Sibling Rivalry: Parenting Coaching to the Rescue

There is a lot of good parenting advice on the internet.  Indeed, I love working with clients who are proactive about accessing expert information.  

Some areas of parenting, however, are especially well suited to one-on-one work with a parenting coach:  Sibling rivalry is high on that list. 

In my work as a parenting coach, a big part of my role is as the puzzle master.  As I talk with parents and hear about them as individuals (their values, their priorities, their parenting style) and as I hear about their kids (their strengths, their challenges, their unique personalities), it is like getting all the puzzle pieces on the table.  

The more parents talk, the clearer the picture of the family dynamics becomes.

It is very hard to stand within the family and to be the holder of the big picture.  When I work with families, I get the 30,000 feet view.  That enables me to see the needs of each family member.  I bring my 30 plus years of experience to figuring out where to start unraveling each thread.

When it comes to Sibling Rivalry, the Relationship Between Siblings Is Not the Place to Start

Common sense might dictate that when it comes to reducing fighting among your kids that the place to start would be with their relationship with each other.  You assume, that if they just liked each other better, they would fight less.

What this ignores, however, is that sibling rivalry is much more about how a child feels about himself and about his relationship with you than it is about how he feels about his sibling.  

Improve Sibling Relationships Through Bolstering Your Child’s Self-Esteem 

Annie and Ned came to me because their tweens, Christopher 10, and Ariel 11, were fighting from dawn until dusk.  The only way to get peace in the house was to send them to their rooms or to send one child out on an errand with Mom or Dad.  

Much of the time, however, that wasn’t a workable solution.  To do their homework, both kids needed to be on their computers which were in the family room and as mom traveled a lot, it was hard to use the divide-and-conquer approach.  

In talking to the family, it became clear that the conflict cycle was Christopher trying to tell Ariel how to do something or correcting her if she made a mistake, Ariel feeling hurt and saying something nasty or insulting to Chris, Chris losing his cool and physically hitting Ariel, and finally, Ariel, running to her parents in tears as Chris called her a crybaby.  

For a long time, Annie and Ned thought that Christopher was the source of the conflict.  The piece they were missing was Ariel’s poor self-esteem.  

Under two years apart in age and just one grade apart, Christopher and Ariel were often working on similar concepts.  Although perfectly capable and doing fine in school, Ariel was very social and did not focus as much on her academics.  For Chris, academics were a big source of pride and pleasure.  At school, with lots of people around, it was easy for Ariel to feel secure in her friend group.  At home in a very intellectual household, however, Ariel felt like the odd man out.  Therefore, when Chris pointed out, say, a spelling error, instead of it just being useful information, Ariel took it as proof that she didn’t fit into the family.  

Once Annie and Ned started praising and acknowledging Ariel’s social-emotional skills (being careful not to compare her with her brother), Ariel saw that her family looked to her for her energy, her enthusiasm and her genuine interest in people.  Ariel began to feel important and needed:  Without her, her mom, dad, and brother would probably just sit at home all day.  It was Ariel who found a great escape room for her family to do and who prompted her parents to get tickets for a local musical comedy.  It was Ariel who went the extra mile for birthdays and when decorating Christmas cookies.  Her family appreciated that she was good at what they were not. 

Improve Sibling Relationships Through Bolstering Your Relationship with Each Individual Child

The other dynamic at work in Annie and Ned’s home was that both children (and even Ned to some extent) felt like they didn’t get enough time with Annie.  

At this time, Annie was away from home overnight around ten days every month.  When Mom was gone Ned had a pretty good routine with the kids, and they were pretty cooperative and helpful.  When Annie was home, however, Ned felt like the amount of bickering and whining went way up.  Ned could see his children actively vying for their mother’s attention, trying to push the other child out of the way, so they could have their mother to themselves.  

The first change I suggested was for Annie to develop a system with each child that allowed them to feel more connected to her even when she was gone.  

With Ariel, Annie started a back-and-forth electronic diary where one day Mom would write something in it, and the next day, Ariel would respond to what Mom had written and add her own observations/stories, etc.  In this way, Ariel felt like her mom was still on top of what was going on in her life and with her friends day to day.  That way, when Annie got home, she already knew what to comment on and what follow-up questions to ask.

With Chris, Annie left a stack of notes in her handwriting that Ned could slip into Chris’s lunch, so it felt like his mom was there even when she was traveling.  She would look up random facts about animals or geography that became the topics of conversation when she returned home.  When emotional issues did come up with Chris, Annie adjusted and wrote more encouraging affirmations as needed.  

Finally, Ned and Annie committed to talking by phone every night even if it was as little as a 10-minute download on the kids’ day.

As the kids began to feel more connected to Annie, sibling rivalry in the household went way down.

Traditional Advice for Sibling Rivalry Doesn’t Go Far Enough

The general advice for reducing sibling conflict includes ideas like:

• Accept fighting as a normal part of the sibling relationship

• Acknowledge their feelings of jealousy 

• Reduce comparison and competition

• Allow sibling time to negotiate

• Provide enjoyable family time

• Give each child their own space and time

• Establish agreed-upon family ground rules

• Avoid taking sides

• Intervene to teach acceptable behavior, conflict resolution skills

• Encourage problem-solving and negotiation

• Call for a “cooling off” period

These are all important pieces to put in place that parenting coaching can support you with, but they are addressing the problem of controlling the outside environment. 

A good parenting coach will help you put these practices in place but, more importantly, help you identify the underlying needs of each child that will get to the root of the problem.

Before you consider how to permanently separate your children from each other just to survive, sign up for a no-obligation Getting to Know You call, and we’ll get you on the road to a happy, harmonious home.