When Siblings Are Rivals: The Truth About Handling Their Battles

Lily, aged seven, and her brother, Jared, five, are known to start each day the same way: with a bowl of cheerios and an argument.

One day they haggle over who has more chocolate; the next over who has to go to bed earlier. Their fights always unfold in the same way: Lily rejects Jared; Jared taunts Lily. He smirks; she shoves. He calls mommy.

What they are really fighting about, according to Hara Estroff Marano, who recently covered siblings for Psychology Today, is the perception of who is getting better treatment from mom and dad. Marano's take on siblings makes a lot of sense; above all else, kids need the love and attention of their parents.

But, given the highly charged-and predictably repetitious-patterns of sibling interactions, as well as their tendency to measure, and ponder who is getting better treatment, how should we handle sibling battles? What's a parent to do when children are siblings and rivals?

I asked the experts: moms, therapists, and authors, for tips on handling rivalries between sibs. Here is what they said.

Lisa, a Westchester mother of three boys, twins, age five, and their nine-year-old brother, and Sue, a mother of a ten-year-old boy and eight-year-old girl, take opposite approaches and represent two major opposing schools of thought about how to deal with sibling rivalry. Lisa describes her approach as "hands-off." "I only get involved if it's something major, like a dangerous physical situation. Mostly, I try to let them work it out amongst themselves. The sibling relationship is the prototype for all others. Learning how to work things out gives them the opportunity to learn conflict resolution. That's a skill they need to develop and that will come in handy for the rest of their lives."

Sue disagrees with Lisa's hands-off approach. "It's too Lord of the Flies" for me," she shrugs. "I intervene a lot. I have heard a number of stories about parents who did not involve themselves. The younger sibling wound up being perpetually tortured by the elder one. In one case, a guy I know had his arm broken by his older brothers who were roughhousing in the yard. Hearing stories like these, I worry about safety. My son weighs twice as much as my daughter, she's just no match for him. It's my job to protect her."

Richard Hoetzel, M.D., a child psychiatrist who practices in New York City, advises parents to take steps to get to the bottom of a disagreement when siblings fight. "Find out what started the brawl. Is one child jealous of the other? Did someone feel left out or have his or her feelings hurt by another member of the family? Sometimes children who are angry at a parent wind up taking it out on one another."

Get the facts. Who started it and why? What preceded the argument? After doing a little detective work, discuss the situation with the children. Give everybody equal air time. Sometimes just having an opportunity to talk about a feeling helps.

When all else fails, divide, and conquer. Separate kids who are driving each other crazy. Put them in separate rooms. Each child needs daily alone time to collect his or her thoughts, imagine, think about and solve problems, and relax. It's also a good idea to set aside daily one on one time alone with a parent. This directly addresses the perception that someone is getting better treatment. "What they really want is mommy and daddy's attention," says Dr. Hoetzel. "One-on-one time helps them feel connected and makes them feel like everyone is being fairly and equally treated."

What if you've done all this but the kids just won't stop fighting? Get them out of the house or turn on the TV if necessary. Just like in a real war: create a distraction.

Mary Kelly- Williams, M.A., a Colorado psychotherapist, also stresses the following:
First, it is important to teach siblings to have empathy for one another:

"Parents today are so busy shoving trophies at their five-year-old for being on the soccer team and throwing graduation parties for kindergarteners, there's no longer an emphasis on teaching children how to be caring and how to step into the shoes of another."

How does one teach a child to be empathic, and to be empathic towards a sibling, at that?

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Model the behaviors you seek to encourage.

Say Jennie refuses to congratulate her kid brother, Pete, for moving up a swimming level in summer camp. Jennie is jealous, she's always been the star swimmer in the family.

Kelly-Williams offers this advice: "Encourage her to tell her brother he's done well. If she refuses, empathize with her: ‘Why is it so hard to say something right now-you have all those swimming ribbons of your own. I think maybe you need some attention.' When you are discussing her jealous feelings, reassure her--give her a hug. ‘I have a feeling this has nothing to do with Pete. I think you need to know I love you. ‘"

If she still refuses to be kind to her brother, perhaps even announcing something along the lines of, "I hate him; he's stupid?" Then, it's time to lay down the law. Kelly-Williams advises telling her, "Okay, I'm not asking you to feel feelings you don't have, but I am telling you that we are going to treat one another with kindness in our family."

Kids who are encouraged to try treating their siblings with kindness might see that it is a nicer way to exist.

Don't underestimate the power of trial and error.

Don't expect any miracles either. Sibling rivalry has been around forever-it is inevitable. There's nothing parents can do to change that.

Experts agree that strategies for dealing with teen sibling rivalry differ.

Teaching empathy won't fly with teenagers. Intervene less with them than with younger kids. Step in only if there is a danger of physical harm or if you need to set limits on name-calling. Letting them work it out sends the message that you believe they are capable of handling the situation. If you have to, remind them of the times they have worked it out amongst themselves.

Kelly-Williams offers a trick- of- the- therapist- trade for dealing with teen siblings: get them to bond by encouraging them to forge an alliance in which they stand together and against you. How to do this?

Follow the example of the woman from a rural area who asked not to be named. She recalls telling her daughters to leave the house on a chilly fall day-after several hours of listening to them argue about everything imaginable. "Once I told them to leave, they huddled together outside, underneath a blanket. They wound up complaining about me the whole time. They bonded, and eventually, I let them back into the house; a little while later we all laughed about it."

And what about the complicated landscape of step-families? How do you handle the rivalries between natural-born and step-children and among all of the above? Read Part ll to find out.