Not too long ago, I was making a speech about parenting; after I was finished talking, the audience — all parents — asked questions for one hour and 20 minutes.
I kept thinking: “Aren’t you tired yet? When are we going to go home and turn into couch potatoes?”
But we weren’t and we didn’t — because the issues these concerned parents were raising were too important to walk away from.
And in that time — a full 80 minutes! — the issue that everyone kept coming back to was sibling conflict.
It scared me a little. I was scared because the word “punishment” kept coming up. People talked about their kids breaking things when they fight.
They talked about kids being in danger of hurting each other.
One parent talked about a seven-year-old who is always wanting to beat up on his four-year- old sister for messing with his toys. Of course she does! And of course siblings break things when they fight … and threaten (or try) to hurt each other.
That’s the whole point of fighting: The goal of fighting is to communicate to whoever’s paying attention that you’re really mad and you’re not going to take it.The key word here is “communicate.” The combatants in every fight have a goal.
When we ignore their goal (which we usually do) and respond simply to their (obviously) unattractive, usually annoying and sometimes destructive behaviour, not only are we failing to help our kids, but we’re sending them a pretty clear message as well.
Every behaviour sends messages. I was scared the other night because most of the parents were talking about punishment.
Punishment scares me because, when we punish a child, we’re usually using a broadsword to do a job that would be better done by a rapier.
When we punish children for fighting, we’re messaging: “You’re doing bad things. I’m not here to help you out of this fix. Instead I’m going to make you feel worse about yourself. Kiddo, you’re in trouble with me too now, not just your sibling.”
We know that children leap to that conclusion (however inaccurate) when we punish them — especially if we’re punishing them for struggling. So let’s try the opposite approach: Let’s try to figure out what the underlying feelings are that are causing this sibling battle. When we help children solve their problems, instead of punishing them for having them, we’re building a more resourceful child, a child with problem-solving capacity.
Isn’t that what we all want as parents?
So stop the fight, separate them if they’re getting physical and ask them each in turn: “What happened?… How did that make you feel?” Make them take turns talking. Resist the impulse to judge either child.
The minute you make someone wrong, they stop problem-solving and go back to fight-or-flight mode. Not helpful.
So just keep asking those two questions over and over, making them wait their turn. When the kids have calmed down — you’ll know because their faces will stop contorting and they’ll sit, and speak, calmly — it’s time to ask the third question: “What needs to happen now?”
They’ll figure it all out for themselves, with your expert non-judgmental assistance.