A Simple Subject for a Six-Year-Old

Daddy and I are just not great at having "serious" discussions with our kids. We have good intentions... believe me. But then that youngest one comes in.
We have started threatening our two about all this bickering they have been doing. I mean they have started hitting one another. When we no longer hear them having "heated fellowship" and we have not intervened yet, then some pushing is going on or hitting. It's like this is their last straw. And ten times out of ten we usually throw in a "when I was little..." when we fuss at them.
They were supposed to be cleaning their rooms yesterday. Then we heard them start up.
This was the second time in the last week so the Cosby family approach (being rational and calm) was out the window.
"LOOK! Y'all can't keep this up! Not in this house!" I told them.
Then my co-signer came in.
"That's right! You can't do that mess in here!" Daddy added.
They both tried to jump in to tell their sides.
"Nope. Both of you close your mouths!" I said.
"When I was a little girl, me and my brothers were not allowed to do this. We got our tails whipped if we would fight."
They were in disbelief.
I reassured them that, "Oh yes- your grandma and papa didn't play around back then. Don't let them two fool ya."
We let them take that thought in for a minute. Guess that was a little hard to digest since my parents are totally different with them. I don't think they have ever much popped them. It is sickening. The kids probably think we are making things up. Wish we could have recorded some of those beat down- drag downs.
"She's talkin' about back in da day," our son told his sister.
They think that we are so old. It could be something we did last year and it is "back in da day" for him.
"We keep telling you that you have to stick together and have each other's back. Can't be fighting each other," Daddy scolded them.
He was trying to take it in and really have them thinking with his next point.
"Now if, God forbid, something happens to (pointing at me) Mama and me, who would be left?"
Our sweet little eight-year-old, with a tear building up in her eye, pressed her lips together and pointed to her brother and her self.
Then her recently, turned six-year-old brother said, "You mean if y'all died? Then we would (laying back with his arms behind his head and now crossing his feet) go live with granmapapa."
He says their names together as if they are one entity.
No compassion for his parents. No worries. It was as simple as that.
"But you could get to go to heaven if you be nice to yo kids," he reassured us.