Reign of terror

The other night I was in the bathroom with the kids, who were both in the bath, when I noticed something. While I initially thought it was funny, my second thought on the matter was "oh boy! here it begins...." I'm referring, of course, to the reign of terror that brothers have over their sisters.

Nathan, at all of 17 months, was deliberately terrorizing his sister, and laughing hysterically over it. In his hand he had a facecloth. Said facecloth was being dipped in the water, then held up and offered to his sister. Of course, dripping wet, my precious little girl was not terribly interested in this present. In fact, rather than be dripped on, she was shrinking to the edge of the bath - as far away from said present as possible.

The fact that Nathan got such an incredible and predictable reaction from someone was a source of endless delight to him, and he proceeded to repeat the gesture dozens of times over, laughing manically every time Nellie shrank away, until I stepped in and forcibly removed the facecloth from his hands (to great howls of despair and frustration - any neighbour listening would surely have thought I was murdering the child...). As I said, at first it was very entertaining to watch Nathan as he realised that he had a source of power and the realisation dawned on him that this power brought about predictable results. Then, as I realised what I was watching, a certain dread crept into my heart. He's found one of Nellie's "buttons", the first of many, I'm sure.

I had hoped that my kids would never deliberately torment each other. I hoped that my kids would be different to every other set of siblings. I had hoped that my kids would have this deep abiding love for each other and joy in each other. After all, they're MY kids....

Get REAL!! Wake up and smell the coffee!!

Nope - my son is a boy, and, like millions of boys down the ages, he will take GREAT pleasure in tormenting his sister. Sigh!

To what extent do I jump in and rescue Nellie? To what extent do I let her fight her own battles? Although my brother's kids were older when I saw him implement his strategy, his strategy was simple: if there's no blood, let the kids sort themselves out. I'm not sure I could put up with the whining and screaming and shouting that goes along with such a strategy though. On the other hand, I know that I can't jump in every time (which is my natural inclination, given my inability to deal with the noise of the alternative) - Nellie has to learn to toughen up if she's not going to suffer in the real world where not everyone is nice. Rather that happens under my roof than in the real world, right?

Those of you who have walked this road before me of mitigating sibling warfare (forget rivalry!), what advice can you spare me on dealing with creatures such as this?