5 Things To Know About Sibling Conflict
Do you sometimes feel like your day is constantly refereeing fights between your kids who are at it all the time?
Do your kids' fights trigger you until you lose control?
Are you losing your mind because you just don't know how to create more peace between them?
Every parent dreams of having kids who are best friends, and if you’ve already given up on that dream, maybe it would be enough if they would just get along some of the time.
You're asking yourself if it's even POSSIBLE to move them from a conflict-filled, competition-based relationship, to one that is kind, caring, and where they are on the same team.
The answer to that question is YES.
Here are a few things to remember about sibling relationships:
1. SOME SIBLING CONFLICT IS NORMAL
A healthy amount of conflict is actually pretty good for kids. However, left unchecked, sibling conflict can become unhealthy – causing serious relationship issues and a negative family culture. While it's unrealistic to expect your kids to get along 100% of the time, you ideally want to build a family culture that is heavier on positive interactions than conflict. Thankfully, there are things that parents can do to help keep the conflict low and foster cooperation, joy, kindness, and fun, and improve the overall sibling relationship.
2. POSITIVE SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS REQUIRES EFFORT FROM YOU
Healthy sibling relationships require intentional parenting and the investment of time. This means that it's up to you to learn the skills you need to handle it, and to invest the time it takes to connect, correct, teach, and model the skills they need.
Conflict among siblings provides some fabulous valuable life skills such as negotiation, problem-solving, and assertiveness. Often kids can resolve their conflicts themselves – but many need to be taught how to resolve conflict in healthier ways than they have the skillset for. (Let’s be realistic here… many ADULTS also need to be taught this.)
3. PARENTS UNKNOWINGLY CONTRIBUTE TO INCREASED SIBLING CONFLICT AND RIVALRY
Ouch! That hurts right?? Unfortunately, parents often demonstrate favoritism to one child, leading to the other child acting out of hurt, and/or internalizing negative feelings and behavior towards themselves. Additionally, there are certain behaviors that parents often do, such as setting up competitions thinking it will motivate the children to do the desired behavior, or comparing siblings to each other in order to motivate the other to try harder or do better.
Instead one sibling begins to resent the other because they 'win' your affection and love by being 'first', or 'the best', or 'the favourite'. This often manifests in sibling rivalry and conflict. Everyone wants to be loved for who they are, without having to change to be like their sibling.
4. MANY FACTORS INFLUENCE SIBLING RIVALRY
There are so many factors that shape sibling relationships - including birth order, age, how much time children spent together, different household compositions (e.g. single-parent homes, blended homes), divorce, trauma, abuse, neglect, siblings with special needs. The good news is that as a parent, there are things that you can do that can help meet each child’s need to be loved and seen as special and accepted for who they are.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way and you can see that sibling conflict is NORMAL, check out 5 Tips To Turn Conflict Into Cooperation.