Reducing Sibling Rivalry

16 Jul Reducing Sibling Rivalry

Posted at 02:00h in Parenting by

“If our two-year-old sees me hugging her four-year-old big brother, she’ll rush over – saying loudly, ‘No! My mommy! Go away!’ – and try to push him away. He’s getting more and more frustrated with her and starting to push back pretty hard. Their squabbles are already probably the biggest single source of stress in my life — and it’s getting worse.”

Our siblings are usually the people we know longest in this life, but it’s striking how many people have distant, even hostile relations with their brothers and sisters. Family tensions related to sibling rivalries wear on parents individually, and sometimes can challenge their marriage – so it’s important to tackle them in steady, systematic ways.

Signs of Deeper Issues

Sibling squabbles are usually a marker, a symptom, of underlying issues, such as:

  • Depleted, stressed-out parents
  • Disengaged fathers
  • Too much child care
  • Over-busy, chaotic homes
  • Not enough time and nurturance given to children
  • Not enough parental authority
  • Unmanaged temperamental or health problems

Ask yourself if any of these could be a factor in the sibling issues in your family. If so, make a serious plan with your partner to address it – and consider the practical suggestions in the rest of this column.
In a family, just like in any other situation, if we keep working at something – and stick with it – it usually gets better.

Before the Second (or Third, etc.) Baby Comes

  • Fill up the “bank” of personal and marital well-being before things really hit the fan: eat well, get lots of sleep, don’t start a remodel (or new business!), be extra loving and patient with each other, and so on.
  • Get the older child settled in any new, practical arrangements that you’ve been planning well before your due date, like weaning, moving out of the family bed, adding a couple days at preschool, etc. (But we must add that it’s often helpful to continue co-sleeping with both the older child and the toddler in the parent’s bedroom as a way to ease the transition to Baby Makes Four [or Five . . .]).
  • Build up the father’s relationship with the older child – since dad is going to need to fill the vacuum left by mom’s shift of attention and care to the helpless infant.
  • Try to give the older child some experience with infants. In age-appropriate ways, do what you can to explain how his or her life will change when the baby arrives.
  • Set up in advance lots of great support for mom, dad, and marriage when the new child arrives: a doula, some housecleaning, help from relatives, a little extra in the bank, etc.

Especially During the First Year – But Also Thereafter

  • Really keep an eye on replenishing yourself. There’s no way to avoid getting worn out, but you don’t have to hit bottom. Protein with every meal, sacrifice housework for sleep, get out of the house, reach out to other parents, take your vitamins, make yourself get exercise — all the common-sense things you can do if you set your mind to it.
  • Cut the older child as much slack as you can (and without creating an enduring behavior problem). Remember that she has been supplanted, and that she sees her rival every day occupying the throne she once held.
  • Make sure dad and others give the older child a lot of time and love.
  • Daily if possible, arrange for some time when the father or others takes care of the infant so that the mother can spend good, one-to-one time with the older child.
  • Minimize the occasions when the younger one wrecks the moment of the older one – as in the example at the top of this column.
  • To the older child, keep pointing out instances when the younger one was interested in him, and really looked up to him

In General

  • Try to create routine situations in which the two children enjoy each other’s company, like doing fun things together with a parent.
  • Beware “tilting” toward one child or another, such as over-protecting the younger child and being too demanding of the older one.
  • Parents have got to be willing to be the justice system in the family — otherwise, it’s the law of the jungle: most of the time, kids do not actually work it out among themselves: it’s that whoever can hit the hardest or yell the loudest or work the grown-ups most skillfully is the one who prevails.
  • Parents create justice in the home through standing for certain values, having clear “house rules,” and using a skillful combination of rewards and penalties. For example, think about how the kids have mistreated each other over the past few days, and turn those incidents into rules that would stop them from happening in the future. Of course, usually you have to back up the rules with consequences, but that’s just Parenting 101, and already familiar to us all. The key is naming the rule (e.g., No Hitting. No Grabbing Stuff. No Interrupting. No Put-Downs.) and then getting serious about enforcing it just about every single time.
  • Have an attitude of “I AM THE BOSS. I AM IN CHARGE. I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED. I WILL PREVAIL!” That confidence will help sustain your efforts, plus your kids will sense it and be more willing to cooperate.

This is an article adapted from the book Mother Nurture (2002) by Rick Hanson, Ph.D., Jan Hanson, M.S. and Ricki Pollycove, M.D.

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Dr. Ramani Durvasula is a licensed clinical psychologist, author, and expert on the impact of toxic narcissism. She is a Professor of Psychology at California State University, Los Angeles, and also a Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg.

The focus of Dr. Ramani’s clinical, academic, and consultative work is the etiology and impact of narcissism and high-conflict, entitled, antagonistic personality styles on human relationships, mental health, and societal expectations. She has spoken on these issues to clinicians, educators, and researchers around the world.

She is the author of Should I Stay or Should I Go: Surviving a Relationship With a Narcissist, and Don't You Know Who I Am? How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility. Her work has been featured at SxSW, TEDx, and on a wide range of media platforms including Red Table Talk, the Today Show, Oxygen, Investigation Discovery, and Bravo, and she is a featured expert on the digital media mental health platform MedCircle. Dr. Durvasula’s research on personality disorders has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and she is a Consulting Editor of the scientific journal Behavioral Medicine.

Dr. Stephen Porges is a Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, and Professor Emeritus at both the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Maryland. He is a former president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and has been president of the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, and Cognitive Sciences, which represents approximately twenty-thousand biobehavioral scientists. He’s led a number of other organizations and received a wide variety of professional awards.

In 1994 he proposed the Polyvagal Theory, a theory that links the evolution of the mammalian autonomic nervous system to social behavior and emphasizes the importance of physiological states in the expression of behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders. The theory is leading to innovative treatments based on insights into the mechanisms mediating symptoms observed in several behavioral, psychiatric, and physical disorders, and has had a major impact on the field of psychology.

Dr. Porges has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers across a wide array of disciplines. He’s also the author of several books including The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation.

Dr. Bruce Perry is the Principal of the Neurosequential Network, Senior Fellow of The ChildTrauma Academy, and a Professor (Adjunct) in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago and the School of Allied Health at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. From 1993 to 2001 he was the Thomas S. Trammell Research Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and chief of psychiatry at Texas Children's Hospital.

He’s one of the world’s leading experts on the impact of trauma in childhood, and his work on the impact of abuse, neglect, and trauma on the developing brain has impacted clinical practice, programs, and policy across the world. His work has been instrumental in describing how traumatic events in childhood change the biology of the brain.

Dr. Perry's most recent book, What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, was released earlier this year. Dr. Perry is also the author, with Maia Szalavitz, of The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, a bestselling book based on his work with maltreated children, and Born For Love: Why Empathy is Essential and Endangered. Additionally, he’s authored more than 300 journal articles and book chapters and has been the recipient of a variety of professional awards.

Dr. Allison Briscoe-Smith is a child clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma and issues of race. She earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard and then received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She performed postdoctoral work at the University of California San Francisco/San Francisco General Hospital. She has combined her love of teaching and advocacy by serving as a professor and by directing mental health programs for children experiencing trauma, homelessness, or foster care.

Dr. Briscoe-Smith is also a senior fellow of Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and is both a professor and the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Wright Institute. She provides consultation and training to nonprofits and schools on how to support trauma-informed practices and cultural accountability.

Sharon Salzberg is a world-renowned teacher and New York Times bestselling author. She is widely considered one of the most influential individuals in bringing mindfulness practices to the West, and co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts alongside Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein. Sharon has been a student of Dipa Ma, Anagarika Munindra, and Sayadaw U Pandita alongside other masters.

Sharon has authored 10 books, and is the host of the fantastic Metta Hour podcast. She was a contributing editor of Oprah’s O Magazine, had her work featured in Time and on NPR, and contributed to panels alongside the Dalai Lama.

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