Bumps, scratches and bruises. Screams, crashes and yelps. This is not a police no-go area. It’s Fiona Gibson’s living room.

One of my four year-old twin sons wants to watch Dick Dastardly, the other his Robin Hood video. Sam belts Dexter on the forehead with the remote control – so hard, he propels backwards into a lamp.

‘Does your child do this?’ I ask friends constantly.
‘Well, not quite as much,’ a fellow mother admitted. ‘But then, April is an only child. She can hardly beat herself up. Mostly, she plays happily with her Lego.’

April, it seems, is in the minority. Children fight – period. And if you have same-sex children, three years or closer in age, better dig out the Savlon and cotton wool.

‘These children are most likely to be constantly compared – which contributes to sparring,’ says Helena Sharpstone, Communications Director at The Parent Company who run seminars on various aspects of parenting.

During my first two years of parenthood, I assumed that boys have a monopoly on fighting. Not so. April aside (grrr), I’ve witnessed countless three and four year-old girls yank hair and deliver accurate eye pokes. One teatime, two of my son’s female pals fought tooth and nail for the pink plate.

‘It’s by far the most stressful aspect of being a parent,’ said one of their parents. ‘Worse than potty training, fussy eating, waking in the night. I’m an intelligent, 36-year old woman – yet I can’t figure out a way to stop it.’

First, what doesn’t work…

Shouting, hitting back or trying to figure out what happened. Author and parenting guru, Dr Christopher Green, once pointed out that, you’d need to hire a team of detectives in order to find out who started it.

‘You don’t have to assign blame,’ says Helena Sharpstone. ‘If children are fighting, they are both out of order. What matters is how they are going to fix it.’

Now what does work…

Helena recommends:

• Know when to butt out. With minor squabbles, stay within earshot – but don’t watch. Children love an audience. Of course, you should intervene in a ganging up situation – or if there’s an imbalance of power and weight.
• Forget the birth order labels. It’s not helpful to say, ‘He’s only a baby’ or ‘Be a big, grown-up boy.’ Sometimes, the elder one deserves to be babied – and the younger can be encouraged to be responsible.
• Praise good, fight-free behaviour. Say, ‘It’s brilliant that you played together when I was on the phone.’ Let them know you notice the good stuff.
• Show that compromising doesn’t mean losing. Say they’re fighting over a toy: it seems like a win or lose situation. Help them towards a compromise: does one get the toy for five minutes? Can that child find something for the other? Or could one of them do something else – with you? You’re teaching your child valuable adult skills – that debate requires both sides to listen, and that bickering gets you nowhere.
• Don’t expect your child to share special things. My son Dexter was purple with rage when I ordered him to ‘share’ his Peter Pan outfit with his friend. The other boy’s mother later observed, ‘That’s like me asking if I could borrow your wedding dress.’ As Helena points out, ‘We have nutty ideas about sharing these days. Prized possessions are not for sharing’.
• Allow each of your children time with you – alone. Lots of squabbles are over you, your time and attention. If you can wangle it, Helena suggests taking children out separately on occasional outings.
• Remember that children cannot help fighting. Adult skills, such as figuring out alternatives to lashing out, do not come automatically.

‘Mum!’ yells Samuel, spotting me. ‘He – ‘
‘My brother smacked me!’ cries Dexter.

Time to leave the room. We have a little way to go yet, in the adult skills department.

Further reading: Siblings Without Rivalry by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish (Piccadilly, £7.99)