Sibling rivalry is as old as Cain and Abel. I grew up the youngest of six, in a blended family— it was my kids, your kids, and I was the only ours. You can imagine there was a lot of sibling rivalry, and I was sure my situation was the problem. The family with six boys next door, all of the same mother and father, was a very loving family, and yet the sibling rivalry was also intense. While I wanted to blame our sibling rivalry on a blended family, the truth was that even the tight-knit family had sibling rivalry. With that in mind, Dawn and I set out to build great camaraderie between our five children. Today they are ages 29 down to 19; I can tell you that my children today get along well and seem to love one-another but there was plenty of fighting, screaming, and crying over the years. By God’s grace they don’t hate one another, and we have lots of great memories. So let me share some of the best lessons we learned along the way.
First, avoid comparison. Statements about beauty, intelligence, athleticism, or any kind of ability regarding one child always leaves the other child wondering where they stand. So imagine what it means to child to hear that one sibling is smarter, more athletic, more musical, or the most beautiful? You probably did not mean to demean anyone, but there is nothing more hurtful than comparison, and no one’s voice is more authoritative on the subject (in the mind of your child) than you. Comparison is the root of every jealousy and the beginning of every sense of inferiority.
Obviously every child is different and has their strengths and weaknesses. Celebrate your child’s strengths, achievements, and milestones— but never more or less than your other children. Each child in the family needs to know that Mom and Dad thinks they are beautiful, smart, and good at something— just not in comparison. When your child does better than they did last time, recognize that— but avoid talking about doing it better than a sibling.
Second, establish clear rules about who gets to ride where and when, and for when friends visit. Don’t ask them to work those things out, you be the parent and establish what is just. With our kids we established seating in the car and minivan. If one parent wasn’t present the oldest present got to ride up front. If the younger child tried to circumvent this when we picked up older children from events, I reminded them they had to move before it became something to fight about. When a child had a friend over, the others left them alone unless the sibling who invited the guest included another child. (That means you didn’t mess with their legos or board games either.) This also meant that younger or smaller children did not get away with things just because they’re smaller, weaker, or don’t understand. You are the parent, so don’t make the children enforce the rules or live with obvious injustice.
Third, follow through with warnings about unacceptable behavior. Siblings often view one another as one who is stealing away Mom or Dad. It is a competition for your attention that ultimately fires up sibling rivalry. If you are paying attention to another child, or to a project, they will try and hook you. That may mean interrupting your interaction with the other child, or it may mean attacking another child to get you to focus on him/her. IF they will not stop you must follow through on any warnings. Making them clean their room, stay in their room without access to electronic devices, clean the garage, wash dishes, fold laundry, whatever it is— you must follow through, so that attacking a sibling or interrupting you and another child is clearly not acceptable for any sibling to do.
Finally, reward them when they are playing well together or showing great love for one another. Because you are playing so well together I am going to . . . make cookies, let you stay up ten more minutes, take a picture and tell them how happy it makes you when they play nice together. Make sure they know that nothing will get them greater praise from Mom and Dad than being good to each other.
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