Siblings
“You took my game without asking!” “Get out of my room!” “Mom, she’s breathing my air!” Is listening to these sibling squabbles among your children driving you nuts?
Do you find yourself reacting strongly to these situations? “Why can’t you two just get along?” “OK, who started it?” “You can’t hate him, he’s the only brother you’ll ever have.” We all want our children to like and support each other both now and in the future when they’re adults.
Constant fighting among siblings drives many parents to their boiling point faster than most other parenting issues. When siblings fight we’re angry that they won’t get along and we’re often scared that they never will. So what do we do? We react strongly and give a lot of attention to our children around their fighting. And what do they do? They fight even more!
What do ALL kids want no matter how old they are? They want attention from their parents; it is like candy to children. They will discover what gets their parents’ attention, even negative attention, and continue to behave that same way. As parents, we need to learn how to respond to the sibling fights in a way that we don’t inadvertently perpetuate them. A calm response models the appropriate behavior without showering them with enough attention that the behavior is likely to be repeated.
Learning how to properly respond first involves understanding how we interact with our partners and our children, especially around issues of conflict. For example, when our kids fight and we become highly triggered, often manifested by screaming, the children learn from our behavior that it’s OK to scream when one is angry. Furthermore, if the parents are screaming at each other, the children learn that this is how to communicate. We model for them HOW to handle situations. So, we need to show them how to handle their full range of emotions when in conflict with their siblings. Sibling relationships are their first peer relationships so how they learn to manage them will probably be carried with them into all relationships in life.
Our children will only hear a portion of what we TELL them in life, but they WILL do what they SEE us doing. So, when our children fight with each other, we need to learn to pause and respond calmly. In this way, they will learn how to pause and interact calmly. Hard to do without a lot of practice, but so worth the effort!
Top 12 Sibling Rivalry Parenting Techniques:
- Acknowledge and validate all feelings each sibling has about one another.
- Help them put their feelings into words and teach them how to properly express their feelings.
- Learn to generally stay out of sibling arguments, unless someone is getting emotionally or physically hurt in which case intervention is necessary.
- Don’t allow siblings to emotionally or physically abuse one another.
- Don’t compare one sibling to the other.
- Treat them as unique individuals and respond to their individual needs.
- Don’t label a child or lock a child in a role. Always expect and champion your child’s growth.
- Each parent should try to spend at least 15 minutes a day actively engaged with each child.
- Encourage good will between the siblings.
- Praise your children when they get along with each other.
- Clearly communicate your expectations, rules and consequences for behavior between siblings.
- Most importantly, model the behavior you want to see occurring between your children.
