Sometimes we plan our days around separating DS8 and DD4. At their ages, the bickering isn't so intellectual and cynical, but they do get violent, and....I hear you of how intolerable it sometimes is, and how it feels it undermines my ow health.
Oddly, DD4 and DS2 are usually the best of friends, and whenever they do fight, it is short and quickly resolved. There is none of that relentless attacking. So it is a cake walk to just have the two little ones, or just have the two boys, but mix the two older ones...sigh.
I did ask the psychologist who specializes in testing gifted children for her opinion on this problem, and her take was that DS8 felt threatened by DD4 wanting to be his equal despite being so many years younger and not being at his level in anything, and that his contentiousness was part of his unfulfilled need for having real friends his own age. She suggested trying harder to have him spend time with congenial kids his own age and not rely on family providing companionship, which at the moment is sufficient for DD4 and DS2 (who do go to preschool and have activities and play dates, but who are just as happy to play together) but not for him. I do work hard at facilitating friendships but the few kids he really clicks with are busy, too, and have other activities and friends...we cannot just send him round to the neighbours or the playground or anything, it's always parents phoning to set something up, sometimes weeks In advance, and for some reason he is unable still to ask kids at school to play for himself. I also see that the unresolved tension from school (where he apparently is a model child) comes out not just in his interactions with his sister, but also with us (his fights with DH are like these bitter grown up spats you describe, and he's only 8) and his friends, and I, too, wonder about the atmosphere in school. Not that there is much I can do about it, as we really have no alternative but stay in this school through fourth grade, but I have hopes for the congregated gifted program in middle school, if only for the mental stimulation that he's craving and missing.

Last edited by Tigerle; 05/14/15 02:21 PM.