Sibling rivalry and sibling disagreements is a fact of life if you have more than one child. While the actual intensity of those battles and fights may differ from family to family–the reality is that if you have more than one, there’s going to be some tussles and rumbles over possessions, attention, and just about anything and everything else. The challenge for parents often comes in trying to decide how involved he or she should get in helping to mediate and alleviate those sibling spats.
I confess that I’ve moved back and forth between mediating and letting them work out their own battles. When my kids were younger, I would try to let them go as long as possible before stepping in. They knew that if mom had to get involved in a dispute over an item–chances are the item was going to be confiscated, so they tended to try to work things out. In issues where violence and/or aggression came into the dispute, I always stepped in–but I was never one of those parents who was especially good at being able to evaluate when a dispute was inevitably going to get physical, so sometimes I found myself stepping in too late and things had escalated to such a place that nothing productive could come from my attempts at peacekeeping and mediation.
Many experts recommend that parents let siblings work out their own disputes as much as possible. This can be tough, however, when it’s obvious that the purpose of the dispute is to GET the parent involved. I can’t count the number of times my kids created a big argument when I was on the phone, trying to get work done, or just as I opened the front door to great a guest or visitor. Obviously, the spat wasn’t really about anything between the two of them, but was a conspiracy to get my attention.
Now that my kids are older, they still have arguments for my benefit, but they are diminishing. And, they don’t ever have physical disagreements or spats any more (thank goodness, since they’re full-size people now!) but they can get pretty nasty and snarky with each other! In some ways, it’s harder for me to stay out of things now than when they were little since they can get really mean-spirited. But, still, as one friend observed, an hour later the squabblers will be sitting at the kitchen counter sharing a box of cereal. So, I guess we’ve done something right in letting them work things out with the occasional parental guidance and involvement. I do know that with three kids close in age, they have an established bond and rather intense relationships–they still have spats, but they are able to communicate with each other on a regular basis in other ways too.
See Also: Stop the Sibling Rivalry and How to Combat Sibling Rivalry