Addressing Sibling Rivalry with Parenting Coaching
Fighting among your kids can ruin any chance of peace and harmony in your home and, more importantly, it can ruin your relationship with your kids.
Parenting coaching can support you in creating the happy, healthy relationships among with each other that will serve your kids now and well beyond your lifetime.
First and foremost, reducing sibling rivalry comes from connecting with each child.
Bill and Kate came to me desperate to get their kids to stop fighting with each other. He described their household as unending chaos. The kids were not only yelling and screaming at each other, they were physically attacking each other, and Kate and Bill felt like they were spending their entire day putting out fires. Their kids could get into a full-blown rage over nothing.
The first day we worked together, I told them their primary need was to figure out how to spend some one-on-one time with each child--each week at a minimum. Ideally, they would figure out how to spend one-one-one time with each child each day.
We talked about two ways to optimize one-on-one time.
One way to increase connection is through ritual.
Develop a special handshake or greeting for each child. Especially, make the most of the first moment you see them in the day. Slow that moment down and with sparkling eyes, warm tone and an enthusiastic good morning, show your child how special and treasured they are. That way the child starts the day with his emotional cup filled.
Kate and Bill started using the wake-up technique every day—Kate with their daughter Lexi and Bill with their son Tad one morning and then switching kids the next day.
Bill said that moment of peace alone made him feel so much more hopeful about the day that even when the kids started fighting later in the day, he had more patience for them.
My favorite way for boosting connection is Special Time.
I first learned about Special Time from Patty Wiffler at Hand in Hand Parenting in Palo Alto, CA.
It has a complete set of steps (that I write about HERE), but the key difference between just spending time with your kids and Special Time is that, to some extent, during special time, you are going to put aside what I call your Parenting Voice.
Even when we play with our kids, we still tend to instruct and correct. For example, let’s say a child requests to decorate cookies during our one-on-one time. We might balk when they add a random mix of food coloring resulting in various bowls of muddy frosting. Usually, we would step in and tell our kids which colors to make and how to make them.
With Special Time, you go with the flow that the child establishes. If Tad wanted five pots of nearly indistinguishable brown frosting, Kate learned to merrily start decorating cookies with it. When he told her that the cookie she decorated were the ugliest he had ever seen, Kate happily agreed that, indeed, she was the world’s worst cookie artist ever known to mankind.
Why is brown frosting and being insulted so magical? Because it put Tad in control and allowed him to work through his aggressions and his fears of not being good enough (within a framework his parents had established). For Kate, it was a lesson in the joy of letting go her perfectionism and just being in the moment with her child.
Bill found himself on his daughter’s floor “tied up” and held captive as Lexi attacked him with every stuffed animal in her collection while calling him a bad, bad, bad, bad man. He was alarmed at how fiercely angry she sounded, as if she really were getting revenge for some terrible thing that had happened to her. But when special time was over, Lexi (who tended to be a Mommy’s girl), threw her arms around Bill, exclaiming how much she loved him.
Another key to improving sibling relations is creating a positive family culture.
In today’s world, there are many forces working against family unity. Being available to work 24/7, kids being enrolled in multiple activities outside of school, and the pull of technology are the biggest ones. Parents must work deliberately to create a strong family bond.
The biggest bang for your buck when it comes to strengthening family attachment is eating together.
Enjoying a family meal gives you a structure not only for checking in with each other every day but also enacting ritual that helps to define for your children who you are as a family.
A family with three sons I worked with started a tradition of lighting a candle every night for each family member. As each boy lit his candle, he would share three good things from his day. Because each boy knew he would get his turn (they took turns who would be the first to light his candle), the boys became comfortable listening to each other’s answers without interrupting or commenting. In this way, ever day each boy felt seen, heard and honor.
It took some persistence to get the boys on board with this new practice, but over time the quiet focus of lighting the candle and the share of positivity with each other worked its magic in the overall feel in the household. The day the youngest son, Roberto, named his two brothers and his parents as his three good things, mom Marta called me in tears to express her joy at the shift in attitude.
The Gupta family started a question jar that any family member could add to. At mealtimes, they would take turns pulling one question for the family to discuss that night. Sometimes the questions were silly (Would you rather eat chocolate covered crickets or maple-dipped beetles?), sometimes profound (What happens to people after they die?), sometimes personal (When’s a time you felt like a friend let you down?). The variety of questions kept family dinners engaging, but more importantly it provided a concrete time and way for family members to get to know each other more deeply and more intimately. In the beginning, Vidya and Prashant had to remind the kids a lot to listen respectfully and to not put down each other’s ideas. Over time, however, respectful exchanges became habit.
Without making any other changes, the Gupta children started interacting with each other more positively. They came to games and activities more collaboratively.
The more work you do to create a family culture of caring and togetherness, the fewer sibling spats there will be, and sibling rivalry will be a thing of the past.
Would you like some support to help you create a plan for your family?
I run a support group called Harmony at Home: Decoding Sibling Rivalries through a platform called Forum. We meet on Saturday mornings at 10am Eastern Time.
Your first visit is free, so feel free to come check it out.
Questions? Text me at 650.28.8916.