We tried the “ignore the fight” strategy tonight and did see that when I didn’t respond at all to complaints they had a tendency to work it out. The younger boys quit crying and made up faster when they didn’t know I could hear them.

I did step in when The Mercenary was really mean to The Manager verbally. I was just in the middle of explaining that if he’d be nice to his brother, he’d get a lot more cooperation when TechnoBoy walked up to The Manager and sweet-talked him into what The Mercenary wanted in the first place. I rested my case and went back to ignoring complaints.

I found parenting was a lot more work when they were young but the effort we put in had paid off now that they are teens (well almost teen for Blake). The only drawback is that I’m enjoying them so much it will be hard to see them go off to college (Kristie only has two more years left of high school … where did the time go?!?!).

We worry about sending the “you’re too weak to handle yourself” message too. Sheesh. Parenting is complicated!

So would you say your kids are friends at these ages?

Interesting approach to the fighting! I mentioned it to Hubby and we think we’ll try it with the older boys. The younger ones have demonstrated a willingness to draw blood when they fight, which is not the case with the big boys. Fortunately that kind of fighting doesn’t happen often, but when it does they get pretty vicious. There’s not a clear dominance happening, but whenever we’ve tried leaving them to their own devices in a serious spat, at least one of them is angry enough to go after the other hammer and tongs. Sometimes it’s The Manager, other times it’s the Captain. How old are your children?