How to handle kids' fight?

For those who have more than one child or perhaps your kids mingle around a lot with other kids be it their cousins, playmates, classmates, etc; you will have experienced these “fighting” scenes.

So what do you normally do? Will you act as a peace-maker, judge, or police officer by dispersing and separating them?

Ever since my two kids are old enough to fight over things, I often had to be the peacemaker, judge and sometimes the police officer.

Let’s see what difference these three different roles make:

Peacemaker

Peacemaker is one who gets the kids to make peace and be friends once more.

What I usually do is I will tell both of them that they are brother and sister; and in my case, since I only have two children; I said “You only had each other, so you must love one another.” And told each of them how much the other party loves them or dotes on them (when they aren’t fighting then; they really do love each other! It’s really a Love-Hate relationship here  )

It often ends with a hug, kisses and hand-shakes.

Judge

Judge is often one who is brought in to judge a fight; to say which is the right and wrong parties and then accord the rightful punishment to the “guilty” party.

This is the most difficult role to play as you do not want to act biased and most of the time you were not there to witness who is at wrong in the first place.

When I am “forced” to take up this role, most of the time I would sentence both party as “guilty”. Yep, not exactly a good judge here but I want to let them know that when things happened both parties are at wrong and should not put the blame on the other party.

Police Officer

Police officer is the one who enforce the punishment. Most of the time, my hubby is the one who played this “Bad Guy” role.

He would confiscate the toys they are fighting over, enforce time outs, remove privileges such as movie watching, shopping or computer games.

So which role do you play when the kids fight? Do you have any best practices or tips to share?

Love to hear from all of you!