Family Topics
Sibling
Rivalry
Symptoms
of sibling rivalry may include: constant criticisms, bickering between
children, tale telling, one child tries to be the best, one child has more
skills than the other child, etc.
Rivalry is natural and a certain amount is healthy, but too much and family-life
becomes intolerable for parents.
It is useful to look at some practices that promote rivalry and some that
discourage it.
Classic rivalry motivators:
.
* Praise one child and compare the one with problems to his brother or
sister
* Be harder on one child than another when they misbehave (often the eldest)
Ways of dealing with rivalry
* Accept children’s individual differences. This is the crucial point for
reducing sibling rivalry. Your acceptance of differences will determine the
degree of competitiveness between children.
* Recognize their role in the family. Children will adopt different roles in the
family – one may be the peacemaker, another the funny person and another the
helper. While trying to encourage each child to make a positive contribution
accept their own ways of being family members.
* Focus on the deed not the dude. Don’t praise them but focus your
comments on the process rather than the results, the act not the actor, the
performer rather than the performance.
* Put them in the same boat when they misbehave. Be willing for all
children to experience the consequences of a child’s misbehavior. For
instance, if one child is noisy in the car then they all miss an activity if you
return home.
* Focus on solutions not the fight. When children fight and argue give
ideas and strategies to resolve their problem rather than sorting out the fight.
Give them thinking time before talking to them and allow them to cool off before
intervening.
* Introduce family meetings at age six.. Through regular meetings teach
children a conflict resolution process. You can also give children an
opportunity to impact on family decision-making through meetings. It is my
opinion that family meetings are the single most effective factor in reducing
rivalry between siblings and ensuring harmonious relationships between family
members.
* The family that plays together stays together. Have enjoyable
family activities such as games, and family rituals, such as mealtimes. These
rituals help children feel that they belong to something solid – a family.
In
summary, parents need to treat each child as an individual and avoid taking
sides during disagreements. Although it isn't easy to teat each child
equally, it is a must if you expect to do away with most forms of sibling
rivalry. Seek help for severe problems at the beginning and don't allow
them to promote hard feelings and destroy sibling relationships.