I’ll Tug Your Shirt!

Siblings will fight. That is an inevitable and unfortunate truth. Sometimes the fighting comes from a good place…meaning that the original intent was playful. That’s where we are at.

My 3 year old son adores his big sister. He copies her in many ways - from the food that she eats, the treats that she picks, and the shows that she watches. He has a very watchful eye as well and learns from her (which is why he knows his letters and numbers at an earlier age…having an older sibling is a cheat code). Sometimes, he doesn’t know how to channel that in a healthy way, especially when it comes to play time. When my daughter is tired, she doesn’t want anything to do with anybody, but if my son wants to play, he will pester her until a fight breaks out.

One morning, this exact scenario happened. He was tugging on her shirt and I told him that if he wanted to play with her, he would have to give her some space to wake up or he would need to come up with something that would be interesting enough for her to play. My son was having none of that and threw a tantrum. Instead of saying anything, I just picked him up and hugged him. He cried a bit more and then stopped. I think all he wanted was attention and the hug (and cuddles) gave him what he needed. He calmed down and gave his sister some space to get ready in the morning.

That surprisingly worked well and the action without words is what I will put into my toolbox going forward. It’s a powerful tool when used sparingly. I think it would also be equally powerful if the fighting was over an object and for that object to be just taken away without any words exchanged. I’ll have to keep experimenting with this tool, but I liked that it resolved a conflict so quickly without more tears and screaming.