Good morning,
I have 7 children, 5 of which come from “hard places”. It seems there’s a lot of sibling rivalry, some of which comes from their family of origin that has been hard to untrain. They ignore each other and strong arm each other. The fact that they’re physically forcing their way (grabbing, pushing past, etc.) leads to the other child yelling. We’ve talked repeatedly about our family vision, and the blessing siblings are. We’ve talked about if disagreeing appropriately doesn’t work to get an adult. Some of it comes from an urgency addiction that they need to handle it in that exact moment, rather than waiting on an adults help. Any suggestions?
I also wanted to see if you had any recommendations for constant interrupting. They interrupt more times a day than I can count. It happens when I’m talking to someone, they’ll come up and just start talking over me, to me. It also happens when I’m obviously listening to someone and in conversation. It drives me nuts the most when I’m doing the rule of 3 with a child, and another comes up and starts asking questions, or making requests of me. We’ve done the 4 square box to help visualize urgent and important, but it hasn’t seemed to click. It is the biggest disruptor of peace in our house.
Any suggestions on boosting confidence for kids during homeschool that need me sitting right next to them reminding them they’ve done this before and can do it independently? If I’m sitting next to them, they’ll work and many times ask questions they’ve practiced before. They also want me to check every answer 1 by 1 instead of the page once finished. It seems an unnecessary dependency on me while they’re doing independent work. It makes it difficult for me to help other children, but the child won’t work or attempt a question until I return to their side, which leads to them to disrupting and being distracting, as well as work being prolonged.