How Can I Manage My Children's Fighting?

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Hi, welcome to Talking Sense, a podcast with me, Dr. Marta. I'm a clinical psychologist trained in family therapy and every week I answer one of your real life questions to offer you some psychological understandings, ideas and suggestions to guide you. Before we begin, I always like to give you a moment of pause. Pause something to get us ready for the conversation ahead. And today I just want you to go through your five senses one by one. Ask yourself what you see. What can you hear? What about smell, taste and touch? What can you feel around you? Notice what you're experiencing both within you and around you. You can do this again at any other time when you have a bit longer. The best part about this kind of pause is that you can do it any anywhere, and it's a really good way of Having a timeout for yourself and tune in and when you're ready, let's begin.

Today's question is on sibling rivalry and it's probably one of my most frequently asked questions. So let's have A Listen.

Hi Dr. Marta. My question today is about my two children. I have a three year old daughter and a five year old son. They're absolutely wonderful children. I'm just so proud of them. But when they are together, we are having issues with them winding each other up and it is to a real extreme. They will even to the point of being physical with each other, they are angels with other children, they are angels at school. But with each other we are having real issues trying to get them to just be calm and act how they would around friends or around cousins.

People tell me it's sibling rivalry and it's normal, but we're really, really at our wits end and I've really tried everything from one extreme to the other. Nothing seems to work. I really, really am desperate for some advice on this topic. Thank you so much.

Oh, how many of you can relate to this question? You know, hands up virtually, I can't see you, but I can imagine many of you or all of you who have siblings and whether or not you have siblings in your home. I do want you to pause for a second and have a think about whether you grew up with siblings. Now if you did grow up with siblings, I want you to have a think. Was there sibling rivalry? Did you have conflict with your siblings and what did that look like? What did it feel like? You know, how did your mum and dad respond to it? Just take a moment to really reflect on this. If you grew up without siblings, then my questions to you are about now you having more than one child. What does that feel like? Is it meeting your hopes and expectations? Is it feeling uncomfortable, awkward? Kind of really difficult to know what to do in these moments where your children are not getting along like companions or friends or like in this question says cousins, what do we do then? What is happening to you in that moment when you witness conflict between your children? These questions are really important and of course it might take you a bit longer to reflect on this than the way I'm going to be talking about it. So if these questions have prompted some strong feelings in your body or maybe some thoughts that you want to think about, just pause the podcast for a moment and come back to it when you're ready. Or take a note and sit back and think about this a little bit. Because the way that we interpret Our children's interactions and their conflict matters because it shapes how we then choose to respond to them. Now I am going to talk about what you can do because obviously that's what you're here for. But I think before we talk about strategies, we need to understand what sibling conflict is about. I think this is key and it's often what gets missed. And without the understanding that when we choose our responses, it might not actually make sense. So this is important and something to reflect on as well. Firstly, conflict is part of every single relationship, but particularly long term relationships. A relationship without conflict basically means that something is happening between two people where they are just putting up with things that are, that don't meet their needs or things that aggravate them or irritate them. And that kind of relationship ends up being quite superficial. So for a real meaningful relationship to exist, we need conflict, we need disagreement. We need to be able to express when something feels good and when something doesn't feel right. So that's the first thing, because I think often if you're very averse to conflict, then witnessing this in children can really escalate those like big feelings in your body. Secondly, we need to think about what siblings are. Siblings are not friends. They did not choose each other. And as a parent, you might have some hopes when you had another child about the kind of relationship that they would have. The kind of companionship, friendship, care, love, affection that your children would have together. That would kind of bring them tight and align them. But the reality is that children who are siblings don't get to choose who the other is. And whether they are biologically tied or they're step siblings or even adoptive siblings, it doesn't really matter. Because there is one factor that is only true of siblings and nobody else that you have a relationship with, which is that you share the same space and often you're sharing the same adults. So if you're sharing the love, attention and affection of the same parents or adults in your home, and you're also expected to share your own space, that is a very, very different environment to choosing a friend that you want to spend time with. Because when you choose a friend, you can also choose not to spend time with them. You can have separate time. You also have separate lives, which means that when you're struggling with something, you might turn to your friend and they might be able to validate and feel compassionate about it. When you're in the same home with the same person all the time, what often happens is that when you're struggling, children don't want to turn to their sibling necessarily, particularly if what they feel is that their sibling gets preferential treatment or that their parents prefer their sibling. What those children will do is turn to a friend. But they're not going to turn to their sibling, not yet anyway. And one of the things that we really need to think about when we think about siblings is this, the fact that they have a very unique relationship from any other relationship that they're going to have in their life. And it's not the same as a cousin. Cousins, again, they don't live with you, and you might get on more or less with a cousin. And because you know that time is protected and it's brief, it can be so much easier to let things slide. Children understand very quickly when they just see somebody. And for a bit of fun, it's novel. It's a different person to spend time with. But it's not the same as a sibling where they wake up with them, they go to bed with them. You know, they're there all the time in their own space sharing all these things. And like I said at the beginning, siblings often don't have a choice. And just because they're related by some form of biology doesn't mean that they will necessarily get on, because children are completely unique in their personalities. Now, I don't want this to be a massive downer, and you're thinking, oh, no, I've had siblings. Now what I just need you to understand that conflict is a part of sibling relationships. And therefore anything that I share about how to manage and navigate this is about managing it. It's not about stopping it. We can't stop all forms of conflict between siblings. It's just unrealistic. And a really important part of conflict, particularly between siblings, is that it's actually building their relationship. And often a lot of conflict is at the start. So in the early years, you're going to see a lot more conflict than you possibly will when they get a little bit older. Because what we know is that sibling rivalry decreases as children get older. They develop better language and social skills. And so the conflict, although, is still around. I'm not saying teenagers don't have conflict with their siblings, but they're able to have conflict in a slightly different way. A lot less physical, a lot less impulsive in their behavior. It ends up being conflict that is more communication. And that doesn't mean it's not hurtful, because kids can say some awful words to each other, but it's a different kind of conflict. And if they have learned how to repair and also learned some empathy and developed some of those skills. Skills. Then what happens is the conflict resolves in a way that is meaningful and builds and grows their relationship. But this is a long term goal. And this is the other thing that I want you to think about when we are having this conversation about sibling rivalry, which is that siblings hopefully will have a long term relationship with each other. And childhood is just the very beginning of this relationship. It's a starting point if you want. It's a bit like their first date dates. Okay. It's not their long term comfortable relationship. And for many siblings, they don't even find that until they're adults and they're away from your home and they're away from being on top of each other all the time and having to share you once they're adults, many siblings get a lot closer. And the things like the ingredients that support that relationship from thriving and blossoming in adulthood do begin in childhood. And you do have a role with this, which is what we're going to talk about today. I'm going to talk about some strategies that allow you to manage and move through sibling conflict and rivalry, but particularly allow you to kind of plant the seeds of growing and nurturing your children's relationships. And remember, these are little seeds. I like using that analogy because you might not see the fruits of what you've sown until your children are much, much older and perhaps have even left your home. But that doesn't mean it's not worth doing it now. That doesn't mean that your efforts are going to go wasted. Okay, if we don't plant some of these seeds, then what can happen is that when siblings no longer have to be together, they choose not to be together. And you know, I know most parents who have siblings, their biggest wish is for their children to get on and to have that companionship and warm, strong ties in their relationship. So think of it that way. Think of it as an investment that you're making in the relationship that your children have together and conflict is a part of it. But of course, there are types of conflict that should not be tolerated and, and need some active support and engagement from you. And we're going to talk about all of this as best I can in a little bit of a whirlwind. Next.

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So we know that children's temperament, their age, their social skills, particularly communication and language, as well as problem solving and and a bit like in this question, empathy skills are really, really key in contributing or preventing siblings from fighting and having conflict. So you putting the effort in building certain skills which are communication, empathy and the ability to use logic is not wasted. But you just need to remember these skills don't just build on 1 to 10 repetitions. They build over time after hundreds and thousands of repetitions. And they build very, very gradually because a lot of these skills are mediated and influenced by children's brain development. So we can't just say that we're trying to teach a child empathy and it's not working. Because what often happens is we are trying to teach children empathy skills, but it takes such a long time to see its effects and benefits that we just have to keep going and trusting the process. So let's begin at the beginning, which is the thing that I tell most parents when they come to me. They talk about sibling rivalry and it's possibly also the hardest one. But the thing to do that really supports and nurtures children's relationships is to try not to interfere. When you hear conflict between your children as much as possible, you do not want to get in there and stop the conflict. Not every time. Because children need to learn to solve conflict on their own. They need to learn how to negotiate. They need to learn how to cope with disagreement. They need to learn which battles are worth fighting. They need to move through big feelings like anger and disappointment and sadness. They need to do this together without you in the middle refereeing or making a call about who's right and who's wrong. But of course these skills are not going to come naturally. So there are some solution, focused, practical things that you can do to support this. And when I'm talking about not interfering, we're not talking about times when your child is getting physical or aggressive or possibly hurting another sibling. A little bit of rough and tumble is really normal between siblings, but you need to make a judgment call. When rough and tumble is playful and it's going okay, or when it's become actually aggressive and they're trying to hurt each other and if that happens, then, yes, you interfere. And I'm going to come into that in a minute. So this is for conflict. That looks like winding up, that looks like bickering, that looks like words, whining, exchanges that, you know, sound like, uh, oh, something's not. All right, they're not playing very smoothly, but I want you to witness by listening, but stay away from it as much as you can. And if one of your children comes to you, which is the common theme, they come running to you and they say, my brother's done this to me, or my sister said this, I want you to turn to your child and stay impartial as much as possible. You do not want to be taking sides because this will only make the other child more angry and resentful to towards their sibling. Okay, this grows sibling rivalry. As soon as your child comes along and says, oh, my sister did this to me, and it's mean, and you go, right, okay, come on, what did you do to your brother? As soon as you do that, the sister, you know, the child that came to you feels like they're on top. Okay, my mommy and daddy know that I'm right, that what my sibling has said is wrong.

And.

And the one that has said something to their sibling done some winding up to the sibling feels resentment. And this only separates your child's relationship. It doesn't bring them together. It pulls them further apart, and it makes rivalry more likely to flare up. So when your child comes running to you and says, my sister's done this to me, then what you need to try and do is say, oh, how does that flare feel? Tell me, what did your sister do and how does that feel to you? Oh, okay, you feel hurt. Have you said that to your sister? Can you say, what you said to me really hurts me. I'm upset. Can you say that? Okay, what would you like to do now? Do you want to keep playing with your sister or are you feeling really upset and you need a little break? So can you do that? Can you say, I need to take a break now? Now, this is very different because what you're doing at this moment is teaching your child social communication skills to express how their sibling makes them feel and to set a boundary around their behavior. I mean, if a sibling is winding up another and it's upsetting or hurting them, it's really important that they learn to say, hey, that's upsetting. And when you do that to me, it makes me not want to spend time with you. So now I'm going to Go for a break, really think about this. It is such a powerful communication to teach children the words to say to another and the actions that they're going to take as a consequence of what has happened. Of course, some children will say, I want to keep playing. So then you teach them what could be an appropriate thing to say. I want to keep playing with you, but not if you're mean to me, because that's not nice. We are teaching our children how to navigate relationships, not just with the siblings, with others, too. And this is so important. Now, some little ones might say to you, I don't want to say that to my sibling, especially if it's new. And what I would suggest is that you say, I'll come with you, and you stay by their side. But as much as possible, you prompt them to say this. And if it's really necessary, because no words are going to come out of your child's mouth, you model it. So you speak it the way I just have to your other child and say, your brother would like to say this. And then you allow them to take an action. Okay, this is really, really important. We want to teach our kids how to navigate conflict with each other without us being the referee, telling one off, saying, stop winding up your sister. No, we don't need to take that role. We are their parents. And as much as we can, if we can stay neutral to the bickering and the winding up, it's going to help our children develop and really essential social skills. Now, let's talk about times when you do have to separate your children, because maybe they're being aggressive with each other or physical in a way that you think, nah, this is going too far, they're going to get hurt. And your number one priority as a parent is to keep your children safe. So this is the kind of first step, and if possible, is the most healthy step, which is to intervene with your body, not your words. What does that mean? It means rather than shouting across the room, stop it. Stop hitting each other. Let go of your brother. Just walk towards your children as calmly as you can, and as much as you can, physically separate them with your hands and your body, get in between them. You want to encourage your children to feel safe, fast. So some of this might have to happen without any words from you. Why? Because if your children are physically hurting each other, they're emotionally overwhelmed. And some of what is happening, that physical contact that is not appropriate is actually out of control. And the more words you throw to this equation, as your children are probably shouting and screaming at each other. It just increases the kind of sensory load that your children are experiencing. And when we do that, we escalate behavior. So the best thing you can do is to stay quiet. Now, I can't ask you to stay completely calm. This often isn't feeling like a calm situation on the inside of your body. But I can ask you just to not say any words, to try and keep your face as neutral as you can. You know, top tip, try and release your jaw. Just let go of your tongue. Sounds really weird. But if you remember this in the moment, you might notice that one of the things most people do is clench. And when we clench our jaw, we actually look angry. And that isn't helpful to children because it just looks like an extra threat. So try and relax your jaw, stay really quiet, and try and stay separate them once they seem to have calmed down. And hopefully you can just hold them with your hands, like with a separateness, and that is enough, rather than taking them to a separate room. But if you have to take them to a separate room, it's okay to do so. This is not a timeout. This is not a punishment. This is a break from the intense emotional overwhelm and stimulation and for them to stay safe. So if you have to separate them physically into a different room, I would use very simple, clear language that sounds like I need to keep you two safe. So I'm going to separate you just for a little bit. No one is in trouble. Now, I know when I say this, lots of parents find that really difficult to hear. No one's in trouble, but they must be in trouble. They've just done something terrible. I can't just let them behave like this. I'm not saying we need to let them behave like this. We're not going to do that. We've just separated them. We are giving them a really strong message. This is not an okay, safe behavior. But telling off, punishing, or giving big consequences to a child, like putting them on a timeout or a thinking chair, is going to do nothing. Why? Because they're emotionally dysregulated, and in that moment, they. They're not learning a thing. And if you just say to them, you've got a punishment. You got to sit there and think about what you've done. I promise. Children are not thinking about what they've done. They're thinking about what you've done to them. And what it feels like to children is, you don't get me. You don't like me. You have put me here. Without understanding why I'm having this big fight with my siblings. What they feel is rejection, abandonment, alone. And what they don't do is learn how to regulate their emotions. They don't learn how to communicate with their sibling in a way that isn't aggressive. And they don't learn that actually what you're trying to do is to support them in nurturing their relationship. Because what they're learning is okay. The only way for me not to fight with my sibling is to be punished and to be away from them. So that's going to mean that when you bring your siblings back together, they're more likely to have sibling rivalry again. These are like recipes for greater rivalry. Anything like a punishment or a timeout, thinking chair, whatever you want to call it, it is an absolute recipe for your children to have more sibling rivalry, Particularly if you're putting one of them in the chair or the thinking spot, whatever you want to call it, and the other one isn't. Because what siblings are learning is there is a sibling who is bad and there is a sibling who is good and the one who is bad. It ends up being a self perpetuating cycle. They feel bad. And when we feel bad about ourselves and we think others think badly about us, we act out why. What's the point in being good? Everybody thinks I'm bad anyway. And the other one will feel like that sibling is out to get me. And my parents know. So if I squeal or scream, I'll get protected straight away and often, which can also be really unhelpful. It's the elder sibling who gets the punishments and the younger sibling who gets protected for very normal reasons. If this happens in your home, I get it, it makes sense. You see your little one as needing more protection from you. But the reality is that you're actually putting your children one against the other. There is no learning or nurturing here. You're literally building rivalry. So instead, this is what you can try. So once your children are calm and they might be in separate rooms and it's okay to do so, you want to go to the one that you think has got hurt. If they've both got hurt, just pick. Okay, doesn't matter. There really is no right and wrong. But what you want to do is really say to them, you're not in trouble and you need to calm down a little bit. I need to go and check on your other sibling for a moment. You go and what you do is you check in with them. Are you okay? Secondly, you encourage your child to talk through the problem. You're not going to blame. You're not going to point fingers at who did what. Right. You're going to listen. So this looks like modeling empathy. And what you want to do is encourage your child to talk about their feelings in an appropriate and respectful manner. And you might need to guide them into solving this conflict. So some of the questions might sound like, what happened? What did they say? And how did that feel? And then they hit you and what happened next? You want to make it really logical steps. Okay. And you really want to empathize. Okay. They hate you, and that hurt, so you hit them back. Okay. You wanted them to feel as hurt as you feel. Okay, I get that. And then comes the learning. You want to help your child understand that physically hurting their sibling is not going to work and is not appropriate. And in fact, you're not going to let them. So it might sound something like, I cannot let you hurt your sibling. I get that you were feeling really hurt, but what's another way that you can communicate that to your brother without hurting them? Punching them, kicking them? What can you say? Let's practice. And what about now? Okay, I need to go and check on your sibling in a minute. But what about now, being together? Would you like to be back together? Or would you like a bit longer to take some time? Is there anything you'd like to say to your sibling? Is there anything you hope your sibling will say to you? We want to model repair. We're not going to push our children to apologize to each other, because that's not meaningful. If we're doing it by force, they don't mean it. They're just doing it to satisfy you and please you. But you want to teach your children that after a conflict, it's a kind thing to say, I'm sorry and take responsibility for your actions in that moment, which, for this particular child, given the way I'm sharing this example, might sound something like, I'm sorry that I hit you back. I was really hurt, and I wanted you to feel my pain. It might not sound that complicated. It might just sound, I'm sorry for hitting you. It's not right. And you can teach your child what to do in if their sibling hits them, which is appropriate. Which may sound like, if your sibling's anger is so great that they sometimes just hit you, I want you to say, no, it's not okay to hit me. You're not allowed. That's not okay. And I want you to move away again. We're teaching our Children, communication skills. We're teaching them boundaries. And you can also see, say to your child, and you can come to me, okay, because it's not okay for your sibling to hit you, and you can come and find some safety, and I will be there for you. Now, when you go to your other child, who may be the one who was hit first in this particular example, you're going to have the same, very similar conversation. So get curious, listen, empathize with their emotions, teach them communication skills and. And boundaries. Because often when children hit out again, they have a good reason. Maybe their youngest sibling has wound them up, has taken something that's theirs. And again, it's about teaching them what is appropriate. When your younger sibling does something that upsets you, tell them, it's not okay. You're not allowed to snatch my toys. And help your child understand that they can turn to you and that you will protect their toys and from their little sibling. So again, that might sound like, if you come to me and you say, you know, my sister's just tried to take my toys and I'm playing with the mummy, it's really annoying. You might say, okay, I get it sounds like your sister wants to play with you, but you want some alone time, that's absolutely fine. I'm going to come and help you. Your children need to feel like you are on their side, both of them. I know that sounds really hard, but there is no bad guy here. There is no bad kid. When it comes to siblings, they're both just trying to navigate this complex, awkward relationship, and it's a beginning. Okay? Remember, this is the beginning of their relationship. So the best thing you can do is be on both of their sides. And I'm going to say this because it's obvious, but if I don't say it, I feel like you might think, I think this is really simple. This is supremely hard. This is so, so hard. So give yourself some grace. If sometimes you get shouty, if sometimes you lose it too, you know you can't stay quiet when you separate them. Their screams drive you a little bit mad. You're allowed. You're a parent, and it's super hard. So don't attempt to do this right every single time. Just try to use some of these strategies and remember some of these ideas about sibling relationships, because they're going to help you respond in a way that is a lot more helpful, that builds and nurtures their relationship rather than pulls them apart. I just want to add one more thing, which is about as much as you can catching your children when they're playing really nicely, when they're sharing toys, when they're enjoying themselves together, Think of these moments as nurturing moments that you want to build on. So really reflect on what are the activities that bring them together, what are the games where they're not competing, but they're actually working together as a team, and think of building on these activities or toys or whatever it is. And at those moments when you're really busy as a parent and you can't be around them necessarily, so you're cooking a meal or you've got something important to do, make sure that what you set them up to do is one of these positive, nurturing activities. It might take a bit of planning from you and a bit more time, but again, none of that will be wasted if what happens is they're having a really special positive time together and you can get on doing the home chores that you need to do or work or whatever it is. I'm not saying this is going to work every time, but you do need to notice and reflect on the times when your kids are doing what they're supposed to be doing and you want them to be doing, which is spending time playing together, relating to each other as siblings. So hold on to that because those moments are there and they don't need to be just sprinkled across your week. You can build and nurture those moments and we're coming to an end. This is such a big topic, I will be revisiting it and talking further about sibling rivalry, sibling relationships, and how to nurture this much, much further on another podcast. But for now, I hope that that was useful to you. And if you are interested in learning more about sibling relationships and how to build them, particularly in the early years for children 18 months up to five, the confident parent course is here for you. I've created this with these types of challenges in mind to give you step by step guides of what to do and how to support you in nurturing your children to build positive sibling relationships. If you'd like to sign up, go to my website, www.drmatapsychologist.com. every week I like to end by giving you a mantra that can hopefully hold you for the rest of the week. And given our conversation today, my mantra to you is I'm trying my best. Never forget you're trying your best. You are a good enough parent. It's okay if you get things wrong. You're human. Repair is always there to support you. I wish you a good week and I Hope you'll join me again for another talking sense. Until then, see you soon.

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