Observational studies have shown that sibling conflict may happen up to eight times an hour. Other research finds that pairs of sisters tend to be the closest, and that sibling dyads that include a brother have the most conflict. “Conflict does decrease into adolescence; it sort of levels off,” said Mark Ethan Feinberg, a research professor of health and human development at Pennsylvania State University. “Early and middle childhood are particularly difficult times for sibling aggression.”
As a study that Feinberg co-authored notes, the book of Genesis, which includes the “founding stories of the Western psyche,” is dripping with tales of murderous and covetous siblings, like Cain and Abel and Jacob and Esau. And these stories unfurl “themes researchers are exploring today: dastardly deeds, conflict over parental love and resources, and triangulation of children into parental conflicts.”
Sibling rivalry is so profound that hundreds of years ago, when child mortality was much higher, children under 5 with close-in-age siblings were more likely to die. These deaths were likely “related to increased prevalence of childhood infectious disease in such households, and lower levels of maternal nutrition, and perhaps more general competition for parental attention,” said Sarah Walters, an associate professor of demography at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the co-author of a study on siblings and mortality clustering in 19th-century Belgium. This knowledge certainly puts my kids’ fights over who got more ice cream into perspective.
Just because sibling rivalry is to be expected does not mean there aren’t ways to mitigate it. Here are five suggestions from the experts to handle squabbling sibs.
Figure out what sets them off. “Pay attention to what tends to happen before conflict breaks out,” said Sally Beville Hunter, a clinical associate professor in child and family studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. If your kids fight every time they play video games, for example, make sure you’re in earshot when they sit down to play. Listen for the particular words or tones of voice they are using that are combative, and try to intervene before it escalates.
Help them learn to resolve conflict. Once tempers have settled, try to sit your kids down and discuss the problem “without blaming or accusing,” Feinberg advised. Give each kid a chance to talk, uninterrupted, and have them try to come up with solutions to the problem themselves. By the time kids are elementary-school age, they can “evaluate which of those solutions are win-win solutions and which ones are most likely to work and satisfy each other over time,” he said. They should also learn to revisit problems when solutions are no longer working.
Praise them in public and punish them in private. If your kids are being kind to each other, “praise really loudly all over the place,” Hunter said. For example, “I love that you let your sister go first!” But if you’re criticizing them, try to do it outside of the other child’s earshot, because she may use it as ammunition. Our older daughter will take every opportunity to boss her little sister around (“Remember, Mom said you couldn’t jump off the couch!”), so I took this bit of advice to heart.
Try to find moments where everyone can come together. Your kids’ temperaments and personalities may be similar, or they may not. They may both love dance, or one loves dance and the other just wants to play chess. One might be rigid, and the other is a free spirit. “Try to find common activities that allow everyone to be flexible, and to feel connected,” Vivona said.
From The New York Times
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