Come up with chores or tasks that encourage your children to work together and to collaborate — building a fort in the backyard or opening a lemonade stand. Having a common goal, that can even be as simple as teaming up kids against parents in a board game, engenders feeling of comradery.
Avoid comparison.
You might feel like you’re inspiring better behavior from one of your children when you use her sibling as a model and say something like, “Wow, look at your brother. He really takes good care of his body by eating all of his healthy food.” In reality, all that you’re inspiring is sibling resentment and jealousy that can last a lifetime.
Don’t be the judge.
Figuring out who is right or wrong in sibling conflict is almost impossible. Let’s face it: Even though one of your children verbally assaulted the other, the humming his sibling did under her breath despite pleas from him to stop was really annoying. Not to mention the fact that by your stepping in to resolve, punish or admonish, you are encouraging lying and tattle-telling, and exacerbating future conflicts. By staying out of sibling situations (unless someone is in danger of being physically hurt), you motivate your children to argue effectively and resolve their issues on their own.
Teach problem-solving skills.
Just because you ignore the conflict, of course, doesn’t mean your children have the skills to come up with solutions on their own. Young children often can only think of one solution to a problem, e.g., “We could take turns, when obviously — considering you are there in the first place to negotiate an intense battle over a reluctance to share — that solution isn’t working. Support your children in coming up with various potential solutions to the same problem.
Encourage them to try out the possibilities until they find one that works in making them both feel better so that they can become better at coming up with solutions independent of you.
One size does not fit all.
Treat your children individually (not always equally). Making sure things are equal does not decrease conflict and may encourage even more resentment. Instead, point out special qualities and needs that make your children unique.
Apologies are overrated.
Don’t force apologies; they are meaningless if they are not authentic.
Look for patterns in sibling conflict. Can you figure out what’s behind all the strife? Is one sibling getting a lot of negative attention? Are your children competitive with each other? For your attention? Do the fights happen more frequently when they’ve spent too much time together? Are they bored? Tired? If you can identify a pattern, you can address the situational factors that exacerbate conflict. For instance, if you realize that much of your son’s “annoying” behavior with his sister occurs when he is feeling left out, or wants her attention, you can brainstorm more positive ways with him that he can use when asking to join her activities or have one-on-one time with her.
Model “good” arguing.
This is a hard one for a lot of people. When you feel angry or frustrated, you might be the type to react big. (“IF YOU TWO CAN’T GET ALONG, I WILL CANCEL HALLOWEEN!!!!”) Your children will benefit by modeling calm behavior, and they will learn from you that even people who love each other can argue and feel angry or frustrated and still be close. It’s important that young children learn that although we don’t always agree with people, or want the same things as another person, we can’t say horrible things when we’re angry. Nor can we use physical aggression.
Make sure you practice what you preach. It’s healthy for your children to see you argue with your spouse or mother or friend from time to time, so long as the argument isn’t heated, no insults are slung and you come to a resolution. It's not easy, I realize, but when you consider the long-term stakes for your kids, I’m confident you can refrain from dropping F-bombs.
Bronwyn Becker Charlton, Ph.D. received her doctorate in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University and is currently on the faculty at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in the Department of Pediatrics. She is also the co-founder of seedlingsgroup.