4 tips to prevent sibling fighting

(Reading time: 6 minutes)

There are few things more hurtful for a parent than seeing their kids fighting.

Or at least, I personally really hate it! I love my two sons to the moon and back, so when I see them fighting I feel heartbroken.

But as for every relationship challenge, behind sibling rivalry are skills that are missing but can be learned!

So, what can we parents do to prevent, or at least reduce, sibling competition?

1) Do not intervene in their fights unless really necessary

Humans are goal-oriented, and kids are little humans. Therefore, they behave in ways that will satisfy their needs, even if they may not be aware of it.

What is the need behind their fighting? Getting attention from us parents!

So, when we stop whatever we are doing to go and interrupt the fight, we are rewarding them with attention, even if negative, thus encouraging them to repeat this behavior over and over again.

So, what should we do? The answer is: nothing!

We should not intervene unless really necessary, and let them handle the situation by themselves.

We cannot be present every time they have a conflict: they need to acquire conflict resolution skills.

Therefore, when a fight starts, we can just secretly listen to what is happening to take note of what your kids might need to learn to manage conflicts. And just let them find a solution by themselves.

(When everyone is calm, you can train them on conflict resolution skills. I’ll write an article about this: stay tuned!)

Sometimes the solution might not look fair to you, but that’s OK! It must feel fair to them. For instance, you may witness your two kids battling over a lego man, and coming up with the solution of dismembering the man and continuing playing one with the head and the other with the body 😅 . You probably wouldn’t have thought of such a solution, but this IS a solution. And if it works for them, then great!

2) Encourage any cooperative behavior

As humans, we have a negativity bias. This means that we pay more attention to the negative than to the positive.

This has served our ancestors to be alert and protect themselves from immediate dangers (like being attacked from tigers). But nowadays, this negativity bias is useful only for journalists.

If you notice, your kids do get along well sometimes, if not most of the time.

But because of our negativity bias, we pay attention only when screams and tears appear.

We then likely jump into the scene and say something like: “Ufff! Why are you guys always fighting? Why can’t you just play together peacefully?”.

This way, we are depicting their relationship in negative terms, and over time we can convince them that their relationship is indeed bad, thus perpetuating their misbehavior.

Moreover, as discussed above, we are giving them a huge payoff for the very behavior we’d like to eradicate, thus pushing them to repeat it over and over again.

Good news: we can use the fact that we are goal-oriented to our advantage! We can give them positive attention when they are getting along well.

When we see them playing nicely together, sharing their cake, and helping each other, we can encourage them saying something like “Wooooow!! That’s adorable to see you guys getting along!”. And we may accompany the encouragement by a high five!

This way, they will associate that playing nicely together will get them the attention they are craving for, and they will do it more often.

I’ve been trying this technique with my kids for some time, and it works wonders!!!

3) Avoid using labels

Negative labels can be really discouraging to kids. Imagine you were told every day that you are difficult to deal with, a troublemaker, a mood breaker. How would you feel over time? Likely discouraged, to say the least. If this happen to children, the impact is even worse, as they do not have a clear idea of their personality yet.

Over time, they can become the label, and repeat the misbehavior for which they have been labelled over and over again. For instance, if we highlight only the times where one of our kids makes his sibling cry, he will grow into the role of the violent sibling.

(If you are thinking “Phew, I’m good here, I never call my kid troublemaker, mood breaker or difficult”, remember that labels do not need to be verbal. If you always remember your kid what he needs to take to school, you are labelling him as forgetful, even without ever saying it.)

Positive labels can be discouraging too. How? Not only they foster a fixed mindset, but also they unintentionally draw comparisons between siblings, increasing their competition. For instance, if you say that one of your kids is the athletic one, the other can only assume he’s not, or at least less, athletic. If one of your kid is the picky eater, the other one can assume he’s the good eater. If one is the studious one, the other is not. And so on.

Also in this case, positive labels do not need to be verbal. For instance, if you always ask the same kid for help, you are sending the message that he’s the most efficient and reliable. Kids notice everything, so his siblings might feel they are not good enough. You can solve this problem by trying to involve everyone in the family in everyday tasks.

4) Avoid creating unnecessary competition

“Let’s see who can get dressed the fastest!”, or “Who will arrive to the car first?”, or “do you see how your brother is eating everything without any fuss?”.

Every time we use this technique to get things done as quickly as possible, we are igniting sibling competition. Every time we start a competition, there will be a winner and a loser, and this can build resentment over time.

If you are thinking “Yeah, sure. But this is life. The world out there is competitive! They need to get used to it”, I would argue that indeed, there’s a lot of competition out there, so no worries: your kids will get used to it. Why should you create this kind of pressure even at home? Home should be a safe, peaceful place.

Instead, try to foster cooperation making them a team as much as possible. Say “Let’s see if you guys can pick up all the toys from the floor in 5 minutes! I don’t think you’ll be able to, it’s pretty much impossible…”, and witness the miracle!

Also, every time you see they are working together, remark it with something like “wow, this is what I call teamwork!”.

Now it’s your turn!

I hope these tips will help you as much as they’re helping me! Do you have any additional tip to reduce sibling fighting that you’d add to the list? If so, please comment below! 🙂