Let the Punishment Fit the Crime

We had a funny thing happen in our house about a week ago that I thought most of you would get a kick out of. I'm sure that our house is the only house where children argue with their siblings, so for those of you whose children don't fight with each other let me tell you how this works. Usually the older one picks on the younger one until the younger one just cant take it anymore and then that spunky younger child decides he or she has had enough and either hits kicks or just plane body slams the older one. This then causes the older child to scream at the top of his or her lungs at the parental subjects of the family and usually at that exact moment the younger child starts crying - now this crying could be for many reasons #1 they hurt their brother or sister #2 they hurt themselves in the process of hurting their brother or sister or #3 their just so mad that is the only emotion that seems to come out of their sweet little body. But no matter the reason this usually results in one or more parental subjects running into the room where this situation is taking place. Usually at this point there is much yelling and trying to get to the source of the problem from the parental subjects. Most of the time there is conflicting stories and so it is difficult for the parental subjects to punish these children because by this time all involved in this minor scuffle can't remember when or why the argument even started. I am sure this never happens in any home but ours. Since this happens so often we haven gotten quite good at punishing these small people who seem to cause such trouble. So when this situation came up the other day and their dad yelled and then proceeded to remove his belt they both thought they knew what was coming and I think they were both surprised when they actually received their punishment. The belt was not used on their little bottoms instead Sean belted them together to work out their problems. By the end they were laughing and treating each other the way brothers should treat each other. The joys of parenting!