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About
Sibling Rivalry
© 2003 Benjamin D. Garber, Ph.D.
Nowhere in our (supposedly) civilized, digitized, artificially
flavored, technicolored world is the rule of the jungle so evident as in the
competition between siblings. Watch your kids in action and witness Darwinian
adaptation, survival of the fittest and behavioral extinction at work before
your eyes.
Sibling rivalry is a primitive process. It is animal territorialism
at its most basic level. It is the primal urge to win limited resources in
order to survive played out over such critical necessities as the t.v. clicker,
the last bowl of Fruit Loops and time on the internet. In fact, eons ago,
little caveboys and cavegirls very likely had to compete for food and shelter
in order to live long enough to become caveparents themselves, just as birds
and bears and fishes do today. But your kids? Certainly by three or four or
five years old they’ve realized that survival in the twenty-first century
depends not at all on fitness (else ninety percent of us wouldn’t be around
to read this).
Why then do they fight so much?
We all need our space. Growing up is about defining identity.
It’s a gradual back-and-forth dance moving away from a secure base (you) and
then running back for comfort. Its about pushing away from the familiar in
order to define self. As much as growing up is about growing away from parents,
it is equally so about defining oneself as separate from siblings.
Space is not only the final frontier, it is also the first. Toddlers push
one another away to define their space. Grade schoolers fuss over siblings
who get into their space. Teenagers –well, its hardly necessary to say the
obvious: Teenagers guard their space better than Brinks trucks guard their
cash; better than the CIA guards its secrets.
Guard from whom? Kids protect their space from us, their parents,
with the same mixed feelings that come with growing up and growing apart.
But there is far less ambivalence about separating from siblings. They’re
the competition. They’re the ones who threaten to steal all of mommy’s love
and daddy’s time, abstract commodities too hard to identify, so instead
they fight over things that are concrete and immediate. The t.v. clicker.
The last Fruit Loop.
So sibling rivalry is all about the parents? Not completely,
but its likely that many of those hair-raising, gut-wrenching, tattle-taling
conflicts are actually about winning your precious attention, affection and
acceptance. Have you noticed, for example, that the kids get along better
when they’re own their own, away from you? This is a clue that the fight really
isn’t about the t.v. clicker and that the resolution isn’t simply about allowing
Billy to choose the channel on odd numbered dates and Sally to choose the
channel on even numbered dates. Its really about winning little bits of you
doled out as attention and praise, love and hugs and kisses.
Sibling rivalry is also about differentiation. Differentiation
is the process of becoming distinct or unique. Its about finding a niche in
which you can thrive different from the competition’s niche. It’s the same
process that business people know so well: If three restaurants open
in the same small town, each has to specialize in order to survive. One advertises
Mexican cuisine. Another becomes known for preparing seafood. A third features
omelets.
Your kids have to learn to differentiate in just the same way.
Some combination of built-in strengths and praise and support leads each to
discover a way to shine uneclipsed by a sister or a brother’s success. One
son becomes a jock, for example, and his brother an academic. One daughter
becomes a musician while her sister excels with computers. One child is into
science and another more a socialite. In this way, each finds a new source
of support and nurturance and belonging and acceptance apart from the family
and distinct from the siblings. No matter how painful or combative or loud,
this process is healthy and necessary. Its essentially about defining oneself
and growing up.
What’s a parent to do? Does this mean that we should
just leave our kids to beat each other up, content that the victor has distinguished
him- or herself from the victim? Of course not. But when and how you step
into the fray may be a bit more complicated than simply pulling the two combatants
apart.
1. Start by recognizing
that conflict in your home is not only natural, but its necessary. That idealized
picture of the constantly blissful, cooperative family is fantasy promoted
by fifties era television shows. Get over it. The fact is that you and your
kids must argue. Sibling rivalry happens. Conflict is loud and painful and
disruptive but its an essential part of growing up and growing apart. The
goal is not to live without conflict. The goal is to make conflict manageable
and healthy for all involved.
2. Know that your attention, affection and acceptance are the fuel which
keeps your kids going. Find ways to refuel each child in the way and on the
schedule that the child needs, not on your schedule or in your way.
3. Know that siblings naturally seek to differentiate. Help (but don’t push!)
each child to explore their unique interests and strengths. Applaud not only
their successes but their efforts, as well.
4. Don’t fall into the, “its not fair!” trap. They’re right. It is not fair.
Its not supposed to be. Your job as a parent is to try to see that each child
gets what he or she needs, not what a brother or a sister had when they were
a certain age. Respond to, “Its not fair!” calmly by saying, “You’re right.
Now let’s talk about feeling so (mad? Sad? Jealous? Resentful?)”
5. Set rules for conflict, then live by them. Do this at a calm time as a
family together. What’s your family’s rule about tattling? About name calling?
About swearing and hitting and other kinds of hurting? Make sure to conduct
your adult conflicts by the same rules!
6. The most important rule must concern safety: “No one will get hurt here”
or “Violence is never okay in our family.” The second most important rule
allows combatants to walk away to calm down. Being able to “take five” and
then return to an argument calmer and more constructive is a very mature skill.
7. Try not to take sides. Your primary job is to respond to how the combatants
are behaving together, not to judge what they each claim the other did. If
you find two kids hitting, they’re both wrong. There’s rarely anything to
be gained listening to, “But HE started it …!”
8. Make the healing as loud and as visible and the conflict. Parents who
argue in front of the kids but make up behind closed doors leave the kids
in suspense, uncertain whether the wounds are healed and without any model
of how to settle down and move on. The same can be true when two children
battle in front of a third or when you argue with one child in front of the
other.
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Parenting Pointer-----------------------
Consider these basics as part of your SRDP (Sibling Rivalry
Defense Plan):
1. Do you want
him to apologize because you forced him to, “say that you’re sorry!” or because
he’s really sorry? Better, perhaps, to suggest, “If you’re sorry for something
you did you might say so” than to make apologizing into just another power
struggle.
2. Ask each child to take responsibility for his or her own words and actions
without blaming the other. Try debriefing after a conflict with each child
separately. Ask, “What did you do right?” and “What did you do wrong” and
“What should you do differently next time?”
3. Set aside a place for conflict. One Mom decided that anytime the kids
wanted to argue they could do so in the dry bathtub. The idea was so silly
that most conflicts dissolved into giggles before they could escalate into
anything worse.
4. Prescribe the problem: Do your kids argue predictably every morning before
breakfast? Every day after school? Beat them to the punch. Set aside a five
minute period and tell them to argue. “This is your chance, kids! Come on,
get it out now!” Sometimes for some kids this will defuse a time bomb
before it can explode.
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