Keeping the Peace

Like any set of siblings, my girls have their moments where they play nicely together followed immediately by screams and tears.  Praise the good Lord for one bit of wisdom that I found somewhere on the mighty internet many moons ago that has drastically decreased the amount of bickering in our home.  On a calendar on the refrigerator (where all of our sanity saving documents can be found) we have the letters "A" and "J" alternating on every day of every month.  Each of our girls take turns being the Leader of the Day.  Big title that comes with lots of perks.  The leader of the day in our house gets to choose all things first, unless of course they are over-ruled by Mom and Dad.  This includes, but is not limited to dish color, seat at the table, car seat, movie, TV show, etc.  It also means that she gets to do things first, such as say her prayers first before bed.  Sometimes being the leader means that you have to be the brave one.  At our first dentist appointment we had no eager volunteers.  So the leader of the day was elected (by yours truly) to go first.  I think the beauty of this technique is that nobody really gets terribly sad (whines or pitches a fit) when it's not their day because they know that tomorrow they get the coveted title and all that goes with it.

How do you keep meltdowns at a minimum in your house?  Do you have any tips for dealing with sibling rivalry?

Sometimes I think they may actually like each other!