Mum Diary: A Case Of Sibling Rivalry – Why Do My Children Argue?

Some days my home feels like something out of a saccharine American family TV show. We get along, we laugh a lot, we make a few simple mistakes and we all learn a lesson.

Generally speaking, we’re a very happy family.

But other days we feel more like the pilot for Extreme Supernanny, as my boys shout, push, cry and whinge – and want whatever toy the other one has just picked up. It’s a new development in our home and it’s easy to see what’s caused it.

While three-year-old Harry was perfectly happy to accept a baby in the house, he’s much less sure about the more recent upgrade. Now 20 months old. Olly is walking, talking and a very assertive family member – and Harry has clearly started to feel it’s time this little interloper learned to back off.

After all, Olly can be a pain to Harry and so he does have my sympathy. Santa brought him a sack-load of Hot Wheels tracks and cars, which he spent hours painstakingly setting up only for Olly to wobble over and trigger the vehicles before he had a chance.

Harry isn’t a bad kid; he’s never hit anyone at preschool or lashed out in anger among children his own age. But he will howl in horror at Olly’s destruction and then, as if goaded beyond what any human can bear, whack him one around the ear.

It’s hard to see a child hit your baby, and when that child is also your baby it’s even harder. Olly might be small but he’s determined, and will often clout Harry back – all this happening in the time it takes me to put down my tea and leg it across the room to stop the commotion.  

Then I will sit them both down, we’ll talk about what happened and there’ll be apologies and cuddles (from me as well, I recognise that I am to blame for not stopping them before things go so out of hand).

Playing Referee
My husband and I can see that the violence happens more when the boys are left to play together without a parent refereeing so we both spend more time playing with them. But there are inevitably moments where one of us is walking the dog while the other cooks supper, or where we are simply enjoying some adult conversation.
 
And leaving the boys to play alone now and then does allow them to develop a touching closeness.

When they aren’t fighting, they are being incredibly sweet. Harry recently dedicated himself to teaching Olly to talk with great success (so much success in fact that he has moved on to trying to teach the dog…).

Their moments of closeness are some of my most cherished, so how can I help them get along the rest of the time?

Expert Advice
I spoke to parenting expert Richard Curtis, better known as the Kid Calmer. He said it’s a good idea to limit the amount of ‘free play’ the boys have together, or to join in and show positive behaviour.

Getting the boys to play rules-based games like Memory or Pairs can teach them to play with structure, while getting them to work on something together – like building a tall tower - can give them a focus, he suggested.

But does that mean that the only way to avoid violence between my sons is to never leave them to play by themselves? Thankfully, Richard reckons this is just what you need to do while they learn to get along.

“This is all based on social and emotional development; it’s all building blocks to help them get along without an adult refereeing,” he says.  

“What you want to do is put in place firm foundations for children to grow up to be who they want to be.”

Then I whispered my worst fear; is it possible that children can grow up and hate each other, simply because their parents screwed up – perhaps by failing to stop them wrecking each other’s Hot Wheels tracks?

“No, that’s very judgemental!” exclaims Richard, to my relief. “We live in a society where everyone blames the parents, everyone is anti-parent. We need to stop, step back and look at the bigger picture.

We’re only human, we all fall out with our friends, our wives, our husbands then we make up again – that’s life. We should be teaching our children to do that without damaging their relationships.”

He also reassured me that “roughness is a form of communication” among little children. Richard suggests that lots of dedicated one-on-one time with individual siblings can help overcome feelings of favouritism, while “praise bombing” can help children learn positive behaviour.

“Even if I’m doing something in the kitchen but I can see Charles looking after Tommy on the sofa, I will just throw a praise bomb over,” says Richard.

So How Do You Help Your Children Get Along?
My friends are full of helpful suggestions, from putting the older child ‘in charge’ of the smaller one to give them a sense of responsibility, to letting one child watch a DVD while you do something fun with the other child.

We’ve already started spending more one-on-one time with each child, dedicating an evening a week to spending time with just one each.

After all, a relative with four grown-up children (who all appear to get along) simply stated: “More attention all round is the only answer...” I suspect he’s right.

[Mum Diary: What Puppy Training Taught Me About Parenting (Yes, Really)]

[The Psychology Of Sibling Rivalry]

How do you help your children avoid fights? Share your tips in the comments below.