Managing sibling rivalry requires striking a delicate balance. It’s important to mete out consequences consistently and evenly to avoid accusations of unfairness. Parents should also avoid favoritism and treat each child equally. When tensions flare, here are 8 constructive strategies for managing sibling rivalry that will help restore peace in your household.
1. Teach Your Kids Relaxation Techniques
When tensions and stress get high, your children may not know how to manage their emotions. Instead of coping in healthy ways, they might be taking it out on each other and butting heads. Teaching your kids how to calm down is key to avoiding sibling conflict in the household.
Relaxation techniques like playing with a fidget toy, counting to ten, deep breathing, guided meditation, and journaling can help your kids process their feelings without turning on each other.
2. Avoid Comparison
As a parent, you don’t want to worsen a sibling rivalry by engaging in comparison. Verbally pitting your kids against each other will only heighten tensions between them and make their shared resentment worse. Avoid using phrases like “if only you could be more like your brother/sister.”
Praising one child in front of the other can also fuel tensions, so consider sharing compliments privately. Try to dole out equal amounts of praise and recognize each child’s unique attributes and accomplishments.
3. Set Clear Boundaries
Managing sibling rivalry also involves setting clear boundaries and expectations around behavior. Make sure your kids understand the rules and consequences for breaking them. Roughhousing, mean-spirited comments, and excessive bickering should all come with punishments, such as removing phone privileges.
Impress upon your children that you expect respectful conduct in your household, just like their teachers do at school. It may be helpful to post a list of rules and consequences as a reminder in a visible place like the kitchen fridge.
4. Enforce Rules Equally
Siblings who are in a rivalry with each other will also be sensitive to unfair punishments. Enforcing the rules unevenly and inconsistently could deepen the animosity between your kids. Doling out consequences equally requires you to be vigilant about monitoring your children’s behavior and managing their sibling rivalry.
If you didn’t witness an argument or infraction, avoid taking one child’s side over the other constantly. Treating one child like they’re more trustworthy than the other can cause resentments to bubble up.
5. Mediate Conflict
If your children do get into a conflict, it’s important to step in and try to mediate. Ask open-ended questions to get to the bottom of the disagreement and figure out what happened. Avoid assigning blame and try to teach your children positive conflict resolution and problem-solving skills.
For example, say your kids fight over the temperature of their shared bedroom. You could brainstorm solutions together, such as getting extra blankets or personal fans to make everyone more comfortable. Once your kids realize it’s more productive to talk it out rather than fight it out, the sibling rivalry may diminish.
6. Create Relaxing Family Rituals
According to Forbes, family rituals can increase social cohesion within your household and help with managing sibling rivalry. Simple routines like Sunday dinner or game night can encourage bonding among your kids and foster a sense of familial belonging. Relaxing together by playing video games or sharing a meal can also help reduce everyone’s stress levels, potentially preventing emotions from flaring.
Another ritual to consider implementing is going around the dinner table and sharing highs and lows from the day. If your kids hear each other’s best and worst moments, it may help foster empathy and understanding between them.
7. Don’t Force Friendship Artificially
It’s reasonable to expect your kids to treat each other with respect and spend time together as a family every now and then. However, managing sibling rivalry doesn’t require you to force friendship between your kids. It’s ok if they don’t want to sit at the same lunch table at school or go to the mall together.If they have a hard time sharing a bedroom, making different sleeping arrangements isn’t admitting defeat.
Try to avoid forcing your kids together more often than necessary or lamenting that they aren’t besties in front of them. Pushing the issue could actually make the sibling rivalry worse.
8. Stay Calm and Listen
It’s easy to get upset and lose your cool while managing sibling rivalry. But getting stressed out and raising your voice could escalate tensions further. Staying calm and actively listening to each child’s side of the story will go a long way toward resolving the disagreement.
Facilitating constructive problem-solving and conflict resolution between your kids will hopefully help mitigate the animosity over time. Most kids eventually grow out of sibling rivalries, so remember that you won’t be stuck with household discord forever!
Do you have any helpful strategies for managing sibling rivalry? Drop them in the comments!
Vicky Monroe is a freelance personal finance writer who enjoys learning about and discussing the psychology of money. In her free time, she loves to cook and tackle DIY projects.
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