Screamfests

This is a huge issue lately, over the past month or two. Whenever Hazel makes a small crying noise, Toby clamps his hands over his ears and either runs from the room, slamming a door behind him, or starts making a loud, awful, repetitive, beeping noise to drown her out. Sort of while crying loudly himself and yelling at her to stop. It sends me through the ceiling. I tried sooo hard to ignore him for a couple of weeks but it was so unbearably irritating, and not going away at all. Finally I told him I just could not tolerate that sound and if he needed to do it, he needed to go outside - and whenever he has done it since then I have opened the door for him or told him to go. Then he cries even louder because he feels punished for something that Hazel started. I try to be very matter-of-fact about it, not punitive. When he yells at her, of course she cries and yells louder too. It is the worst. And this happens several times a day, on average, once five times before 10 a.m.! They do this over a pen, whether one unwrapped the other's candy (even if they didn't eat or even touch the candy), just absolutely anything. She told him he isn't old enough to chew gum, and he lost it. Now that was obviously a joke, since he chews gum all the time! I feel enraged at Toby about it because he is old enough to deal more reasonably with all of this. I never say that and try as hard as I can to prevent my body language from projecting it. Whenever the dual screamfests begin, I calmly walk out of the room, lock the door behind me wherever I go, and wait. As soon as it is quiet, I come out, rejoin them, and move forward to some activity. At most, the only acknowledgement the fest gets is "everybody ready?" when I open the door, and that is rare. Yesterday they had one as soon as he got off the bus, at the bottom of the driveway, and I started walking back up to the house with the garbage cans. I had to keep looking over my shoulder as I got father away from Hazel near the road - but as soon as I felt safe about her distance from the road and her progress in my direction, I just came all the way up. Toby left his backpack down there (it's a long driveway and because it's downhill, you can't see the bottom from the house). A little later I invited them to come jump on the trampoline with me - connecting time with both together, positive interaction for them together, plus physical outlet, right? Another huge screamfest, I can't remember what started it, but Toby was yelling at her that she couldn't come on the trampoline until she was quiet, and she kept crying because he was yelling at her, and then full-force because I came back into the house. Toby was screaming at me from outside, "Come back! We're ready! Come back!" in such a furious tone of voice - I felt awful. The moment it was quiet, I rushed outside and jumped up and started playing a game with them, and we did get to enjoy each other for about 15 minutes.

What the fuck is going on???

I just remembered that I can refer back to how we "solved" the problem of Toby's ears hurting when Hazel cries, at Family Meeting. And encourage him to leave the room (no slamming doors!). I might want to bring this to Family Meeting as a problem for me, since they really did create a solution to the bedtime situation that I didn't expect. Hazel is clearly fully engaged in the battle, but there are times when she genuinely gets hurt and he responds like that and I want to strangle him. So I don't feel so angry at her during the fests, but I don't think she is being coddled too much as the innocent little one. They have been doing Appreciations for each other fairly enthusiastically, and they are always about an activity that they enjoyed together. I am very conscious of giving both of them my full attention when they are telling me something, giving both of them lots of affection, etc. I wonder if Toby is resentful of Hazel because I do things for her that I won't do for him, as he is capable as an older person.

Although I can't see how my actions are involved in the initiation of the fests, I think they must be since things quieted down during DNSN. Not really any headway on that. Also, I remember that mischief in the house greatly decreased when the kids were really busy with contributions - and they haven't been doing so much lately. Maybe refocusing Toby on his contributions will help diffuse some of this craziness. The start of school will be a big help, I think, as they are apart during the day and have other social outlets. I will update.