusing on your breath for a few seconds will help regulate your nervous system and calm you down before playing referee.

This lesson will show you a few other techniques to use as pattern interrupts to separate emotionally from an elevated situation so you can enter the situation as a leader rather than react as a competitor.

Discipline is NOT the same as punishment

This is something that many parents use interchangeably, and I think it’s to make us feel better when we punish our kids… either that or it’s just something we’ve always heard, so we repeat.

Real discipline starts with the leadership of an organization. In this case, the organization is a household, and the parents are the leaders.

This has been liberating for me as a parent because it gives me more control. If I’m looking for more discipline in the house, I need to look no further than myself, my actions, and my habits.

“Hey. Same team.”

On my bathroom wall, I have many giant note cards with different affirmations and reminders on them. “You are love”, “Be YOU”, and one of them is “Same team”.

This is a simple subconscious reminder for anyone who goes into the bathroom of their power, who they are as a person and as a member of the family. This includes me (refer to point number 1).

This makes it easy to throw out the reminder when they start fighting with each other, or with me, about silly things, “Hey. Same team.”

Let them figure it out

Parents often put a lot of pressure on themselves to be perfect and have the perfect family. In reality, our intricacies and challenges ARE the perfection.

I mean, what makes for better stories? Kids sitting down and always reading their book calmly or a bit of disaster?

We tend to forget what it was like to be kids. I used to fight with my sisters. My sisters used to fight with each other. We argued with our parents.

These things happen. At the end of the day, our goal is to be on the same team, and if someone always gets in trouble or is punished every time they fight, that can lead to resentment between the kids and parenting guilt for us.

Remember, if your kids fight, you’re not alone.

Be solution-minded

It’s not always a good idea to let them fight… sometimes we need to help them figure it out. The key is to figure it out.

This goes back to the pre-condition. If you haven’t separated emotionally from a situation, you’ll most likely enter this situation in an elevated state, which will lead to escalating the situation, and ultimately resorting back to the old patterns of behavior and punishing rather than growing.

As a parent leader, we’re looking for solutions rather than ‘discipline’ or punishment. We want to demonstrate to our kids the lesson above that we’re on the same team.

Ask questions. Ask more questions than tell them things. Ask questions to find out WHY they are fighting this time.

The REAL why.

This is the thing that we refer to as The Thing Under The Thing.

Are they fighting over a toy? It might be about the feeling of ownership.

Are they fighting over whether somebody got ‘more’ of something? It might be about the feeling of self-worth.

Normally, whether it’s the kids fighting, or our own blow-ups, it comes down to three questions:

• Am I feeling seen?

• Am I feeling heard?

• Am I feeling validated?

Celebrate wins (no matter how small)

The best was saved for last. This is where the magic happens.Our behaviors and thoughts often go unnoticed over 95% of the day. This is why we need to be reminded. It’s easy for our kids to remember ‘always being yelled at’. It’s easy for us to remember them ‘always fighting about everything’.

The truth is, that’s not the reality. If we celebrate more wins in our house, even small micro wins, that will draw our attention, as a family unit, to the wins in the day. This changes the identity of our kids, of us as parents, and of the family as a whole.

Creating a culture of identifying and celebrating wins has changed our family culture forever. One of the expressions we use regularly is, “That’s a win”.

Summary

As parent leaders, we are shaping and forming the family culture for ourselves and our future generations.

It’s not easy at first to break cycles, habits, and patterns. But I want to celebrate you for taking the time to read through this and for implementing at least one of these strategies into your family dynamic this week.

Remember the movie What About Bob? – “Baby steps to the bus.”

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