Fighting

To be stereotypical, my son is prone to wanting to fight.   I fully believe if he had a sibling that was male, there would be a lot of consensual fighting going on here.   There have been times when our neighbor's son has been over and I've observed him going at my son, seemingly angry or upset or something when I walked into the room.   On the contrary, he was just wanting to wrestle or fight or be physical and both boys were having fun.

I have thought about something my cousin, Carla, said many years ago at a family reunion.   I wasn't yet married and I was years and years away from having children.  She had two pre-teen boys at the time.  They were shoving each other off chairs and generally being rowdy.   When she saw me looking at them she said, "one of the great things about having boys is you can say in social situations, 'boys will be boys' and no one thinks twice about their behavior.  

No one was worried about their behavior as being poor manners in this case, we were outside and everyone was having fun in their own way.  I asked her about fighting though, because to me, that's what it looked like they were doing.  Oh yes, she told me, they fight all the time.   They were having fun and getting their energy out.

To me, it looked anything but fun, but I was an only child and I'd never roughoused with anyone like that before for fun.  My daughter seems to be of the same mind as me when it comes to fighting.   Commonly, over the years, her brother would want to be physical, rough, hitting, kicking, and punching and she would want nothing of it.   When this happened, my daughter usually came crying and complaining that her brother was being mean and we'd tell him he had to stop.  

That's what happened most of the time—but not always.   Sometimes, she would be equally interested in fighting, most commonly she'd be goaded into fighting back.   It would get rough and we'd be worried about her eyes and try to stop it—also, one of them was usually wanting it to stop by the time we intervened.   To get results, I typically tell them to go outside and finish the fight and to please let me know if I needed to call an ambulance.   This reverse psychology almost always stopped things.

Lately, my daughter has been wanting to fight more and more, and as things go in this house, it has me wondering if there is something underlying it emotionally that is causing her to want to be so hurtful.  Today, Blake came home from the pool with the children with my daughter launching into a litany of insults and angry words at him for something I wasn't able to figure out.   She stomped off and he came in to explain.

We always back our sitters on their decisions when "parenting" the children for two reasons: first, because they have good judgment and second, we need to never undermine their authority so the children will listen to them.   In this case, my daughter was ignoring Blake and the pool proctor's instructions to get off the rope.   She intentionally continued doing it.   Then she wanted to fight with her brother, even after he repeatedly told her to stop.   Finally, he pushed her away and she hit her head on the side of the pool (not hard) which threw her into an indignant rage.   Even after Blake calmed her down and told her she needed to stop, she went after her brother with an, "I'll get you back" attitude.   As you can well imagine, she didn't like the results.  

Is my daughter enjoying being aggressive and finding new strength mentally and physically as she's gone through a recent growth spurt or is she getting out anger and frustration related to accepting her blindness?   Parenting has far more questions than answers.

The Big Boy Update:  My son loves helping his sister out with her KiwiCo crates.   He can do the steps and put the pieces together, assemble the components or do whatever it is quickly and not always with the best explaination to her.   And yet she loves having him help.   I got her a few crates that would be doable with vision impairment and could be enjoyed by her without sight.   I'm so glad he wants to help her though, it's nice when they work together.

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