6 Tips you Need to Encourage Your Kids to Get Along

As a mom of multiple kiddos, one of my biggest struggles has always been my kids’ inability to get along. I want to help you to encourage your kids to get along.

With a 10-year-old, 5-year-old, and 2-year-old, many moms out there would probably agree with me, and then blame the age gap.

But what if I told you that there is not one, but multiple ways to encourage your kids to get along? I know, I know, it is hard to believe that there is anything that is going to keep you from screaming at them for the 1,000th time.

Just read on mama, a couple of these just may give you some peace.

Give them Space

When trying to encourage my kids to get along, I have found that sending them to do a specific activity together is generally grounds for failure. Asking them to go play Legos together, or agree on a movie is comparable to sending them to do a chore. Instead, I have found that simply sending them upstairs, or outside without direction generally yields the best results. This gives them the flexibility to determine what they would like to play together and allows their creativity to take over. Plus, it results in fewer boundaries and more peace.

Limit Distractions

Want to know when I hear the most giggles from my kids? When the screens are put away. Seriously, I was driving home from Chicago a couple of weeks ago and decided against the DVD player in the mini-van for a bit. The result was a 5-year-old and a 10-year-old who were able to play, talk and laugh together. This went on for over an hour folks. No arguing, hitting, crying, or whining. It was a miracle!

Ask them to Help

Sometimes, the easiest way to encourage your kids to get along is to ask them to help you! Come up with a chore that they can actively help you to complete. Kids naturally want to try to please you. Therefore, when they are helping you, all your kiddos are working to impress you and thus not fighting with one another.

Well, that is the hope anyway.

Praise the Good Times

If you really want to encourage your kids to get along, evaluating the praise they are receiving is huge. All too often as parents, we forget to praise our kids for the great things they do. Instead we often only see the behavior when it is unfavorable. Make sure that you are praising your kids when they have a great couple of hours (or sometimes minutes) together. Kids haven’t bit one another in a day? No one has a black eye created by a toy? Give those kids a sticker and a pat on the back. Sometimes those are the big wins!

Give Grace in the Bad

No matter what you do, those kids are going to fight sometimes. You can encourage your kids to get along until you are blue in the face, and yet, they are still going to clash from time to time.If you want to continue to be encouraging, make sure that you are giving some grace in these situations.

Understand that your kids need a bit of room to disagree.

They are going to sometimes have arguments because they are not perfect, even though we really, really need them to pretend they are in the grocery store. Give a bit of grace here and let them be siblings. Promise, it is going to get you further.

Allow Time for Cool Down

While we all want our kids to get along all the time, this important step needs to be remembered when encouraging your kids to get along. Making sure that our children have time to cool off, in their own spaces, is vital to them being at peace around each other. Therefore, along with encouraging your kids to get along, encourage them also to spend some time winding down. Even a few minutes of reading, drawing, or playing solo can make a huge difference.

Crazy Mom Talk

Ok mama, so none of these tricks are going to all-out stop a sibling war in your household. What they will do though is hopefully grant you at least 5 minutes of sanity in the day-to-day. (And hopefully, keep you from losing your shit on a daily basis.)

The truth is, at the end of the day, our kids are vastly different from one another. While we really want them to fall in line and get along perfectly, more so we want them to grow into unique, independent individuals. Unfortunately, we do not want that individuality expressed in the middle of this mall. What are some of the ways you try to encourage your kids to get along? Let me know in the comments below!