Navigating Tough Sibling Play | Julie Fragnito, MS Ed.
In this episode of the Parent Coaching Chair podcast, host Julie Fragnito, MS Ed., conducts a live coaching session with a mother of a 6‑year‑old daughter and a 3‑year‑old son who are struggling with a common sibling conflict: the son is playing independently with a puzzle and politely says “no” when his sister asks to join, yet she continues to intervene. Julie guides the parents through the confusion they feel, emphasizing that parental words alone are ineffective without immediate, concrete action. She outlines a step‑by‑step approach: (1) protect the child who said “no” by physically blocking or gently redirecting the sibling; (2) model respectful language (“He said no, so we’ll wait”); (3) use the action itself as the consequence rather than issuing separate threats; (4) limit attention to the misbehavior to avoid reinforcing it; (5) postpone deep feeling validation until the child is calm, offering brief acknowledgment later (e.g., at dinner). Julie also introduces the “validation dilemma,” clarifying when to validate feelings versus when to focus on respect and safety. She advises regular family “shout‑out” moments to reinforce positive behavior and to practice handling refusals at home so children build tolerance for hearing “no.” Finally, she describes how to manage dysregulation (stay present, calm, silent, and supportive) and stresses that consistently advocating for each child’s boundaries builds trust, which later encourages cooperative play. The episode ends with a plug for Julie’s high‑structure, high‑nurture parenting courses.
Chapters
In today's episode, I speak with a mom of two and invite you into our real-time coaching session as we unpack what to do when sibling play gets tough. Welcome to the Parent Coaching Chair Podcast. I'm your host, Julie Fragnito, and your partner in parenting. Here we'll talk with real parents about their real moments. Come along as we grow from each other's experiences and receive practical, high-structure, high-nurture tools that you can use to lead confidently at home. Today we'll break down a really common sibling moment. One child is deeply focused doing a puzzle independently. The other one wants to join in and is told no, but keeps trying anyway. We're gonna talk about how to support both children here without forcing anyone to share, without ignoring anyone's feelings, and how a parent's response here directly shapes future sibling play. Let's get started.
We've been having a, a bit of an issue with our 6-year-old daughter and our 3-year-old son. We were home on a weekend and our son was playing with puzzles that he had gotten out all by himself. He likes to do a lot of independent play and our daughter sometimes seems to struggle to find how to play on the weekends or what to play with on the weekends. She really wants to kind of almost feel like in control of her brother. Uh, so when he's playing by himself or doesn't want to play with her, she kind of doesn't know how to respond to that. So he was playing by himself at a table with the puzzle. She came over to him and asked if she could play with him, and he very kindly said, "No thank you," and he continued to play with the puzzle. She then continued to tell him where the pieces would go and pick the pieces up. Me and my husband were right there and we reminded her, said, hey, you know, your brother just asked you very kindly. He needed space. He wanted to play by himself. And she just would not stop. Mm-hmm. So we, we weren't really quite sure how to handle it. We tried to communicate with her, obviously remind her that he needs space or give her ideas of things that she could go and do, or we could do with her, and it ends up kind of sparking the storm. So a little confused as to how to navigate those type of situations.
In that moment, I, you were feeling kind of lost because you're feeling like you're kind of checking the boxes, right? You're advocating for the 3-year-old son who said no thank you, and then you're trying to help her, right? Like here. These are some ideas of what you can do, and she is just meeting you with blatant, what feels like ignoring. Where, where did this come to an end? Or did it come to an end?
It did. I, I wouldn't say, I don't really feel like we got a solution. And so I had talked to her again. I was like reminding her that he had asked for space and I said, hey, what's going on? Like, is there something that's bothering you? Um, is there anything that you wanna talk about that's, uh, you know, essentially driving this behavior? Let's get to the root cause of what's happening. And she said, I don't know. I said, well, are you, are you upset that he's not playing with you or that he doesn't wanna play with you? She said, I don't know. Hmm. And I said, well, me and dad are confused. I said, if If we can't talk about this or this keeps happening, then we're gonna have to start creating a consequence for this. But I don't feel like that was, you got a solution out of it.
And I don't even know if you realized you said it, but it was really profound in that you said it ended, but there was no conclusion really. Right?
Right.
Mom and Dad are trying to lead in this moment and they're feeling like, okay, we're seeing the whole thing hash out in front of us. We're ready to be effective and teach a lesson like, hey, he doesn't want to. I wanna advocate for the 3-year-old. I wanna, you know, give my 6-year-old some direction on what she can do. But honestly, it's not clicking, right? You used this word twice actually, which I found really fascinating when you described it to me the first time you said, honestly, we were confused. And that's really key to this story because as parents and leaders, when we, when we are confused, well, you better bet that your child is also confused. And it's really interesting that your daughter kind of made that clear, right? When you had said to her, what's going on? Is everything okay? What was her answer to you? I don't, I don't know.
Yeah. Right.
This is just like this big web. Of confusion. Before we jump into the practical stuff, I wanna just mention before we get there that this is so common. This is so common as parents to be faced with these moments of my kid is doing something that just doesn't feel right, and I'm trying to guide her in the direction of our value system, but she's just not listening. So what do we do now? Yes.
Right.
And I don't wanna be the parent that yells, which I could hear very clearly your efforts to be like, well, we didn't get harsh, we didn't get mean. And I think that's really powerful that you're coming from a place where I think all of us have been before. In this moment when your daughter is saying something like, can I play with you? And your son looks at her and says, no thank you.
Mm-hmm.
We have a certain level of authority to get our kids to do the right thing. And there is one simple thing that we can do. The word is action.
Okay.
Our words as leaders mean nothing without action. And I'll explain to you what I mean by that in this moment. So your daughter says, can I play with this puzzle? Your son says, no, thank you. The minute those words of your son are not respected, a parent needs to take action. Action comes in so many different forms. Action can be— you saw her hand going for a piece, right? You were like, hey, he said no thank you, right? You're advocating for him, but that means nothing to a 6-year-old who's learning limits and boundaries. She is still impulsive and she is like, oh, but I really want to play with that puzzle piece. And so what do we do? The The minute we see her in going for that, we either block, we either remove the puzzle piece from her hand gently. We take her hand and redirect her and say, hey, I was wondering if you could come tell me about this toy over here. I forgot you had it and I don't remember how it worked.
Okay.
Right. And what we're doing in that moment is we're breaking the momentum. We want to protect not only our individual kids, but their relationship at all costs. Yes. As the leader, if one says no thank you, we need to honor that and say, uh, nope. Did you hear what your brother said? He said no thank you. That probably means not right now. And then, yeah, another actionable move could be while you're holding her, hugging her, grabbing her hands. Pushing the puzzle pieces away, looking at her brother and saying, can you let us know when we can join in? We'll be over here playing with something else.
Okay.
And do you see what I'm doing here?
The communication of trying to redirect her attention to something else. Yeah. I think that that's worth a shot. I think it could definitely help.
And I, I appreciate that reflection because in this moment, I hear in your voice a little bit, and you could correct me if I'm wrong, of like, yeah, but that would make this escalate to something so much worse.
Yeah.
And a little bit.
Yeah. Yeah.
And the way I like to put it is, well, it's better to practice these moments in our house, right? And develop and build their tolerance to hearing something they don't want to hear as many times as we possibly can to get them practice and build that muscle so that when we go out of the home this doesn't feel that hard for them anymore. Right. Right.
Yeah.
But if it is coupled, like you said, with that positive redirection of, oh, he said no thank you right now. Um, hey, can you let us know when we can join in? Just give us a heads up. Okay.
Bye.
We're gonna be over here now. Okay. And now you're kind of just like moving her along, right?
Action.
Even if she is a kid who feels things really deeply, even if she is a super intense kid when it comes to how other people make her feel, Well, think about how powerful of a lesson that is for her. If mom or dad is able to grab her and say, hey, you know what? We can move through this together.
Yeah.
Let's go do this. And now you've really modeled for her. Like that moment when somebody in class says to her, no, I wanna play with this by myself right now. And she'll be like, ooh, my mom led me through this. I remember her being by my side. Right. I remember the words she said. And I moved through it.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I think that's a valuable thing to remember, right? So remember, words mean nothing without action. So that's, that's kind of the most practical thing that I can suggest here. Now I have another big takeaway, and this is something that I cover in my class. I call it the validation dilemma. When do we validate? When do we not validate? When am I supposed to talk to my kid about her feelings? And when am I not? Right? Because sometimes, oh my gosh, it just feels so heavy to be like, hey, I need you to hold my hand while we're getting out of the car. And then they start getting upset and we're like, wait, do I have to ask them if they're okay? And we've all been there, right? Is this because somebody's bullying her at school? Is this because she's upset?
Right?
We, our brains can just go straight down the rabbit hole. And in this moment, I caution parents to talk about feelings later, right? You can validate, but validate doesn't mean investigate. And what I mean by that is it's really hard to not be able to play a toy that somebody else is playing with, period. That's validation. And stop right there. When we are teaching right from wrong, like when someone says no, you respect it, We stick with that first. And the two principles that I tell parents is this. If we're talking about respect or we are talking about safety, the feelings talk comes later, like at dinner time or before bed. And I'm talking later, later, like for 2 minutes, like, hey, before that was really hard for you, but I saw you got through it and I really want to give you a high five for that because that was awesome. Okay. And tomorrow we're going to try the same thing again.
Okay.
So I think that's really important to mention. And I'm curious if you have any questions or comments on that because it is a loaded topic that we can't go super in depth into right now. Sure.
Uh, no, I, I think that's something I struggle with cuz yes, I am always, I always wanna know what the problem is and I know I can't always get that, but I guess my question is what if she even then like doesn't want to talk? Cuz usually I'll say, hey. And maybe this is why I'm saying it, because I'll say, hey, I want to talk about what happened. And she'll say, oh, why do we have to talk about stuff? So I'm like, I don't know. Do I just let it go?
We need to take our kids' words as a very clear signal. If they are not having it, they are not having it. And it is our job to respect that. And at the same time, right, as leaders, maybe, Mom, you consider the time that you told her that. And maybe, man. Next time you're like, okay, noted, right? This is not a good time to address feelings. However, this might work really well. And here's a little practical thing I'll throw out.
Yeah.
Maybe at dinnertime each night or breakfast, or whenever you guys are maybe together as a family, you do, you know, 4-minute moment of shoutouts. Dad, thank you for helping me when I was about to lose it yesterday because I was so stressed and I really appreciated how you got me through that.
Cool.
Now another shout out for the 3-year-old, another shout out for the 6-year-old so that she doesn't feel like this crazy one-on-one attention for feelings. We kind of need to be like, hey, that was really awesome how you were frustrated about the puzzle piece. You put on a smile with me. We found something else to do. 'Cause the hardest part of getting through something that feels hard is moving on. Yes.
Right. Yeah.
Two quick little topics that I, 'cause I can never stop talking about this stuff. The first thing that you mentioned was like, oh, if this isn't gonna happen, then I have to implement a consequence. And the beauty of the practical suggestion that I'm giving you with action is that that is the consequence. You don't have to feel like every little moment with your kid is a bribe or a deal or a threat or a, you know, hanging a carrot over their head. You don't have to feel that way when you take action. And then the second thing that I mentioned, attention. Attention is like gold for our kids. And so we wanna make sure that the attention we're giving them is good. And so that kind of tacks onto my feelings talk of, okay, in the moment where she's not really doing the right thing, when our kids are not making good choices, yes, action is number one, but also two is like, let's not feed them with too much attention in this moment because we're never really sure what our kids are perceiving from this. This is how science explains how kids' brains work. They're calculating and figuring out the world around them. So if I'm figuring that every time I dig my heels in and get really mopey about something, I get a lot of attention for that.
Right.
Well, my body, even if it's not intentional, is gonna subconsciously remember this and learn to continue doing this because it feels good. I'm getting attention for it. Right. And so it's kind of like not giving her an option to sit in that negative moment and lead her to positivity so that you could pour all the attention into her and have her remember like, ooh, this is, this is what feels good. This is when I get to spend good positive time with mom or dad.
Right. Yep.
And I think that goes a long way as well.
Yeah. Appreciate that.
One thing we didn't fully unpack today is the moment of dysregulation itself. If your child moves into a tantrum—crying, throwing their body, losing control—after you take action, the goal shifts. In those moments, the steps are simple but powerful: stay present, stay calm, and stay mostly silent. Prohibit the thing that isn't allowed, but don't try to reason or converse while emotions are high. Stay nearby so your child isn't alone in it. Fold a blanket, focus on something neutral in the room, and be ready to connect when calm begins to return. And finally, a big point worth naming. While it may seem like we focused more on the older child in this moment, advocating clearly for each child's needs, especially the first time they're expressed, is what actually builds safer sibling relationships. When a child knows you have their back and will protect their boundaries, they're far more willing over time to share space, to invite play and include a sibling or a friend because trust has been built first. Thank you for joining me in the Parent Coaching Chair. Keep leading your home with high structure and high nurture, and I'll meet you back here next week. If you're looking for more support, you'll find classes and practical guides over at my website, www.transformingparenthood.com. And podcast listeners can use the code PODCAST15 at checkout for 15% off my Mastering High Structure, High Nurture course, my signature systematic approach to raising cooperative and emotionally skilled kids.
