Do your children get on? All parents have heard the familiar phrases: “Give that back!” “Mum, he took my things!” “Tell her not to take so long in the bathroom.”
Sometimes it’s simply frustrating. But in some instances, sibling anger can cross the line. What can start as something relatively minor can escalate into full-blown fighting – either verbal or physical – and things can get out of control. Parents end up trying to be a referee when all most parents want is a peaceful and happy relationship between their children.
When siblings don’t get on, it’s typically driven by competition for parental attention and often reveals itself in disagreements about sharing for toys, food, space or attention.
If they’re toddlers, and don’t yet have the capacity to understand or process jealousy or express those feelings through vocabulary, they may resort to throwing a temper tantrum, or yelling at or physically attacking their sibling. For older children, it may result in anti-social behaviour from one towards another.
The worst thing a parent can do, according to child psychologist Dr Patricia Spungin, is to compare children with one another.
“If a child lives in a family where they’re always compared with the others in the family, it stays with them forever, and you’ll end-up with adult children who dislike each other.”
She says that when adult siblings don’t get on, the ‘fall out’ is usually over something quite trivial that is actually covering an unresolved childhood issue such as a feeling of favouritism.
“The tactic some parents employ to sort out a problem is to make one child feel less capable. This is always unnecessary,' she says.
“If you want one child to do something, for example, don’t say: 'Why can't you be happy, like your sister?' Just deal with the issue, without reference to her sister.”
Dr Spungin says comparing children makes them competitors rather than allies.
“Telling one he's much better at making friends than his sister, or the other she's much better behaved than her brother builds up barriers between them.”
She says that the way parents react to the birth order within a family can also affect children’s attitudes towards each other well into adulthood. The common pattern is that the eldest child is expected to the sensible, responsible one; the middle child is the easy-going peacemaker; and the youngest is the indulged, cute one who can do no wrong.
What can parents do to ensure their children grow-up liking each other, rather than resenting one another and, potentially, not having a relationship at all? Dr Spungin offers these tips.
1. Pay attention to the fact that you can make a difference to how your children will feel about each other. Don't compare them.
2. Speak very positively about what it means to be a brother or sister, and how valuable family life is.
3. Ask them and expect them to look after each other outside the home.
4. Remind them that blood is thicker than water and there are always people in the family they can turn to.
5. Doing things together. As often as you can, make time to talk together, go out together, watch TV together, eat together and recap the day. That way, brothers and sisters stay in touch with each other's lives.
6. Celebrate each other's achievements. If oldest brother has done well in his exams, you all go out for a celebration meal; if youngest sister has made her representative soccer team, you all turn out to cheer her on.
7. Learn to stand back. As long as there's no danger to either of them, resist the temptation to get involved in children's arguments. Parental interference always makes things worse, mainly because of all the extra attention and the feeling that one will be favoured over the other, depending on the outcome. If you leave them to their own devices, the row will usually peter-out.
The encouraging news is that Dr Spungin believes that however difficult the sibling relationship, what matters most is the fact it exists.
“It doesn't matter that siblings might not be best friends,” she says.
Instead what is important is the history they share. When the significant adults in the family are no longer around (eg. parents, step-parents, grandparents), their siblings are the people who have known them longest in their life.
“It is the longest relationship in our lives and that, in itself, counts for a lot.”
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