Adapted by Teacher Michelle from a workshop with Child Development Specialist, Lori Longo, MA, of ParentsPlace at the 2020 CCPPNS Conference.  

Some Causes

I don’t know if you know this, but siblings enjoy fighting. It’s generally the parents who don’t enjoy the sibling revelry. Perhaps, if you’re feeling there’s something to prevent, solve or fix for your children, you can remember this. Also, just as they feel safe with you to let out all their big feelings, they feel safe with their sibling. They believe their sibling will stick around no matter what. That is, unless they can figure out how to ship them back from wherever they came.

Teacher Jocelyn told a story about asking to hold her baby brother on her lap and then slowly straightening her legs so that he would fall off onto the floor. She reassured us she loves her brother and that she did no permanent damage. Why would she do that then? She perceived he was a threat. 

He was a rival for her parents’ time and affection, as well as the world’s for that matter. Her parents loved her as much as ever. Somehow more love had managed to squeeze into the house. In little Jocelyn’s mind though, she felt she had to fight for attention even if that meant making her baby scream to get it. Nothing brings parents into the room quicker then a good loud sibling fight. Little Jocelyn was seeking connection. That particular strategy didn’t work as well as little Jocelyn planned. Her parents looked shocked and rushed away with the baby. Again, he got everything. To make matters worse, now he was putting her stuff in his mouth!

Speaking of putting stuff in the mouth, sometimes sibling conflicts have to do with where siblings are developmentally. We see this in the yard when children, who have had a year’s experience working towards cooperative play, shove another child who hasn’t. The less experienced player just tried to grab the thing they were using out of their hands! Can you believe it? “Wait! What?! I’m in trouble? But…” The more experienced or older child often gets the blame when the younger child was the source of the trouble.

Besides developmental differences and competition for time, affection and toys, parents can also look for other causes when trying to figure out whether or how best to respond. Other family dynamics can come into play like stresses, temperaments, size of the family, gender identities of siblings, parenting style, spacing of children -- that goes back to the developmental differences -- and birth order. According to Jane Nelson, Positive Discipline, there are more similarities in characteristics and behaviors between children of the same birth order than children in the same family from the same environment. By the way, there is no such thing as perfect spacing.

A very quick look at birth order characteristics:

• First born or only: responsible, achiever, perfectionist, leader

• Youngest: fun-loving, affectionate, persuasive (manipulative), less confident

• Middle: sociable, peacemaker, negotiator (twins more like middle children)

So if there’s so much fighting, so many reasons to fight, and they might just be doing it for the fun of it, you are probably wondering how to undo the sibling thing you created. You could wait until your older child finally figures out how to send the younger one back and send them all back. Hold on a second!

Benefits

You are Cottage. You’ve got this. Most of the work we do at Cottage is conflict resolution. My first year teaching, I warned Teacher Jason, “This train thing you are planning is going to create conflict.” I was referring to one child. This child, a train expert,  preferred spending his whole day on the swing, monopolizing the time and attention of the adult pushing. This child would soon become a big brother. Teacher Jason replied, “Good.” After a moment’s puzzlement, the heavens parted as I realized, “Oh. Wait a second. That’s the work we are all here to do. If I prevent it, the child’s missed an opportunity to practice social skills, compromise, negotiation and the ability to see another’s point of view” -- all benefits of having a built in playmate, a sibling.

Maximizing the Benefits

Parents can minimize the negative issues and maximize the social benefits.

• Accept the fighting as a normal part of a sibling relationship. A sense of humor can work wonders.

• Acknowledge their feelings of jealousy. Be with them and their feelings in the moment. 

  • Don’t 

    • Try to problem solve.

    • Try to get them to see that they really love each other.

    • Explain what they should or shouldn’t do and why. 

  • Feelings are feelings. We don’t get to fix them. 

    • You might say, “It feels funny your sister is playing with the stacking boxes. Hmm? You remember them.” Rather than a loud, “You haven’t played with that in a hundred years.” Even though they haven’t played with the thing in a year or more or cannot fit into that sweater, you can ask before giving it away. Once they’ve had a chance to play with it or try to fit into it, you can ask again.

    • Stop and listen, so they don’t have to work so hard to get your attention. 

    • Reframe how you talk about things you do to care for the baby from your needs to the needs of the children, i.e., from “I need to feed the baby.” to “The baby needs to eat. What do you need?” “Boy this baby needs to be fed all the time. Oh baby, you are going to have to wait. I’m finishing this book with Jocelyn.”

• Protect and encourage each child’s self esteem. Acknowledge them for who they are, their preferences but avoid labeling, e.g., “You’re the creative one, and you’re the smart one, the one who’s good in math.” Instead, you might try, “You really love painting.” You can foster their ability to see other points of view too. “They need to read a book. You need to run.” Or, “You like different books.”

• Reduce comparison and competition. Try to be aware of and reduce the labeling and the comparisons:, the faster, smarter, more helpful, thinner, taller, hairier, quieter, more sociable, less brave, the “When she was your age, she could tie her shoes.” To foster cooperation, you can race against the clock instead of each other. “There’s a pile of shoes in the entryway, do you think we can get them all in the box in two minutes? Go.” Talk about what happened instead of who won. This goes for sporting events too. “I noticed you made three passes during the game.” 

• Allow siblings time to negotiate. This also shifts the dynamic of parents come quick when we fight. You can meander in quietly to monitor without jumping into the fray. More on jumping into the fray later.

• Provide enjoyable family time. Create time when family can be all together. In addition to outings, celebrate rituals from your childhood by introducing them to your family whether daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. My family’s included: mealtime thankfuls, snow ice cream, donuts on Sunday mornings, rest stop road trip picnics -- they don’t have to include food to be a ritual. Create new rituals like Friday 

night pancake, pajamas and pillow fights or hump day dance party or early Monday morning pillow pile reading time or everybody cooks on Tuesday. 

• Give each child their own space, time and friends. Even if children share a room, they can have part of the room that’s theirs or a corner of another shared space, a desk, a drawer, a basket. One on one time can happen in the midst of the family as well as outside of the family. It’s time when you are listening to and focusing on them. Your oldest taunts, “I get to go swimming and you don’t.” In response, the youngest stomps on the oldest’s foot. Acknowledge feelings, “You’re experiencing a disappointment.”

• Establish agreed upon family ground rules. At around 3, they can come up with their own rules. You can begin with something they’ve already set a boundary around. For example, in the swimming situation described above, the youngest says, “You can’t say that to me. That’s mean.” You might retell the situation, stating what you heard and adding an agreement, “Not to say mean things.” Words can hurt. Write these agreements/rules down together and post them. Then refer to them, “We agreed in our family not to use hurtful words. In our family, we support each other.” At around 7, children are old enough for a family meeting. You can use a talking stick, a spoon or something special to the family. Whoever has the talking stick gets to talk. Others listen with love. Family meetings can be used after  a “cooling off” period described below. You can also use family meetings to create or add to family ground rules or create a new set of rules for a novel situation.

Parent’s Role

The younger one has picked up a rock and is about to hurl it at the older one’s head. It’s time to enter the fray. Ms. Longo’s ideas below sound familiar. They sound like Cottage.

• Avoid taking sides. Give all parties a chance to say what happened. Acknowledge feelings of all parties and restate, “It sounds like her way is to make the tower taller, and your way is to use the bulldozer to knock it over.” Then ask, “Is there another way? A way that will work for both of you?”

• Restructure the environment. You don’t need two of everything, but each sibling should have things that belong to them. Having access to open ended materials helps. Open ended materials are things that can be used in different ways. A rainbow unicorn is a rainbow unicorn and as a particularly valuable object, can be a source of conflict. But rainbow scarves can be all kinds of things. Do they always argue the same time of day? Change the schedule. Anyone hungry? Anyone need alone time (besides you)? Look for other “under the developmental iceberg” issues. (Scroll to the linked iceberg image). 

• Intervene to model behavior and language and develop conflict resolution skills. You can facilitate listening to each other and respect. “When your sister says, ‘no,’ that means no. When he says, ‘stop,’ you have to get off.” You can Cottage it. “What’s your plan?” “What are the rules to this game?” See “avoid taking sides” above. As they gain mastery of conflict resolution, you can institute a come up with three new ways each. Ms Longo’s children stop fighting when they see her hold up three fingers from across the room. Also, you can step back more and more and let them figure it out. 

• Give choices and teach how to compromise. This scaffolds the conflict resolution skills they’re working on. You can identify options for the different ways while they are still developing those skills.

• Encourage problem solving and negotiation. Basically, do the above.

• Call for a “cooling off” period. If one or more siblings or you are in the red zone, it’s time to cool off. “Oh noodles, we are red hot right now. We got to cool off.” Do and say nothing else. Before the next time someone goes red, discuss and figure out a plan for where people want to go to cool off. Find different places for each family member.

Lori Longo’s Suggested Reading

• Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

• Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, by Laura Davis and Janis Keyser

• Positive Discipline, by Jane Nelson

• The Pain and The Great One, by Judy Blume

Thank you Stephanie for the photos.