Road Trip

I always thought as the kids got older, it would be easier to take road trips with them, but that hasn't rang true yet. Instead of packing bags of toys for the trip, we are now packing several pairs of shoes, jewelry, X-box and the Wii. It hasn't got any easier than when the were little. At least when they were little, I could gather their stuff together. Now, it requires their assistance and there are so many things they claim they can't live without.

Except now we have even more complications, nobody wants to sit next to the other one. They are driving me nuts with this sibling rivalry crap. I have no clue how to stop it, everything I try doesn't work. They are 11 and 12 years old and claim they hate one another. My oldest and middle child are 8 years apart, so I didn't have to deal with the sibling rivalry as much as I do with my two youngest, who are only 1 year apart. They live to drive the other one nuts. The only problem with that is, the parents are the ones who are stuck trying to mediate between the two all the time and according to them, we are never fair. No matter how hard we try to be fair, someone is always unhappy with the decision. The sad part about it is, I have two psychology degrees and can't get my two children to get a long, no matter how many different things I try there is always that underlying resentment towards one another and I don't know how or when it began. We adore them both and hate seeing them at one another all the time. It makes it very difficult to do anything together as a family, because they are always arguing with one another.

From the Mouths of Babes

Yesterday was the strangest afternoon, which just kept going until the evening. It was full of arguing, laughing and crying. It started in the afternoon when my two youngest got into a really big argument screaming at each other. To be honest with you, I never did figure out what is was about. Then we my oldest told my youngest who is 11, she had PMS, Sammy said "No, I don't", Amanda asked her "Do you even know what that means?". Sammy said yes, I don't have PMS, because that is when you always mad at men and I am not always mad at men, just Adam.

Sammy said she was in a bad mood, because some girl at school is mean to her, because she doesn't like Sammy's friend. I told her, she was just jealous of how pretty and smart she was that's why she was teasing her. She wishes she was more like her and Amanda told her the same and Sammy started raising her voice at Amanda and she put her hand in front of Sammy's mouth and told her be quiet for a moment so she could talk to her. Sammy told her to move her hand or she was going to bite it. I don't encourage that kind of behavior, but with it being a strange afternoon, I started laughing hard and I tried to cover my face and hide the laughter, but I couldn't hold in the laughter anymore. I broke out in laughter so hard I was crying and laughing at the same time. We were both heart broken and were crying, because Sammy was crying over this girl giving her a hard time, we just burst into laughter when she said she was going to bite her hand.

When my husband came home, he looked like he just walked into the twilight zone and was confused. Here all three of us were sitting in the living room teary eyed and then burst into laughter. Well, it made Sammy feel better to have a good hard laugh.

Sibling Rivalry

Being a mother can be so challenging at times. My 11 year old daughter and 12 year old son have there own personal war going on, that no one else seems to get. It starts in the morning before school, after school and continues on until someone or both ends up going to bed early. They have a very difficult time being in the same room with one another without picking at one another, instigating arguments, or doing something intentionally to make the other one angry.

It is so obvious their intentions when they do something to one another that they are doing it to make the other one angry. They will sit and listen when one of them speaks, waiting for the opportunity to pounce or they will do something they know will make the other angry and walk away with a smirk on their face.

It is driving me insane, I find myself repeating the same thing overs and over again through out the day, everyday! For example, if one of them wants to get on the computer when one is getting off. They intentionally log off anyway and say they didn't hear them. When we know they did, because they made a smart comment to the other one. Well, not only are they making the other one angry. They are making me angry right along with them, because I am constantly mediating between the two and when they log off I have to go log the other one back on because it is password protected.

We do everything between the two of them exactly even to make sure no one feels like the other gets more attention or more of anything. I always make everything even between all of my children including my adult child who lives on her own. I always do my very best to treat them all the same. I love all of my children the same and I am a strong believer in treating your children equally. I spend the same on them right down to the dollar and spend time with them equally and give them equal attention. A lot of their problems stems from their father, who does not treat them equally and I don't know how to stop what he has created.

I have tried everything with these two to try and stop the bickering from them losing privileges, grounding them, sending them to bed early, talking to them telling them why they shouldn't argue so much to even time out. Nothing is working. Any suggestions?