One of my older sons mentioned that when visiting homes of friends for Shabbos, he’s noticed that a lot of the older siblings don’t like their younger siblings. That’s not the case in our home: when the older boys come home, the younger siblings run to welcome them like returning heroes.
Seriously. I was outside in the parking lot with the kids one morning when my husband came home. The kids ran to greet him with their usual enthusiasm. My neighbor asked, “How long has he been gone?” I told her, he just went to shul. She laughed, since she thought from their greeting that he had been gone for a much longer period of time.
When kids don’t get along, many parents feel like this is how it is, throwing up their hands in frustration and wistfully saying, “What can you do?” when their children are unkind to one another.
I believe that you have to teach your children to get along. Our children of all ages get along well, and while people will think it’s all luck that they enjoy one another, I can assure you it didn’t just happen. We have a lot of personalities in our family, and they aren’t all naturally compatible with one another. Sometimes siblings click and sometimes they don’t, but as a parent you can help them learn to interact with one another kindly.
I expect everyone in our family to be kind and respectful to one another, and with the younger children I facilitate and model and give them the right words and then have them redo interactions on a daily basis.
But what about once they’re older?
This brings to mind an interaction I actively mediated a year or two ago with two of my teen sons. My three teens (16.5, 18, 19.5) overall get along really well. They enjoy spending time together: working, learning, hiking, biking, sports – everything. It’s amazing that they have each other. But naturally, sometimes there is conflict.
One afternoon they had a disagreement. At some point, I noticed they weren’t moving beyond it. They were getting increasingly upset and then moved on to actually being angry with the other. This is very unusual and at this age I rarely get involved beyond an occasional comment or suggestion because they’re able to work things out fairly quickly with each other. But I saw they were too upset to process my suggestion.
At that point I got actively involved. I told them we were all going to sit down together and no one was moving until they could speak respectfully to one another. The guidelines I gave them were: each one needed to listen to the other express his point without interrupting, then repeat over what he heard shared. The first person needed to agree on the accuracy and feel that he had been heard, before the next person could say his opinion. And the first person then needed to listen and reflect back to the second person what he heard.
There was so much emotion that this wasn’t easy at all. I could have let it go and as it continued, it was so intense that part of me wanted to let it go, but I saw that if it wasn’t dealt with, they would both have lingering resentment toward the other one. Resentment doesn’t go away; it gets pushed down and then comes bursting out unexpectedly over minor issues.
I don’t remember how long we sat there – it was at least an hour, probably closer to an hour and a half. Me, stopping them when they said something that sounded hostile or judgemental, asking them to rephrase, and let’s try again and again. Eventually, the emotions subsided and they walked away having respectfully communicated about a hot topic.
I can’t say they enjoyed my intervention, but they appreciated it. Sometimes your children need your help to work through things even when they get older.
Certainly when children are younger they need a lot of help expressing their emotions appropriately.
Here’s an example of what this looks like around here. Dd8 is fast to scream and lash out physically if something upsets her; she accelerates from 0 – 60 very quickly. It’s not enough to say, “Don’t do that.” Kids need to know what to do, and how to do it. So I’ll say something like, “You sound really upset.”
Her: “He touched my book!”
Me: “You are so upset he touched your book.”
Her: “It’s not his book, it’s mine and he didn’t ask me!”
Me: “You’re right, it’s your book. (Pause) It doesn’t look like it feels good for him when you yell at him.”
Turning attention to sibling: “I see you look upset/sad and it didn’t feel good for you when she yelled at you. Do you want to tell her, “I don’t like when you yell at me”?
Him: “I don’t like when you yell at me.”
Me to her: How can you tell him what you want without yelling or hitting him?”
Her: (Shrug or she might have an appropriate suggestion. If she has a way to say it appropriately, she says it now. If she doesn’t, I give her the words now.)
Me: Do you think you can say, “Please don’t touch my book” in a quieter voice?
Her: Please don’t touch my book.
Me: Good for you for speaking nicely! Now your brother can listen to you. Do you think it would make him feel better if you said you’re sorry for yelling at him?” (She says, “I’m sorry I yelled at you”, he says he forgives her, and they go off and play together.)
It’s best when there’s an initial validation of the emotion the child is feeling before moving to correction. I don’t want them to feel shamed because of their reaction; I want them to learn there’s a more effective way to interact when they are upset.
Creating a respectful and kind home is a process. Modeling is SO important. If I tell them that in our house we are kind to one another, but I yell at them all the time, then what I say wouldn’t be matter as much to them because they would see my hypocrisy. There has to be a consistent message. Consistent doesn’t mean perfect. You can and will make mistakes but the overall direction is towards being respectful and kind.
Even children who are very different and seemingly non-compatible can be taught to be respectful and kind to one another. It’s a good skill for life: you’re not always going to like the people you’re with, but you can still be respectful.
(There are other important points to consider when siblings don’t get along like paying attention to why they aren’t getting along, and addressing that. Perhaps one is threatened by the attention or special treatment the other gets, maybe one is displacing the negativity he experiences onto another. There are lots of possibilities, and these are important to address.)
Avivah
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