I’ve always fancied the term sibling mayhem rather than sibling rivalry or fighting. Sibling mayhem implies that the moment you have more than one child, you can expect a certain amount of chaos just because there is more than one child in the room. Three young children and one bucket for the digger will almost guarantee a high degree of mayhem!
The reason I don’t like the term sibling rivalry is it implies that just because people are siblings, rivalry is compulsory. Rivalry for what? For parents’ attention? This leads us to believe the reason our children fight and squabble is that they are not getting enough parental attention.
I really disagree with this. Most of our children are getting more than enough parental attention, likely more than their parents or grandparents did when they were children. And most parents are working tremendously hard to ensure that children get the attention that they need, the attention that they want – and then some.
why do siblings fight?
The simplest answer is, “Because they can!” When we intervene, try to help sort it out, try to explain one child’s position to another, try to offer alternative things to play with or alternative things to do. We may well sort out the immediate crisis but, long term, we are also giving our children the message that it is their job to squabble and our job to sort it out.
Sorting out children’s squabbles is very hard work and once we start along the road of “Now each of you are going to tell me what happened…” that we wind up being Counsel for the Prosecution, Counsel for the Defense, Judge, Jury and the Executioner as well.
It is exhausting and frustrating work and not all of us set out to have a home-career in Law!
We are usually dealing with one or several of these situations:
- Children close in age
- Children with wide age-gaps
- Someone very upset comes running to us
- The unacceptable behaviour happening in front of us
- We can hear situations ‘hotting up’ in a different room
siblings - close in age
Many of the disagreements when children are close in age is about the sharing of a toy or other item. There can be a hideous battle over whose turn it is for the red chair, who gets to sit by the window in the car, who gets first go on the bike or how long a ‘turn’ is.
The solution is to develop a system that looks fair to everyone. Although they are often a pain to set up and to monitor, systems not only save a lot of squabbles, they also teach your children to develop their own systems of fairness.
Where there are issues over whose turn it is, the simplest way I know is to post a roster on the fridge showing - for all to see - whose hour/day/week it is to go first at everything that happens over that time period.
Timers are great for making length of turns fair. An old-fashioned egg-timer can be used from a very early age. Kitchen timers and stove timers work well for older children.
siblings - wider age gaps
Often we have to protect an older child's game or set up of toys from marauding toddlers. Rather than trying to get our toddlers to stop touching and stop eating irresistible small pieces of a favourite toy set, it is easier to persuade our older children to play with these during the younger one’s rest time or, at the very least, to play with it in the centre of a high desk or table.
We are tempted to allow a preschooler to snatch a fancied toy back off the baby, provided he quickly distracts the baby by replacing it with something else. While this buys us peace in the short term, we are teaching our preschooler that it is okay to take things provided the baby doesn’t get upset. For long term family harmony, insist that if a baby has an appropriate toy in hand, he is allowed to play with it until he loses interest and lets go.
someone comes running
If your child comes running to you, then he has already taken appropriate action. He has got out of the way of dangerous people and taken himself to a safe place. Other than saying something along the lines of, “You are really upset/hurt/angry,” there is not much else that needs to be done. What he needs from you now is a cuddle and the ability to stay with you until he feels better. After he has settled down he can decide for himself whether to return to the scene or to play elsewhere.
But what about the perpetrator? Unless there are blood or teeth marks, you don’t need to do anything else just now. By all means ask what happened but use it as useful information gathering rather than an obligation to go and sort it out.
If this sort of thing is happening often you need to get more vigilant so that you are more likely to catch the perpetrator in the act!
you see them fighting
I am going to presume you have simple household rules such as no hitting, biting, snatching, pinching, overzealous cuddling, etc. If you see one child doing any of these remove that child from the scene and say very firmly, “You know you are not allowed to hit/bite/pinch. You are welcome back to play as soon as you are ready not to.”
Avoid getting into conversations involving, “Look how much you’ve upset your little sister,” because that may have been the intention. Also avoid, “How would you like it if someone hit/bit/pinched you?” Just now the offending child has very little interest in compassion.
By removing the child you are making it very clear that you will not tolerate seeing another human being treated in this fashion.
you hear them fighting
We have all heard a situation hotting up in another room and crept away, pretending we haven’t heard, and hoping like crazy it would all go away. Then we hear the scream or the crash.
If you wish to teach your children that you don’t condone fighting in your household, you need to get in early, just when you begin to hear the temperature rising.
Get in fast and break it up. Offering an attractive alternative works well. Asking for a task to be done is less popular but works just as well. Or you may choose simply to walk in and say, “This isn’t working,” and split the children into two separate rooms for about ten minutes.
If you take these simple steps every time, the level of scrapping will drop considerably. Eventually, all you will have to do is approach them ‘heavy-footed’ and the fighting will stop.
They may learn not to fight. They may learn to fight very quietly, so that you don’t interrupt. Either way, you have dealt effectively with sibling mayhem.
Diane Levy, Family Therapist
