Why are my kids angels one-on-one but chaos together?
Children who behave perfectly on their own often cannot regulate their excitement around each other, resulting in constant play fighting and hyperactivity. This chaotic dynamic forces parents to constantly intervene to break them up. The resulting stress makes families hesitate to plan things like traveling and leaves parents wondering if they need a behavioralist.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- The most recent one is from October 2026.
- This comes up 15.7× more often in r/Parenting than across the site as a whole.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Separating the children or spending one-on-one time with themDid this help you?
- 2Accepting the behavior as a normal and adorable part of sibling dynamicsDid this help you?
- 3Sleeping in crates in different roomsDid this help you?
- 4Getting fed in different roomsDid this help you?
- 5Using the toilet separatelyDid this help you?
- 6Constantly breaking them up and separating them to calm downDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“The difficult part is that when they’re together, he sometimes seems unable to regulate all that excitement.”source ↗
“The dynamic can get pretty stressful for us, especially when we think about things like travelling.”source ↗
“One on one they are angel, put two or three of them together. Chaos.”source ↗
“When they are together or with both my husband and me, its such a different dynamic. [...] it's noticeably more challenging.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 9How to handle sibling rivalry when kids compete in the same activities
- 11How to handle high energy kids who act out in public classes
- 7How to stop doing exhausting children's birthday parties
- 4My child is constantly loud but their hearing is fine
- 2How to handle a child who has to win every game
- 35How to calm down a hyperactive teenage dog