How To Deal With Fighting Siblings

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Siblings fight. Duh. Arguments come in different forms — name-calling, tattling, rough-housing—but parents of multiple children can be sure they’ll come up. And it starts early. “If you tape young children interacting with each other in that 2-4 age range, you might see two or more conflicts in one hour,” Dr. Laurie Kramer, Professor of Applied Family Studies at the University of Illinois, tells Yahoo Parenting.

Let’s start with the bad news: The fighting probably won’t peak until the first-born is in middle school, according to Dr. Nicole Campione Barr, an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Missouri, who says sibling fights are a source of parents’ greatest frustration. “The more cognitively advanced kids become, the more they like to assert their opinions,” she tells Yahoo Parenting. “When fighting does start to decline, it declines slowly, until one child leaves the home. So parents have to deal with it for a long time.”

On the whole, Campione Barr says, sister-sister pairs have the most conflict, but they’re also the closest. “Sisters have the most emotionally intense relationships, on average,” she says. Siblings that are closer in age — around one or two years — are also more combative. “Conflict happens most when there are the most similarities — because kids want to be doing the same activities, using the same toys, or playing with the same people,” she says.

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Now, the good news: While parents probably can’t stop the fighting altogether, there are strategies for reducing the drama and helping your children learn to resolve some issues between themselves.

Stay ahead of the conflict.
“It’s easier said than done, but parents usually know what triggers their kids,” Campione Barr says. So, if your children fight over who should do the dishes each night, have a calendar that schedules one child to clean on even days, the other on odd days. If they constantly get mad at each other for borrowing clothes or toys without permission, establish a “no borrowing without asking” mandate across the board. “Let family rules stand in the way of the argument,” Campione Barr says. “That will help with the bickering.”

Abide by the family rules. Yes, even you.
Once you’ve established specific behavior guidelines, realize that everyone — including parents — needs to respect them. So if the rule is that we knock on bedroom doors before we enter, don’t think you have carte blanche to storm in any time. “It can be hard for parents to adhere to the rules, because they like to think they’re above them, but it’s easier for the kids to do it if the parents do it,” says Campione Barr.

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Give everyone the same consequence.
Parental intervention is more effective for younger kids (older kids want to work things out themselves), but be sure to enforce the idea that if siblings are fighting over a video game, then nobody gets the video game. “It shouldn’t be that one child wins,” Campione Barr says. “Instead, the argument is just over.”

Teach conflict resolution skills, then encourage siblings to use them.
“Talk with each of the children and give them a chance to share their side — not to complain, but to talk about what they need, what their thoughts and feelings are, and what a possible solution could be,” suggests Kramer, who runs the preventive intervention program More Fun With Brothers and Sisters. She says kids can learn these skills as young as age 4. “Take yourself out of the role of ultimate determiner of who is right and who is wrong, and instead become a coach who helps kids talk through the problem and think of ways to resolve the issue.” Once kids have these skills, it’s as simple as a parental reminder, during a fight, that this is a good time to use them. This is especially the case when kids are in adolescence. At that point, any direct intervention in a fight is perceived by both kids as taking sides, says Campione Barr.

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Give everyone time to calm down, then come back together.
Trying to have a sit-down discussion immediately after an altercation isn’t the best idea, according to Kramer: “Let kids take some time to cool off, and remember that as a parents, you need to stay calm too.” Mom and Dad often separate kids as a way to end an argument, but Kramer says it’s important to bring them back together to discuss what happened. “Start by saying, ‘Here’s what I saw: X got upset, Y hit the other, let’s talk about what we’re going to do next time this happens,’” she says. “I’m not saying parents shouldn’t issue consequences, but there also needs to be some time for processing what happened and understanding how to avoid it in the future.”