When Siblings Attack

Right after dinner tonight my three-year-old younger son wanted a toy that his older brother was playing with. After asking nicely he decided to take matters into his own hands and he hit his brother on the back with a resounding pound. Thankfully I was right there to intervene. I grabbed my son and asked him, "Do you love your brother or do you hit him?" His answer was "I love him and I hit him." He was absolutely right. I was not aware of the fact that he was up to date on the latest research on sibling relationships; that is exactly what current thinking in the field suggests.

Siblings' fighting is actually a healthy developmental aspect of growing up. The majority of the time their fights are an attempt to understand and navigate social relationships. Studies show how these interactions between siblings help create the foundation for future friendships. However, this does not mean that when our children start punching each other we should sit back with a bowl of popcorn and enjoy the fight. The manner in which we intervene during sibling fights is linked with the type of relationship they will develop in the future.

Over the years psychological studies suggested two opposite ideas relating to the question of how to respond to sibling fights. One camp suggested that parents do nothing. They proposed that sibling confrontations are an attempt to draw parental attention, and consequently, if we jump in and try to intervene we are going to reinforce future hostility between siblings. The siblings were able to get the parents' attention this way and this is how they will get parental attention in the future; they will fight. On the other hand, others believed that by intervening parents help their children by mediating between rivaling siblings and by teaching them how to understand the perspective of their sibling and how to work through social conflict.

Follow up studies on this question showed that parents primarily use three types of intervention styles when their kids fight: (1) they do not get involved, (2) they coach, and (3) they punish. The first type, the noninvolved parents either ignore the problem or tell the siblings to work out the problem themselves. The coaching parent gives advice and explains each siblings feelings to the other. The punisher swoops in and solves the problem by punishing the siblings.

The style you use should be tailored to the age of the child. Younger children who are still in the process of learning about how to navigate relationships need you to coach them through difficult social situations. Parental coaching during fights is linked with them developing a closer relationship with each other later on. However, once siblings get older and they reach the adolescent years trying to coach them may not be appreciated by independence-seeking teens. Give them the space they need to work things out themselves.

Bottom line: when siblings fight they are learning about social difficulties and how to work through them. During childhood they may need some help and coaching in perspective taking during these fights. During a fight get down to their level and, as my three-year-old intuitively knew, teach them how to love each other even as the punches are flying.