Experiencing a lot of sibling conflict? If your kids are always arguing, try these eight approaches to building respectful relationships between your kids.
“It’s mine!” my four-year-old yelled, trying to pull the slinky away from my two-year-old. In response, my two-year-old scowled and responded, “Mine!” holding it even closer to his chest.
In moments like this, I wonder if we’re raising our kids to respect each other.
The next day, my older son (nicknamed Sprout) peeled stickers off a sheet and handed them to my younger son (nicknamed Little Bird) for a 15 full minutes. That was despite the fact that I knew my older son wanted those stickers for himself. As I listened to him ask his brother over and over, “What sticker do you want, Little Bird?” I smiled. Maybe we aren’t doing a bad job after all.
While there are definitely days I question what the hell is going on, our kids honestly have a great relationship. Here’s what we did that I think has helped build that relationship and reduce sibling conflict:
Not force them to share
There’s a lot of parenting advice out there about the good and / or bad of forcing kids to share. I deeply believe we need to teach our kids generosity. However, I also think forced sharing can seriously harm a sibling relationship. Imagine being a 2, 3 or even 4 year old. You see most things as yours, even when they’re not. All of the sudden, you have this new little person in your life. Even worse, you’re expected to share all of your stuff with them! Uh-nuh.
To resolve this problem, we separated things out into “family toys” and toys for each of the kids. The “family toys” live in our finished basement / playroom. They include the play kitchen, mini-slide, puppets, board games, craft supplies, musical instruments, and Legos. The kids are expected to share these.
The kids’ stash of individual toys live in their rooms. They’re encouraged to share these, but don’t have to. If one of them wants to use the other’s toys, they’re supposed to ask first. As my younger son only speaks single words and my older son is grabby, this doesn’t always work in practice. But it at least sets a boundry when disputes arise.
Although we don’t force them to share their things, most of the time they’re willing to. Sprout is often even willing to share his beloved Thomas trains. That is, as long as Little Bird doesn’t destroy his elaborate track layout.
Provide each kid with one-on-one time with each parent
One of the absolute hardest things for my kids is sharing their time with parents. This is the most challenging in the beginning, when newborns take up so much time and energy. My older son was so disappointed in me not long after his brother was born that he started heavily favoring my husband instead.
The standard advice with a new baby is to ensure the older sibling has “special time” with parents. Some of my own favorite memories from maternity leave were during time I spent with my older son. It’s important to frame this in a positive way, so the older kid doesn’t see time with the baby as “bad” – just different.
As kids get older, one-on-one time can be vital too. Even five dedicated minutes a day can build relationships and reduce rivalry. Most of our one-on-one time is at bed, where we read to each kid separately. Just before our older son goes to sleep, we also talk about our favorite things during the day.
If possible, it’s awesome if you can block out longer chunks of individual time together. Once a month, we’ve started taking an afternoon where my husband and I each do something special with one of the kids. This can range from getting hot chocolate at Starbucks to going to a kids’ climbing gym.
Buy the younger kid new items instead of hand me downs – especially for special occasions
When I told my mom that I was getting Little Bird his own balance bike, she asked, “Why don’t you just give him [Sprout’s]?” I answered, “I think it’s important for a kid to have their own first bike.” When she pointed out that she got loads of hand-me-downs from her sister, I asked if she resented that. Not surprisingly, she did.
To avoid some of that resentment, we buy Little Bird brand new items for special occasions. In addition while most of his clothes are hand-me-downs, I expect that to change as he develops his own opinions or tastes. It doesn’t mean you can’t get your kids second-hand clothes or toys. But it may be better to have them as new to the family rather than directly from a sibling’s closet.
Don’t compare kids
Not comparing kids is so hard, especially when a younger kid picks up on something much faster than the older kid did at the same age. But just like playing the comparison game between families is toxic, it’s even worse within families. All comparing kids does is make one feel worse and the other feel superior. You can recognize strengths and places for growth in each kid without comparing them to each other.
Teach empathy for each other
It’s really hard for older kids to understand why they get in trouble for doing the exact same thing as their younger sibling does. “Because you should know better” isn’t exactly a satisfactory answer. (Even when it’s true!)
I find it’s better for both building understanding between siblings and general emotional intelligence to encourage the older kid to empathize with the younger one. When my older son pointed out my younger son was sticking his fingers in his milk (again), I explained that my younger son is still learning the self-control not to do that. That lead to a great conversation about how everyone in the family is working to develop self-control in different ways. I shared that I’m trying to go to bed earlier and my older son said that he’s trying to interrupt less.
Actively recognize when the kids are being good to each other
Each night, we talk with my older son about what he did well that day. We especially try to appreciate when he’s been kind or generous with his brother.
To help him internalize this feedback, we follow the steps described in the great book How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. The major components of helpful feedback are to not make it about your approval but about them being proud of it, to recognize effort as much as (or more than) the outcome, be specific, and attach a characteristic to it. When we mentioned him helping his brother with the stickers, I said something like, “I noticed you were helping [Little Bird] with the stickers for a long time this afternoon. You were being really patient and helpful to him.” While it doesn’t always come out exactly like that, these principles provide a helpful framework.
Celebrate their relationship as siblings
Before my younger son was born, my husband and older son took a special maternity ward tour the hospital offered. At the end, they gave the soon-to-be sibling a teddy bear to give to the new baby as a gift. I thought this was brilliant! It meant that our son played an important role in the whole process. Since then, we’ve made an effort to help them pick out gifts for each other.
Another way to celebrate their relationship as siblings is to spend time looking at photos of them together. When we visited my in-laws, I noticed my kids were obsessed with the photo books on their coffee table. So just after my younger son’s second birthday, I gifted them a book of photos of the two of them together. They adored it.
Build family traditions
Our family does a lot of pretty ridiculous stuff. When Sprout was born, we bought two huge kid towels: a shark and a monster. Getting him out of the tub, I thought it was hilarious to do a very bad version of the Jaws theme song. As I pretended to attack my husband with the baby, I would say, “Dun duna dun duna … chomp chomp chomp!” Somehow, this evolved into doing this with every towel we have, including one with random fish (“Oh no, it’s an aquarium!”) and a teddy bear (“Oh no, it’s a scary bear!”)
When Little Bird was born, Sprout gladly welcomed him into this tradition. Now he and my husband will hide under a blanket on the couch, waiting for Little Bird to come “attack” them. Afterwards, we all collapse in a pile of giggles. It’s not very restive, but it’s a lot of fun. I think it’s done a tremendous amount to build our relationship as a family.
For us, reducing sibling conflict is all about treating each other with respect and building both sibling and parent-child relationships. Even when our kids don’t respect each other in the short-term, I believe the modeling we do as parents does have long-term effects.
For more on helping siblings, check out 7 Ways to Get Your Child Ready for a New Baby. Be sure to follow us on Facebook!