Sibling rivalry is rife in every family but can sometimes escalate when there is a lack of understanding about others’ thoughts, feelings and ways of processing information.
Children rely on their parents and other trusted adults to provide the guidance and knowledge of a developed frontal lobe to get through childhood and navigate tricky situations. The safety of the home can be the best place to learn new skills and negotiations that can translate into the playground, classroom and other social situations.
So, what can we do to help create understanding and empathy between siblings of any age.
Create a Talk It Out Space.
Active listening can take a lifetime to master, but it is one of the most important skills in building empathy, compassion and strong sibling relationships. Begin to master your skills by building a Talk It Out corner.
This is based on the therapy program Lego Mates so you may already be familiar with this method.
First build your talk it out space:
- Draw and cut out a set of lips and an ear separately. We have a template on the website if you need one.
- Tape each to an icy pole stick (or something similar).
- Find a place in your home, or teachers may want to do this in the classroom, to make your Talk It out corner. Leave your lips and ear in this area.
- The Talk It Out corner is used when you have a disagreement or conflict with someone. Both people involved calmly come to the spot and start by holding either the lips or ear.
- The person with the lips speaks first for up to two minutes. This person can talk about their side of the story and how they feel. The person with the ear listens without interruption.
- After two minutes, switch. Now, the person with the lips has a chance to respond; the one with the ear listens.
- Repeat as necessary.
Celebrate the fun stuff
No sibling relationship is always bad, you have some great times with your siblings but sometimes, in the heat of the moment, you can forget the fun times. As a family, take a trip down memory lane. This is often a great exercise to do around the dinner table or over dessert.
Think of some good times you have had and write a short sentence about how great they made you feel at the time.
The important thing here is to stay on task and make sure you don’t drift back into negative territory.
Keep a copy of this list somewhere you can easily grab it when needed.
Strength spotting
Grab some Post-It Notes and coloured pens.
Then, think about one of your siblings and how you’ve seen them use their strengths recently. Maybe they worked really hard to achieve one of their goals, maybe they managed something that you know is really difficult for them.
Write out how they used their strengths on some Post-it Notes. Examples: “The way you spoke to the neighbours was so brave,” or “You were so kind when you helped me with my homework!”
You might even choose to stick them on their door for them to see when they get home. Imagine how that would feel, especially if you’d had a bad day.
Nurture each others interests
Often we can feel that we don’t belong within the family unit because our interests are different from our siblings.
Whilst you may not like sport or books or music, these things may be important to your sibling.
Try to show some support by asking questions, watching a show together that you normally wouldn’t, or even watch them participating in an activity and give some positive feedback.
Learn how each other’s brain works.
Finally, it is important to learn how each member of the families brain works. Sibling rivalry can often stem from misunderstanding about why each person may have “different rules” or expectations.
The best way to overcome this is to understand each other and the way we learn, process information and requests.
It was this point that contributed to the creation of The Brain Sanctuary Family Journal as Founder, Nicola Dore found it difficult to find a resource to assist with this understanding and empathy.