Getting siblings to get along

HARMONIOUS HOME: PLAY AND WORK TOGETHER

It takes work on multiple fronts, but most importantly showing empathy.

Playing together is part of raising siblings who get along, but so is completing chores as a team. It’s often an elusive challenge to raise children who genuinely like each other and support each other throughout their lives.

Laurie Kramer, a clinical psychologist, professor at Northeastern University in the US and founder of the More Fun With Sisters and Brothers programme, discovered in her research that mothers who had negative histories with their own siblings were most likely to raise kids with the most positive relationships.

Because they knew firsthand that cultivating great relationships took work, those mothers were more deliberate about raising their kids to get along.

“If you can help kids develop the fun in their relationship – that positive engagement – it will outweigh the negative,” Kramer said. “Build the positive.”

Here are some suggestions from her and other experts:

Create opportunities for joy

Kramer’s research programme advises ensuring that siblings spend meaningful, positive time together each day.

Do your kids do chores as a team, or do they each have a separate task? Do they share a room or have a common space to play together? Does each child have toys or games that are solely theirs, or are some joint property? Are they in solo sports or activities, or could they do some together?

Look for ways your children enjoy spending time together, such as doing puzzles, playing video games or soccer, and make those shared activities in shared spaces part of your family routine.

Give them chores they can complete as a team, like setting the table or washing the car, and encourage them to have fun together while they work.

Show the behaviour you want to see

One of the most important actions parents can take is to model the kind of relationships they want their children to have and the behaviour they would like to see.

To raise children who treat each other respectfully and choose kindness, parents must ensure their own behaviour toward others sets that standard consistently.

“Parents don’t give themselves enough credit for their ability to help shape a positive relationship between their children,” said Ralphie Jacobs, founder of Simply On Purpose, which offers online resources that focus on strengthening families and teaching positive parenting skills.

She emphasises that even though kids’ lives are filled with other variables, parents have the power to set the tone at home.

Establish a positive family culture

As important as it is to model good behaviour, parents don’t need to shoulder the effort alone.

“Creating a happier, more peaceful family is everyone’s responsibility, not just the job of the parents,” said Thomas Lickona, a developmental psychologist and the author of How to Raise Kind Kids.

He recommends crafting a family mission statement together. It should include a line such as “when we have a conflict, we try to calm down, talk it out and work out a fair solution”. This gives kids a road map to handle similar situations on their own.

Practise self-control

Learning basic self-control skills can also help kids become more thoughtful in every interaction with their siblings.

Kramer suggests a simple system of “Stop, Think and Talk” for kids, and repeating this exact sequence of steps even when they are happily spending time together so it becomes second nature to consider all discussions through this lens.

“Teach them to take increasing responsibility for solving disputes on their own,” Lickona said. “One way to help that happen is to have a ‘talk-it-out’ place where your kids can go to sit down and work out a fair solution.”

He recommends printing out the steps you’d like them to follow and posting them in the talk-itout place to serve as a guide.

Teach kids to ask to spend time together

Do your children regularly ask each other to play or to talk? Relationships, especially those between siblings, take effort to maintain. “A lot of kids don’t even realise their parents want them to spend time with one another, to engage positively with each other,” Kramer said.

Make sure your children know you want them to have a good relationship with one another, and why it’s important to ask their sibling to spend time with them.

Ask kids to consider whether it’s a good time to invite a sibling to play, and what kind of game their sibling might want to play together. If a sibling doesn’t want to play, encourage thinking about the reasons. Would they prefer basketball rather than a board game? Would they like to play together later instead? Talk it through together until they find a solution that works for everyone.

Cultivate empathy and discuss emotions

“The most important skill to teach a child for long-term happiness is empathy,” Jacobs said.

The ability to understand another’s point of view and to regard others’ needs as equally important as your own can be difficult to master. Kramer’s programme walks parents through steps to help kids become more empathetic to their siblings, from not assuming their sibling had a negative intent in an interaction, to learning that each child can have distinct likes and dislikes, and these differences are perfectly alright.

She also encourages parents to help kids build a more precise emotional vocabulary. Giving kids language to calmly express themselves can be the difference

More brutally honest parenting advice online parenty.co.za

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