Have your children been fighting or arguing more often than usual and it is driving you nuts? Here is a great article with tips and suggestions on what you can do about it.
How many times do parents hear one of their kids screaming something like this: “Daaad! Brian won’t stop picking on me! Make him stop!”
And then Brian whines, “No I didn’t! Lisa started it! Why do I always get blamed for everything around here?”
Does this sound familiar? Do you ever feel as though your kids act more like hungry alley cats ﬁghting over the last mouse in town than the loving sibs you’d hoped they’d grow to be? You are not alone!
What’s a parent to do when the kids are at each other’s throats and the living room looks like ﬁnals at the international wrestling championship? The ﬁrst step toward success is understanding some of the reasons why siblings bicker and ﬁght. Why is it that our children—our ﬂesh and blood—often go for ﬂesh and blood?
Let’s ﬁrst recognize that sibling conﬂicts are generally a pretty typical and normal part of family life. In fact, one might argue that these conﬂicts are good training for life. That is, by negotiating childhood conﬂicts with their brothers or sisters, our kids learn valuable skills for getting along with others in the real world.
For this learning to happen, the following must take place in the home:
- Children must witness their parents working out disagreements in a cooperative and nonviolent manner. Kids learn a lot from watching us.
- Parents must place primary responsibility for solving sibling conﬂicts on the parties involved—the kids! In other words, parents stay out of it.
- Parents share ideas on how the conﬂict might be resolved in a healthy manner.
Another reason siblings ﬁght is because it gets them attention and control. When parents yell or lecture to determine “who started it,” to get their kids to “knock it off,” or to get their children to “say sorry and shake hands,” the parents are doing more thinking and worrying than the kids!
Soon the children learn on an unconscious level that they can control the color of their parents’ faces, the volume of their voices, their reserves of emotional energy, and the potential longevity of their cardiovascular systems.
And have you ever noticed how your kids tend to start a ﬁght just as you start talking on the phone or start a quiet conversation with your spouse? What better way to control your parents?
Fortunately, parents can do three things to keep their children from learning these unhealthy patterns:
- Parents take care of themselves by making sure the conﬂict happens somewhere they can’t see or hear it. They say, “Feel free to continue this argument someplace where it doesn’t hassle my eyes or ears.”
- If the parents are interrupted or inconvenienced by the ﬁghting, they say, “This is so sad. How are you going to repay us for interrupting our conversation? Raking the yard will do.”
- If one or both children resist completing the chore, the parent calmly says, “I’ll be happy to do the things I do for you around here when you decide to contribute to this family by doing chores.” The parent “goes on strike” until the child complies. In the meantime, the child can survive on “boring” and “yucky” food like apples, oranges, cold fried chicken, etc.
A third reason siblings ﬁght is because one child in the family feels that the parents or other adults see him or her as being the “black sheep” of the family. He or she reasons on an unconscious level, “I’ll never be as good as my brother. Everybody thinks he’s so smart … He’s such a goody-two-shoes … I hate him!”
In most cases, the child doesn’t really hate his or her sibling. Instead, he or she hates the feeling of not measuring up in the eyes of the parents. The parents may not view the child in this manner. Nevertheless, the most important point is that the child “feels” it to be so.
Parents and teachers can do two things to help avoid this problem:
- Don’t compare kids with each other. One of the most damaging statements I ever heard was made in the local K-Mart store by a frustrated father: “Why can’t you just sit and be good like your brother?”
- Celebrate your children’s differences and focus primary energy on helping them identify and build upon their strengths. Research clearly shows us that personality and learning differences begin at or before birth. The more we try to make our kids the same, the more frustrated and angry everyone in the family becomes.
Help all of your children learn that everyone is different, and that everyone has something positive to contribute.
A fourth reason has to do with much more serious and dangerous types of problems. In rare instances, one or more children in the family—or the entire family—are experiencing such severe emotional distress that the rivalry has become dangerous.
What’s a parent to do if he or she sees this happening with children? Here are some suggestions:
- Don’t ignore the problem. Make sure the children are adequately supervised and that they are not allowed to inﬂict serious damage upon each other. This is the one instance in which parents must intervene to ensure safety. Caution! With older children and teens, avoid trying to physically separate them. Call 911 or the police department for assistance if the conﬂict becomes violent.
- Don’t hesitate to get professional help from a competent psychologist or therapist. There are solutions to these types of sibling conﬂicts, but these solutions require family therapy and ongoing work with a solid mental health professional.