Fighting amongst young siblings

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This is more asking for general parenting advice, not necessarily aspie or autie specific.

My kids are now old enough to fight sometimes. Well, not actually fighting, but physical conflicts. For example, earlier this afternoon my 2 yr 10 month daughter was building a tower out of a set of boxes. My 14 month old son came over - he's always interested in what his sister is doing - and knocked it over. Then my daughter pushed my son over.

That particular exchange was pretty harmless - my son got knocked to a sitting position, but wasn't hurt and didn't seem to mind that much - but I kind of feel like I should be doing something to keep the pattern from getting worse when the kids get older and able to do more damage.

What should I be doing? Or should I just leave them alone, as long as they aren't injuring each other?

I have always tended to intervene early and often because my little guy's low frustration tolerance meant that he would go from a push or shove to wacking his older brother over the head with the nearest hard object in about 2 seconds flat. Now that they are a bit older (5 and 7) I try to let them work things out without me more often but I listen intently to the tone of the younger one's voice. I can tell quickly when he is ready to lose it. I have tried to instill in the older one that he needs to jsut walk away from his brother when brother is showing signs of getting angry.

Sorry for not reading this earlier.

Even when my kids were little, I felt it was important to teach the lessons. In your situation that would mean I would have gone to the oldest child and said, "no pushing. if you do that again it will be a time out." Next one, it is a time out (just short, like 2 minutes at that age). When they say, "but he wasn't hurt!" you can answer, you are right, this time he wasn't hurt, but next time he might get hurt, and the rule is that pushing is not allowed." Eventaully you start talking about the whole realm of using physical means to get what the child wants, and explain that none of it is OK, and that time outs will happen. When they are little, they can't differentiate between actions that will hurt and actions that will not, ones meant to be fun and ones meant in anger, so they must learn to keep their hands and bodies to themselves, in my experience. It is super important for preschool and the playground, too.

When they get older and can start to understand some grays, you can slack off a little and see if they can work it out among themselves.

I have a scar from a toy my sister threw at me when she was two. Serious injuries can happen without mean intent. You have to teach them a gentle but zero tolerance policy on physical aggression, IMHO.

Thanks for the advice regarding my daughter.

I'm also interested in the issue of my son, though. I don't want him to get the idea that it's okay for him to just walk up to what other people are working on and destroy their work. I also suspect my daughter is not likely to be too convinced if I tell her she can't get physical with her brother, but I don't do anything about his physicality disrupting her play. Any suggestions on that part?

About your son, the rule we use is that you can only knock it down (or take it apart, etc.) if you built it. Both boys learned to follow this one pretty early on. If you can get your little guy to follow this rule maybe it would make things seem a little more fair to your daughter when you tell her she can't push her brother.

All though now in their teens, both my younger brothers tend to bicker amongst each other. The 19 year old gets frustrated really really easily. And he's just kind of like DW. He can go from shoving and door slamming to, actually doing some damage. My parents never really taught boundaries and he ends up hitting on hsi 14 year old brother. And the 14 year old has a really long fuse, but how would you feel if someone just came around started a fight and then hit you?
And for a 19 year old this isn't the best skill in the world. I have had to learn how to make them stop throwing fist at each other. These are not skills teenager should have.

The best is to intervene. Or else they turn out like aggressive dogs. Like the situation I'm dealing with.

I realized today that I might be providing a bad example in some respects. I build towers from the kids' blocks specifically to let my son knock them over, and I love it when my daughter grabs me and tries to push me over, since that's the closest thing to a hug that I regularly get from her.

Still not sure what the right solution is, though.

I think we gave my son a no-sibling zone when my daughter was little. If he built in it, we protected his creation. You can't expect a 14 month old to understand, and the older child may as well learn that more is going to be asked of her for quite a while.

Discipline with a 14 month old is short repetitive phrases and redirect.

one thing I make sure to always do if my kids get into a scuffel is give all my attention tt the hurt child first. Then once (usualy always my daighter) she has calmed down and isn't crying any more I will sit down with my son.
I think if you make sure you don't draw too much attention to the child in the wrong they will soon realise they wont get your attention for doing something negative.

But I do agree you do have to let them figure things out on their own. I hardly ever step in on my kids when they are having issues unless the arms are flying and someone could get hurt.

You can have your son "help" you, as much as he can, build the tower before he knocks it down so that the equation
I made it = I get to knock it down
is a little more clear.
Also, your daughter should be able to make the distinction between rough-housing with you, OK, and pushing her brother onto his backside, not OK. When she pushes you, take that opportunity to remind her that it is OK to do that with Daddy in fun but not OK to do that with brother because you are mad.