Comments

Sibling Rivalry: 5 Ways to Help Your Children Get Along with Each Other — 5 Comments

  1. We are homeschoolers of 4 children. Twins aged 9 and Twins aged 4. We definitely have sibling rivalry from time to time. There are days it seems as if they only argue but mostly they get on well. We have two issues; the age difference between the youngest twins and the eldest twins and we have 3 girls and 1 boy which often causes some playtime issues. I am definitely going to take on board some of the things pointed out in the article – thanks for sharing.

  2. My gang fight lots. ( Four boys ) I try not to get too stressed over it, because I think of animal cubs and how they seem to instinctively scrap and wrestle and test themselves against each other. There are rarely any serious injuries, and it is usually diffused fairly quickly. Different things are frustrating for each child at different times, and I can only reasonably sort some of their problems out, not all of them! I think that would be unhealthy. When they fall out, I make them look each other in the eye, and if a smirk or smile comes on their face I know it’s just silly mucking about fighting, and the smile/ giggle diffuses it anyway. Love the comment about honouring each child’s unique traits – but the children should also know that there is room in each family for more than one dancer/ writer/ footballer etc etc… it would be sad to think of a child who didn’t dare do a subject or thing because ‘ that was what his brother was good at’…

  3. My kids (4 boys) don’t fight and I honestly don’t know why! We homeschool, and they are very active kids. They love to wrestle and are very physical with each other, but not aggressive. (Actually, it may be that I’m so immune to the constant wrestling that I don’t see it as fighting anymore!)

    I completely agree that each child is different and needs to be acknowledged as such.

    Each one of my kids needs to approach life from a different angle: they vary about how much attention and what kind of attention they need.

    Thanks so much for getting me to think about this!

  4. Hi. I’m a homeschooled kid, and I came across this, and I have a question. I’m homeschooled, but my brother isn’t. We fight a lot over the most ridiculous things, but we kind of have our good moments. That was when I was being regular schooled too. How will me being homeschooled effect my brother and I’s relationship, if at all? Thanks!

  5. I loved this article! I know this must be a problem for many families, but I applied the same answers to a different problem with my children which is that with five years and a gender gap between them 🙂 they claimed not to like each other.

    With homeschooling, they have found that they do indeed like each other very much and find ways to interact together, even with the limited number of shared interests.

    I particularly like #5 and it makes me think of the adages I used to “lower the volume” when things weren’t so good in the beginning. One is “low and slow” and the other adage was “..if you want more peace, be peaceful”. I found this really hard, but eventually, it paid off big!