Behavioral problem that has popped up: One = SUPER aggressive, One = SUPER passive

Hi guys,

My twins are not quite 2 yet, but they will be in a couple of months. I wanted to post this question in this forum b/c I'm wondering if this is a behavioral issue they may grow out of.

Just for background, neither of my children are as verbal as they should be at this age and that is an issue we're going to be addressing soon through EI. My daughter is definitely more on track and picks up new words, but my son is way behind and still grunts and points and starts every word with a 'D' or "B' sound...he also has a hard time imitating sound.

Here's the issue I'm dealing with. My daughter is SUPER aggressive toward my son and steals toys from him constantly. If he tries to hold on to it she resorts to physical violence and really gets nasty with him..pulling hair and biting. One time she really scared me by pinning him against the wall. She leaves deep marks in his skin and really hurts him - it's just awful! My son never lashes out at her and simply gives over the toy and runs crying to me or my husband. If we try to intervene and give the toy back to him she will get angry and throw something or have a tantrum.

I'm guess a lot of this stems from the speech delay but I would love any advice or past experiences you guys have with this issue. I'm torn between always patrolling their play (how will my son ever learn to assert himself?) and leaving them to learn how to work out their differences as siblings.

Really just so confused...
Thank you in advance and look fwd to your responses.

 

This is so difficult because we expect twins to share at such an early age. I also have one who is aggressive (A) and one who was much more passive (M). We never let A get away with toy stealing. If she wanted something that M had, we taught them to 'trade.' If she refused to trade or give the toy back, the toy went in 'time out' on a shelf and no one got to play with it. If that resulted in A having a tantrum, so be it. We used to have a little blanket in the den to have some quiet time when they had a tantrum. They'd go sit on the blanket and cry it out. Even before my girls had the words to express all these conflicting emotions, DH and I would do all the talking and explaining. Now that they are verbal, they can explain why a toy (or child!) is in time out.

I do want to report that M is getting MUCH better about standing up for herself. One day your son will do the same and your daughter's "reign of toy-stealing terror" will be over (or at least halted). GL! :hug:

 

Yes, for us it got better. We had one toy stealer and biter. It was so frustrating. We talk "trade" all day long around here. And I could usually tell when a bite was gonna come, so I would try and step in a little sooner. Luckily, the biting has for the most part gone away and now they are on equal terms with who takes what. HTH!

 

It certainly might stem from a speech delay problem. I know having communication issues can certainly lead to frustration and aggressiveness. I would talk to your ped. and see what he or she thinks.

I do remember going through this probably 6-8 months ago or so. Our DS is a bit more aggressive than DD. His aggressiveness was more like wrestling and just flat playing rough. I was afraid to leave them alone in fear that DD would get really hurt. We would seperate them when it happened (placing them in their cribs or in their seperate rooms, etc..). I don't know if seperating them helped or just over time it has gotten better. BUT...either way it has somewhat gotten better. They still fight (normal sibling rivalry). However, DD has become more assertive and DS has backed off a bit realizing she is not going to let him get away with it anymore. DS did spend quite a bit of time in TO's for his hitting, pushing, etc...

 

We had a brief spurt of something like this just before age 2, but it has mostly abated now. They still have moments of difficulty sharing, but we deal with it much as Leighann described above. Good luck. I hope it gets better soon!

 

Thank you for your replies. It's reassuring to hear others have been through this and the kids should (hopefully!) grow out of this stage.

 

My situation is nearly identical to yours, including the delay in speech with the passive twin. I started about 17 months and did the "don't bite, don't hit" at eye level, etc. etc. but things really didn't turn around until I did time out. I mean EACH and EVERY violation of toy stealing, hiting, biting (that was a big problem at 12 months) and I'm sure it took a good month and finally I really started to see results. I can now say nicely "oh I think Sienna was playing with that, give that back to her please" and she does. We do have off days and if I find I have had to deal with her 2 or 3 times in an hour I look at either a nap, or WE go into a separate room and leave HER behind. This is very effective when she can see us and not participate. Anything you allow to happen, you are saying it is OK. So if you contiue to allow hitting you are saying hitting is ok.

With the language issues... immediately get a hearing test done. The "B" and "D" sounds are on the low, deep sounds and often people (like my daughter) was able to hear these sounds and were missing some of the higher tones or quieter parts of words like "ch". We found out it was fluid in the ears and she is getting tubes put into her ears.

I think the aggressive / passive personalities may be now and be long into the future, and could be part of their personalities. The aggressive can later turn into ambitious and the passive turn into a more practical happy and easy going person. I think parenting is a long road.

Heather