1. Ignore Their Fighting

Fighting is often a way for kids to get you to notice them. If you ignore their fighting (unless weapons are involved) there will be less incentive for them to do it.

2. Treat Your Kids Same When it Comes to Fighting

If you get into who started things, you may be training your kids to be victims and bullies. Put them in same boat and don't take sides.

3. Give your kids positive reinforcement when they are cooperating.

Let them know that they're doing a wonderful job when they get along. This one's easy to forget but vitally important. Give them attention when they're behaving way you want.

4. Limit your own fighting and arguing.

Your kids will learn how to be peaceful from you. Don't expect them to do it well if you don't show them how.

5. Create an environment of cooperation.

Do projects together as a family that involve cooperation. Talk about how important it is for family to cooperate. Avoid games or activities that promote fighting in your kids.

It's quite easy for most fathers to look at their kids with a critical eye.

And why not? There's a lot riding on outcome of your kids' development. There's nagging worry that you're not doing your job well enough and that your child will develop "problems." There's also fear of being judged as an incompetent or uninvolved father by others. And there is relentless presence of your children, making mistakes by truckload while you watch.

They do make mistakes. Lots of them.

And you have a number of choices about how you respond to those mistakes and how critical you are of your kids. Let's consider some different ways of looking at this issue to see if we can get some perspective:

A Different Angle

If you're a father who's really honest with yourself, you'll acknowledge that much of judgement and criticism that you have towards your kids is really your own critical judgement about yourself. It's usually easier to be critical of your kids than to turn spotlight on yourself, isn't it? If you're not careful as a father, you may run risk of "teaching" your kids low self-esteem through your criticism and judgement of them.

Doesn't seem fair, does it?

Fathers who see their kids as capable and whole, on other hand, will find far fewer opportunities to be critical of their kids.

There are other reasons why you should be more understanding with your kids. One reason is to consider what it's really like to be a child. For instance, can you imagine formidable combination of having a brain that's not yet able to exhibit emotional control and living in a house where you're constantly told what to do by your parents?