PERSONALITY CONFLICT

[tonicap]

My daughter just turned five.  So did my sister's daughter.  You could say the two girls are AS close as sisters.  Our families are together a lot and we have other cousins who we see a lot . . . like every other day and/or every weekend for sure.  The two girls have what appear to be a love/hate relationship.  The ask for each other to play with.  They think of the other when she's not around but it takes them a good hour of being seriously mean to each other for them to come to a common ground and get along.  And this is with just the two of them.  Sometimes there are 3 of them involving their six-year-old cousin who they both fight over.  BUT most of the time it's the two of them not getting along and really hurting the other's feelings by excluding or making the other jealous, etc.  Me and my sister are at our wits end.  We make them play together and learn to love one another but it's very tiring!  We're so disappointed as we thought having the girls together would be so much fun.  Could it be that they have a serious perosnality conflict?  Like they really don't like the other one?  I can't believe it.  They do get their groove on and seem to have fun after a while but we can't understand why it's an immediate dislike from the start of seeing each other.  What to do?  Any tips at all would help at this point.

[tonicap]

Thanks . . . I'll give it a try.  

[specialmom]

As I hit send, one other thing occured to me.  Natural consequences.  Tell the one going over to the other's house that if they fight, they will leave and tell the one who's house is having the gathering the same thing.  And mean it.  They start fighting------- get  together is over.  The whole family knows the situation--------  and it is to help them understand that they can not treat each other that way.  A couple of times having to leave 5 minutes into a gathering should help them learn that they can't fight or be mean to each other.  Good luck

[specialmom]

Hey, I've got two boys that are brothers and have to live under the same roof that can be like this.  Not so much the "mean" part but the fighting part/love hate part.  We tell our boys that if they fight-----------  they are seperated.  They hate that and we follow through.  I also think that the girls may need to have some verbal guidelines given ahead of time about what is expected and then tell them to work out those kinks for themselves.

Some kids will just fight.  They both want their way, they both are inflexible with the other, etc.  They either have to work it out or have less ture "play" time.  

Good luck