A Peace of Work for Parents
In Delia Ephron’s “How to Eat Like a Child,” a book of telling vignettes on childhood, an unsuspecting little girl is informed by a sly sibling that she is not really his blood relative.
He breaks the shocking news to her this way: “You’re from Mars. Honest. I’m not kidding. Dad told me. They found you in the back yard in this little crater. Didn’t you suspect it yourself? I mean, your ears are a little bit pointed. Dad said he didn’t want to tell you until you were older. He swore me to secrecy. I’m just telling you because I think you ought to know, but if you tell him I told you, I’ll kill you.”
This diabolical speech is delivered in the chapter titled “How to Torture Your Sister,” and if you grew up with siblings, you may well remember resorting to a similar ploy to get even with a sister or brother who seemed to have won a favored position in your family.
But, no matter how much competition and conflict you faced with your siblings as a child, you probably weren’t prepared for the torture of raising children who are constantly at war with each other.
Kelly Hogrefe, a child development specialist and mother of three who recently led a workshop in Irvine on sibling rivalry, said many people approach parenthood with “this ideal scenario in their heads,” picturing their children as bosom buddies who can’t get enough togetherness. They face a rude awakening when their little ones start striking out at each other, either with physical force or such verbal blows as:
* “I hate you.”
* “You’re stupid.”
* “Mommy and Daddy like me better than they like you.”
The parents who attended Hogrefe’s sibling rivalry workshop--mostly frustrated mothers--admitted that they were losing patience and confidence because they had not been able to establish a lasting peace among the siblings in their households.
“At the time I signed up for the class, I was feeling at a loss because my son was having these periods when he would lash out at his brother for no reason whatsoever,” said Cindy Windham of Irvine. “I was beginning to think that we might have to take him to a psychologist. It was nice to hear that other parents are seeing the same thing in their children and that it’s normal.”
Hogrefe urged parents to try to understand their children’s point of view: “They can’t choose their siblings. They’re stuck. And that automatically creates problems because each child has a different personality.”
It’s hard enough for children to live harmoniously with siblings of different temperaments, but that isn’t the only challenge that sets the stage for sibling rivalry.
“They also have to share the two people who mean most to them,” Hogrefe added.
In many households--especially those in which the children are close in age--that means there’s relentless competition for the parents’ attention.
When conflicts erupt, parents often get dragged into the role of referee, and they’re likely to be asked to decide who was at fault in incidents they didn’t even see.
“Every child wants their parent to say they were right, but you can’t make a fair decision if you weren’t there,” Hogrefe said. “You don’t want to be in the middle. The more you manage to stay out of things, the more you build their ability to handle their own problems.”
When Hogrefe’s three daughters began bickering at the start of every outing over who would sit in the most coveted seat near the front of their new minivan, she resisted the impulse to settle the conflict with her own rules and told them, “You need to solve this yourselves.”
At first, they decided that those who entered first had to sit in the back. But then they fought over who should get into the van first. Finally, they agreed to take turns using the favorite seat, and ever since they’ve managed to keep track of whose turn it is without Hogrefe’s help--and without arguing.
At ages 9, 11 and 14, Hogrefe’s children have enough experience in problem-solving--and enough self-control--to handle most conflicts on their own. Younger children need more guidance. For example, when preschoolers are fighting over a toy, parents should give them options. Tell them they can take either turns using the toy or put it away so no one will be able to play with it, Hogrefe advised.
“Making the choice helps them feel competent,” she said.
Although it may be difficult to see anything affirmative about squabbling among loved ones, sibling rivalry does teach children some valuable lessons, Hogrefe noted. If parents can resist the impulse to step in with a solution every time a fight breaks out, children can learn ways of confronting and negotiating that will help them get along better with others as adults.
“The way you help children resolve conflicts is the way they’ll resolve them as they get older,” Hogrefe observed. “They’re competing for space, for time, for their own autonomy, and competition often involves conflict. It’s up to the parents to teach them that competition can be healthy.”
Parents must establish some ground rules in order to create a climate for healthy competition, she added. They can’t walk away and let siblings resolve their own problems if there’s a real danger that they will injure each other. So the most important rule is, simply, “no hurting”--physically or verbally.
Children are better able to control the impulse to strike out when they understand that “feelings, no matter what they are, are OK, but certain actions are not,” Hogrefe said.
She suggested that parents say such things as: “I understand that you’re angry, but you can’t call your brother names,” and, “You don’t have to like your sister, but you can’t hit her.”
Once their feelings are acknowledged and accepted, it becomes easier for children to work out their problems verbally. With some coaching from their parents, they can learn to say, “I don’t like it when you do that to me; it makes me feel bad,” instead of expressing their anger through a physical attack.
It’s not easy for parents to remain calm when a child who is angry at a sibling chooses words such as “I hate you.”
“We’re afraid to let these feelings be there,” Hogrefe said. “But it’s the behavior they’re hating, not the person. We need to help kids say what they don’t like about the behavior.”
Cindy Windham’s sons, ages 3 and 1, are too young to resolve their conflicts verbally, but Windham left Hogrefe’s workshop with several strategies to help them get along better.
Her older boy, Grant, often expresses his jealousy by using wrapping-paper rolls and other long objects as swords and poking his younger brother. Windham said Grant has calmed down since she firmly established the “no hurting” ground rule (and restricted his sugar intake). But, because he’s so young, she has also made it easier for him to stay out of trouble by removing temptation. All objects that have obvious potential to be used as swords are now stored in the garage.
Windham also has become aware of how sibling rivalry seems to increase at certain “stress points”--in the morning when she’s getting ready for work and in the evening when she’s hurrying to get dinner together. Her sons hate to be rushed, and they react by getting testier with each other.
“I’m trying to relax and take things slow and not hurry them quite so much,” she said.
Giving each boy individual attention has also helped ease feelings of jealousy, Windham added. Every night, each boy gets private time with each parent--a bath with dad and story time with mom.
Although this kind of equal time makes each child feel special, Hogrefe said parents shouldn’t feel that they always have to treat their children equally. Their needs are more likely to be met if you “treat them uniquely,” she said.
For example, there may be times when a parent gives extra attention to a child who has had a rough day or one who is struggling with a particularly difficult homework assignment. Or there may be times when one child needs new clothes and the others don’t.
Parents tend to feel uneasy about responding to individual needs because “we’re afraid it will look like we love one child more than another,” Hogrefe explained. “But you can tell the other children that their turn will come.”
Parents will only be frustrated if they try to keep all their children happy all the time, she added. It helps to remember that, “if we always give them everything they want, they’re not prepared for reality.”
Hogrefe cautioned parents against making comparisons (“Why can’t you be more like your brother?”) or favoring one child over another.
Elaine Deslatte, an Irvine mother of two who attended Hogrefe’s workshop, said that takes effort because she has one easygoing, cooperative child and one who is constantly testing limits.
“When you have two different personalities, you have to be careful that you’re not constantly disciplining one and praising the other,” said Deslatte, whose daughters are ages 5 and 6. “If you’re constantly praising one for the things she’s doing, you have to try to find good things to say about what the other one is doing.”
Darchelle Schafer, an Irvine mother of three, left Hogrefe’s workshop feeling reassured that she’d been handling the sibling rivalry between her two oldest boys better than she thought.
At ages 11 and 8, they’ve long been expected to resolve conflicts on their own. “I tell them to go upstairs and come down when they have a smile on their face and a song in their heart. Then there’s some teamwork, and they usually end up giggling,” Schafer said.
She has tried to teach them that rather than taking their family for granted, they should treat each other as well as they treat their friends.
And, when she finds them elbowing and pushing each other too aggressively while playing street hockey, she has tried to remind herself that setbacks are only temporary.
“One of the key things to remember as a parent,” she said, is that you’re going to go through seasons with your kids, and some are really challenging. Some seasons I haven’t liked myself too well, and there are going to be seasons when I don’t like my sons’ behavior too well, but I wouldn’t trade places with anyone.”
