How to Handle Siblings Fighting and Drama

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Hi everyone, welcome to the show. I’m Dr. Nicole, and today we’re talking about sibling relationships, how best to navigate the inevitable sibling challenges that we have to deal with as a parent, and as any of us with more than one child in the home knows, sibling issues, sibling drama — it’s common, it happens regularly. I know that myself, as a mom of four. Now mine are growing out of the stage. They’re older, in high school and college, but I remember the days of four younger kids and even now, some of the stuff they get into. So we’re going to talk about what’s really going on in these situations, how parents can respond in ways that actually are helpful instead of inadvertently making things worse, and what about when there’s one or more kids in the mix who may have some of their own behavioral, emotional, social communication kinds of challenges? What do we do there? So we’re going to get into all of this with the well-known child psychologist and author Dr. Dawn Huebner. She is a psychologist, parent coach, and the author of 10 books for children, including perennial bestsellers What To Do When You Worry Too Much and Outsmarting Worry, another recent work, Something Bad Happened to provide support for children, learning about problems around the world, while her newest, The Sibling Survival Guide speaks with warmth and humor to children struggling to get along. Her books are practical and relatable, selling well over a million copies in 23 languages. She’s been featured on a host of news and information outlets and frequently interviewed by popular parenting magazines. My colleagues and I have used her books in her work for years and years at the clinic, great resources. I am so excited and honored to welcome her to the show today. Welcome, Dr. Dawn Huebner.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So I love that you have written this newest book about siblings because you focus on really practical stuff to deal with, with kids in general. And sibling disagreements, sibling challenges, that’s a part of life for so many families, right?

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Absolutely, and you know the bulk of the books out there are geared towards parents. Teaching parents how to navigate or help their children navigate relationships, but there are surprisingly few that are written for kids. And there are things that kids can learn how to do to understand their siblings and to get along more effectively.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And I think that’s one of the things I really love about the books that you write, they are geared towards the kids. They are tools, certainly, that parents and adults can use with children, but they really are written for the kids to understand themselves, their feelings, what’s going on and giving them tools and strategies. I’ve loved that about all of your books, and this really follows in that vein. Yes. There’s information for parents and yes, it’s good for adults to use it with kids, but this is really geared towards helping kids figure this stuff out, right?

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Right. One of the things that I try to do in my books is to give kids sort of a-ha moments and to have kids feel like “I understand that”, or “That makes sense to me. I already know how to do that.” And then to teach kids how to apply skills that they often already have, or things that make sense intuitively to them, to this new situation. So this current book uses an analogy about dogs and talks about there being plenty of things that if you have a dog, or if you like dogs, and you understand how to get along with your dog, you can apply to your sibling. And so that’s sort of the backbone of the book.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

It’s great. And one of the things that you do also is really normalize the challenges of childhood, whether it’s in some of the other books, anxiety or worries, and in this we’re talking about siblings, and I think that’s important, particularly when we’re talking about siblings, to normalize it for parents and for kids because this really is a common, normal thing that goes on. Right?

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Absolutely. And the goal is not to end all sibling conflict, that’s not realistic, but to learn how to not have it get in the way in major ways, or to not have it be the main thing that defines a relationship between children.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I want to start with one of the things that you actually talk about in the first part of the book that’s actually geared towards the adult or the parent reading it, because I think this lays an important foundation for everything else we’re going to talk about. I’d love you to share what is really going on at the root of sibling rivalry, sibling disagreements, sibling drama, because as the parent, it often can feel like “You’re trying to make my life miserable. You’re ganging up on me”, but you really speak to the fact that no, actually there’s something different happening.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Right. It’s really kind of a vying for parental attention, favor and love. And kids can feel threatened by their siblings. That doesn’t mean that parents are doing anything wrong if children feel that way, but it’s important for parents to understand that kids see their siblings as potential competitors for time, attention, and love. And much of the conflict that happens between them has that at the root of it. So when parents jump into sibling conflict and they take sides, that kind of triggers the worst fear that a child has, which is that, “See? You do care more about my sibling. You do love them more.” So that’s something that parents do need to be aware of and just be really sensitive to.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And this isn’t about any of us feeling guilty that we’re doing something wrong or being a bad parent if our kids feel this way, you’re talking about this just being inherently part of what goes on in the normal developmental process for kids, that they feel this way, this vying for favor and attention. It has nothing to do with anything that we’re doing wrong. It’s just a normal part of their developmental process.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

That’s right, and it’s actually how we’re wired. A baby comes into the world needing their parents to take care of them. So babies and children learn how to do the things that keep their parents focused on them, keep their parents loving them and attending to them, and it’s very frightening for kids to see any evidence that their parent doesn’t favor them, or kids sometimes misinterpret and think their parent doesn’t care about them, or cares about a sibling more than them, and that’s frightening to kids. And often when kids are scared, what we see is oppositional behavior. So it’s one thing to have a kid crying and saying, “You don’t love me.” Parents can reassure a child who is crying and being upset. But for a child who is yelling at their parent ”You’re mean,” or “You don’t care about me”, it’s harder to understand hat’s coming from the same place. That’s coming from a place of fear. And what a child needs in those situations is empathy, understanding, and help.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And this may be helps explain a frustration or a question that a lot of parents have about: “I’ve got this child who manages conflict and gets along with everybody else outside the home and doesn’t have these issues in the classroom or with other peers, and then in the home, they’re constantly into it with their siblings.” This probably gets at some of that, right? Because they’re not navigating this sort of vying for attention from a parent figure in the same way outside the home.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Right. So at home, the stakes are higher. And then there’s also the piece that the children expend huge amounts of energy to get along in the world. Children try really hard to follow the rules and to be liked and to do the right thing, and they come home wiped out. So parents tend to see the worst of their kids often because they’re tired, and it’s important to have an understanding of that as well.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, I think that’s so true across the board on every level with kids, siblings or no siblings. Yeah, we kind of see their worst because they’re holding it together outside. So let’s get into some of the most common mistakes that you see parents making. And when I talk about mistakes in the realm of any topic, I always preface it by saying we’re all well-intentioned, right? We all have the best of intentions, but sometimes we handle things in a way that actually is not as helpful as it could be. So I’d love for you to share some of the common things that we’re doing in responding to sibling disagreements, squabbles arguments, that maybe aren’t that helpful, and what would be better for us to do.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Yeah. So I think that the two primary mistakes are kind of the polar opposites of one another. One is over-responding to sibling conflict. So jumping in, trying to referee, trying to solve the problem for kids, tell kids what to do. And the other is under-responding. Parents sometimes ignore sibling conflict in hopes that their kids are going to work it out, when really their kids don’t have the skills to work it out, and they need to be taught how to do that. So you’re looking for that sweet spot of recognizing when siblings are in conflict and stepping in. Not taking over, not telling one child what to do, not blaming one child, but teaching them how to express feelings, how to hear one another, and how to move towards win-win kinds of solutions; how to compromise and work things out.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And I suppose probably the way that we as individual parents respond to that, is probably rooted quite a bit in what our own experience was with how our parents managed that. I mean, I grew up as one of four, and I have memories of how my mom and my dad handled conflicts, and so that probably can sort of help give us some information about maybe why we’re approaching things in that way, because you’re right, there are some parents who are like, “Oh, don’t bother, work it out”, totally stay out of it. And then others who are right in the mix of it, and it can be hard to find that middle ground.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Yes, absolutely. But it is something that’s doable, and part of what we want to be teaching children is that they can learn to work things out, right? So it’s not just about kids — it’s not just that you either kind of fight for your position or you roll over and let your sibling have their way. That’s not the either/or proposition. You can teach kids how to assert themselves appropriately, how to negotiate or compromise with their siblings, how to let their siblings know when there’s something that they need from them; we want to teach kids those skills.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So in thinking about that middle ground, I know the question that a lot of people probably have is: What are some of the signs? When should I intervene? What should I sort of let go by the wayside? How do I know when I should put myself in the mix here?

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

So you certainly want to intervene if you see meanness in major ways. So kids calling one another names, putting down in major ways, being physically aggressive, because I think it’s important for parents to make very, very clear that there’s a family ethos. There’s a family set of values, and a part of that is we don’t hurt one another on purpose. And so when parents see that hurting on purpose happening, it’s a sign that they need to step in and they need to help their kids. Not punish their kids, but help their kids learn how to deal with their own feelings and be kinder to one another. And then I also think that if there’s the same problem that happens over and over again — so there’s always conflict about who gets to sit where in the car, or who gets to have control over devices, or who gets to go first. So repeated conflict is a sign that parents need to step in and help their kids learn how to negotiate something about those kinds of things.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That’s helpful because I think so many people are nodding their heads, going “Wow. It’s like you know kids. Yeah, there are those repeated things, and that’s what I say to parents too. It’s like, okay, let’s get proactive about handling these things in a different way, especially if you can anticipate getting in the car, like “I get to sit in this seat”, or “I get to do this!”, that there’s a way of approaching that even more proactively, perhaps beforehand than constantly sort of living that over and over every time you get in the car.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Right. And so some of that can be handled by family rules, but again, for kids that are about six years old and up, we want to begin to teach them how to do this. So kids can be taught how to compromise with your sibling, or how to come up with a contract where you have an agreement that this is how we’re going to handle things. We’re going to have an agreement about when there’s a friend over. How long can the sibling be involved, and how can we have some private time with our friend? So kids can be taught to kind of work those things out in advance with one another.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, I think those proactive strategies are so helpful, not only for reducing stress in the moment, but also as you’re talking about, for teaching kids valuable skills, because I always looked at it like these things that I was working on with my kids with each other were so generalizable then to other types of conflict resolution to relationships with their peers, with their future employers. Like this is really laying the groundwork with these skills that our kids need in lots of ways in life.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Right, absolutely. So kids need to learn how to recognize feelings, both their own and other people’s, how to calm themselves when they’re feeling upset, and how to articulate what it is that they need. So yeah, these are definitely life skills that can be applied way beyond the family.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So for a parent who is listening to this and realizing, “oh, I tend to insert myself, maybe even almost before there is a problem, I’m constantly stepping in and micromanaging and directing.” I’d love for you to maybe walk through an example or just give some ideas of how a parent like that could perhaps approach common sibling arguments, disagreements and fights in a different way.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

So kids do well when there’s a set of steps that they can learn how to follow, and they ultimately then internalize those steps. And so one of the things that a parent can do is kind of model the steps or walk their kids through them, and to do that over and over again until there’s evidence that the kids are starting to internalize them. So an example of that might be: Two kids are arguing, parents might step in and initially just sort of label what it is that they’re hearing, you know? “Wow. I hear some loud voices. It sounds like you guys are disagreeing.” So you’re starting out by just defining the problem. You’re not jumping in and telling them to stop it or saying what one of them should do. You’re just identifying: There are loud voices. It sounds like there’s a problem here, and then parents can teach the kids to each say what’s going on for them, and parents are sort of modeling and coaching their kids to listen. So a parent can be repeating, “So it sounds like you are saying X”, or “So, it sounds like you are feeling Y.” So there’s labeling the problem, expressing your own point of view about it, and then parents can say, “This sounds like a tough situation. Let’s think about what the choices might be”, and to guide kids into doing some brainstorming about possibilities, and to understand and think about the implications. So, if a child makes a suggestion, a parent might say something like, “That sounds like it would work for you. How would that be for your sister?”, and helping kids to understand that they’re aiming for a win-win. This isn’t about who is the winner and who is the loser. This is about coming up with something that we can all live with. So it might feel laborious to do that, but it’s worth it because you’re teaching kids how to do this. You’re teaching a set of skills that they can begin to then do on their own.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Which is time well-invested, because even though it may feel laborious at the time, you think about how much time, energy, and emotion over the years we put into the constant conflict and navigating that. If we can put the effort in to teach some of these ways of communicating and working these things through, it actually ends up saving us time and a lot of stress in the big picture, I think.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Right. And we want to teach kids what it means to compromise. So compromising isn’t just giving in. Compromise means that two people want two different things and everybody is going to get some of what they want, but no one’s going to get exactly what they want, and everyone is going to be okay with it in the end. And so we want kids to learn how to let go of that idea that “It has to be totally my way, and anything else, I’m losing” or “Anything else isn’t fair”, and to learn instead that there’s a different way to do things, there’s a better way to do things. And let’s talk about fairness for just a moment.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yes. I definitely want you to get into that because you talk about this in the book and it’s like, oh, this is so good.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Yeah. So anyone who has more than one child knows that fairness is a major, major issue, and kids are often accusing parents of being unfair. One of the things I think that’s important to do is to make a distinction between fair and equal, and when kids say that something is unfair, what they really mean is that it’s unequal. And often, they’re right, and that’s okay. And parents really do best to just acknowledge that. “You’re right. It isn’t the same.” And rather than parents trying to get their children to see that it is somehow fair or it is somehow equal, just acknowledging: “You’re right. It’s not the same.” Letting kids have their feelings about that, learning how to just tolerate a feeling is a really important thing to teach kids how to do. So how to tolerate feeling jealous or frustrated or angry, and to have parents remain empathic and supportive through those difficult feelings without trying to fix them or without trying to make the feeling go away. And then to teach kids to think about “Okay, this thing isn’t equal, but let’s think about what you actually need in this situation, and let’s focus on what the needs are because you’re two different people.”

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I think this is such a critical concept, especially when there is a child, maybe who’s very young. I see this come up when there’s maybe a baby, a toddler, or preschooler, and a child who’s much older, but also when there’s a child with significant, special needs in the family. This comes up all the time: “It’s not fair. It’s not fair”, and then saying that right, it’s not equal. It’s not the same, but everyone in this family gets what they need, and to focus on that, because inherently for all of you who are parenting one or more kids with special needs, with unique challenges, it isn’t going to be equal a lot of the time, and it’s not going to feel fair to your other child or your other children. And I think exactly, as you’re saying, Dawn, acknowledging that and letting them have their feelings and talking about that is really critical.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Yeah, and I think it’s tremendously healing for a child to have a parent say, “I’m trying hard to understand what you need, and what I’m giving you and your sibling, or what I’m doing is not equal, but help me understand what you need right now.” And a child might say, “I need to have some one-on-one time with you,” or “I need to have you pay attention to me”, or whatever it is. And then as a parent, you want to try really hard to hear that, and to do at least some piece of that. What we don’t want to do is to discount what our children are feeling. To just say, “Well, I’m doing the best that I can”, or “Well, your sibling needs more”. We don’t want to discount feelings.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I think we get triggered by that, right? When a kid says “This is so unfair!”, or whatever, and then it triggers guilt in us, and then out of that, we respond by trying to argue with them or get them to agree that it’s not, and as you said, that’s just a losing proposition all the way around.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Yeah, that’s not going to feel good for anybody.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

No. Talk to, for a minute, the parent on the other side of that. We sort of talked about a different way to handle it for the parent that always jumps in and over inserts. Talk to the parent for a minute, who’s like, “Look, my parents never got in the middle of anything. They just told us to work it out. I remember getting beat up by my brother” or whatever it may be, and “I don’t get involved in any of it.” Talk to that parent for a moment about why it might be helpful to think about that in a bit of a different way.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Well again, it’s about kids needing help learning how to manage feelings and difficult situations. And some subset of kids will eventually figure that out for themselves, but others won’t, and others will come away feeling “I deserve to be mistreated” or “I’m never going to be heard within a relationship.” Kids are getting important life lessons from the way they’re treated within their family. We want to make sure that those lessons are the lessons we want them to have. And there are also sometimes power imbalances within a family. So a younger child, or a child with disabilities needs some additional support because they’re not capable of standing up for themselves or dealing with the abuse that a sibling might toss their way. There’s a difference between teasing and bullying within a family, just as there is in any social group, and parents really shouldn’t put up with bullying at home. So bullying is when there’s a power imbalance and there’s repeated meanness that’s happening, and that’s not something that parents should turn their backs on. That’s something that does need to be addressed.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah. Sometimes through specific types of therapy or other things for the child who’s doing that because that’s a signal of unmet needs on their end or undeveloped skills there. Sometimes we need to bring in some professional support to help us teach the skills and navigate those things, and you make that point in the book too.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Yes.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I’m going to ask about something that I think comes up inevitably when there’s more than one kid in the family, especially at those elementary ages: Talk to us about tattling and your thoughts on tattling. What’s going on there, and what is an effective way? What boundaries do we set around that? Because I think tattling can become the bane of a parent’s existence when their kids are at a certain developmental stage, but how do we deal with that?

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Yeah. So I make a distinction between tattling and telling. The difference is the intent, right? So tattling is that you’re trying to get your sibling in trouble. That’s the point of tattling. Telling is you’re looking for help. Telling is totally okay. Tattling is not. So even young kids, four year-olds, and five year-olds can be taught that distinction. So you would say “You can come tell me when you need help, when something’s happening and it’s scary or it’s dangerous, or you don’t know what to do, you can always come tell me, and I will help you. But tattling, when you’re just trying to get your brother or sister in trouble, that’s not okay.” So you make that distinction initially, and then if a child comes to you saying, “He’s doing this, or she’s doing that”: The first thing a parent can say is, “Are you telling or tattling?”, and kids who have been taught that distinction will really quickly say “I’m telling”, because they know that tattling is not okay, and then a parent can say “Great. Let’s figure out what you can do.” So a parent can then provide the help to the child who has come to them. So they can help problem-solve. They can say, “Let’s think about what your choices are. Let’s think about how you want to handle that.” Or if there is harm going on, then the parent can step in more actively. But that’s a really effective way making that distinction between telling and tattling, to help to nip the tattling in the bud.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Oh, I love that. So good. Really does put the ball in their court then, “Oh, I actually am tattling, and this ended up being a lot of work to have this conversation, and next time I’m going to think about whether I’m actually telling or tattling” That’s great. I want us to touch on — You gave a really lovely example a few minutes ago about sort of coaching kids through “Yeah, I’m going to come and put myself in the mix here”, but from the standpoint of a coach, as opposed to directing what’s going on,  and how to help kids hear each other and communicate and compromise. I’m wondering about situations where maybe emotions have escalated to the point where one or both of the kids is not really in their thinking, sort of rational mode at that moment. Is your recommendation that parents sort of read that scenario and say, “Okay, we’re going to take a break from each other for a few minutes”, like “we’re going to get everybody back into a more regulated state and then we’re going to sort of navigate or work through this”, or how do you suggest that parents deal with something like that?

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Yes. I think this is a really important point. So again, starting with kids who are pretty young, maybe five years old, parents can talk about the thinking brain. “We solve problems when we’re in our thinking brain. And there are times that our feeling brain takes over and that’s okay. That happens for all of us, but when our feeling brain has taken over, we need to calm it down so we can get back to our thinking brain.” And then when kids are yelling or when kids are clearly not in their thinking brain, parents do need to do some things that help their kids get back to their thinking brain. And it might be, “We’re gonna take a break.” It might be, “We’re going to all breathe together for a few minutes”, it might be that we’re going to go outside and run around the house a couple of times, it might be everyone’s going to go off to their room briefly. So in some ways you’re going to do a calm down and it’s not punitive. So it’s not, “Go to your room until you can be more reasonable about this!” It’s important that it not be punitive. And often, young kids need help getting back to their thinking brain, but the important piece is that you’re not trying to address the problem. You’re not reasoning with your child or trying to explain things or use logic. You’re not addressing the problem until they’re back in their thinking brain. One of the phrases that I recommend parents use is “We’ll talk about this when you’re using your regular voice”, and regular voice is a really good behavioral cue that kids can work towards achieving, which helps to calm them down. It’s different from saying “Calm down”, which is irritating to all of us, but to say, “We’ll talk about this when you’re using your regular voice,” or “I’ll be able to help you when you’re using your regular voice” is an effective thing to do. And it’s definitely the case that for you, as a parent, you don’t want to talk to a part of your child’s brain that is not accessible. So when they’ve been hijacked by their feeling brain, you can’t talk to their thinking brain because it’s offline and you have to help them back to the thinking brain first.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And I think that’s the thing that comes up when I will have parents say to me, “Well, I’ve tried doing these things and it doesn’t work”, where I see the issue being a lot of the time is they are trying to get into some of these strategies in the heat of the moment when the child isn’t able to access that thinking brain. So I’m glad that you touched on that. As we’re wrapping up, I want to highlight — so you’ve got this great book, “The Sibling Survival Guide” that you’ve written. It’s wonderful, it’s got great illustrations. I know we have a lot of parent listeners interested in getting this and using it with their kids. Can you just give a little advice on what you think is the best way to approach this with kids? Is this something that you encourage parents and kids to read together? Is there an age of child where you encourage a parent to just give it to their kid? How do you envision this book best being used?

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

So the book is geared towards 9 to 12-year-olds, and it’s going to be most effective if a parent and child are either reading it together or reading it separately, but talking about it. To just hand it to a child and ask them to read it isn’t really going to do very much. But the book was made in a way that kids can draw or write — either write in the book, or parents can download pages from my publisher’s website to do the drawing and writing apart from the book, but that allows them to customize it for their very own situation, and encouraging kids to actually do those drawing and writing pieces and then talking together about them would be great. So there’s a note to parents and caregivers that describes a little more about how to use the book, and then you either read it literally with your child, like out loud together, or you would have your child read a couple of chapters, and you as parents read a couple of chapters, and then you talk about them together. And kids need help figuring out how to implement this, so the book makes suggestions about how to implement it, but that’s the place that parents really need to be reinforcing, using some of the language in the book and helping kids to recognize when it might make sense to apply one of the skills from the book.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah. Excellent. It’s great. Such a wonderful resource because, as you said at the outset of our conversation, there really is not a lot written and available for kids themselves to help them understand what’s going on and give them some tools, so I think this really meets an important need. I want to make sure that people know where they can find out more about you, your work, and where they can get the book?

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

So the best place to find me is at my website, which is just dawnhuebnerphd.com. I also have a Facebook presence and if you put my name into Facebook, it’ll come up. I post weekly tips for parents that are just pragmatic little nuggets of information. So those are the two best places to find me.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah. And we will put all of those links in the show notes so you can easily access those, and the book is available wherever books are sold. So I highly recommend that you check out The Sibling Survival Guide, and also, while you are on whatever website you’re purchasing from or whatever bookstore, you’re going to make sure that you also take a look at the other books that Dawn has written: “What To Do When You Worry Too Much”, and “Outsmarting Worry” are two well-used books, not only in our clinic, but so many other places. All of the guides and the things that Dawn has put together are wonderful, and so I highly encourage you, not only to get this newest book about siblings, but also to see what else she has available because it’s really great. And I really appreciate you taking the time to spend with us to go through these so many great practical takeaways. I know that the audience is excited about that. So thank you for your time today.

Dr. Dawn Huebner:

Thank you. It was my pleasure.

 Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And thanks, as always, to all of you for listening. We will catch you back here next time for our next episode of The Better Behavior Show.