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When Jenny, our second child was born she was particularly delightful. The first year or so of her life it seemed she was always happy, she rarely fussed and was so appreciative of the attention she was shown. In fact, one time a friend of ours who is a seminary professor commented, “She doesn’t have a sin nature!” She still is a delight to us, but years later I can assure you that our girl definitely has a sin nature! This became particularly evident when her baby sister Briana was born.

Like all children this precious little started to display a certain omnipotent fantasy that if verbalized might sound something like: “I am the center of the universe. I can have what I want when I want it!” I remember noticing this when Jenny was four and Briana was just one-and-a-half. Those two really went at it! When Briana asked to be pushed on the swing Jenny would run over and jump in the swing first. If Briana started playing with Jenny’s favorite doll then Jenny would snatch it out of her hands even if she was playing with something else at the time. Or sometimes at dinner when Jenny saw her little sister being fed she’d stop feeding herself and insist on being fed too! If you’re a parent then you know what I’m talking about. You can’t have more than one child without also having sibling rivalry. The question is, How do we parents deal with sibling rivalry?

Coach, Don’t Referee
When it comes to sibling rivalry the most important thing to remember is that you need to be patient and realize that you can’t extinguish sibling rivalry and if you try you’re going to have a worse problem on your hands! Parents who try too hard to control sibling rivalry become referees, repeatedly being called upon to settle small squabbles. This is exhausting for the parent and the children don’t learn how to resolve conflicts, set boundaries, or be assertive. More often than not, especially with older kids you need to let them resolve it themselves. (Unless somebody is being physically wounded or emotionally abused, in which case you need to step in to protect the one being violated and then discipline the other.) This is hard for most parents to do, isn’t it? We just want the noise to stop!

I remember when David, my oldest, was six and Jenny was four. It seemed like they enjoyed fighting - especially on the way to church! Of course, I didn’t like listening to them squabble and on some occasions I, or my wife, would give in to the temptation to get in there and resolve the situation to get some peace and quiet. But we learned that the more we did that the more our kids embroiled us in their disputes, trying to make us responsible for their problems. My other temptation at times like this was to just detach and tune them out, which in many cases is better than being a referee, but it still isn’t very helpful.

Instead when David and Jenny were arguing I’d try to say something like, “It sounds like you two are having a disagreement. Who can think of a good resolution?” Or if that didn’t work and they persisted in trying to make me responsible to settle their rather trivial dispute then I’d say something like, “You need to resolve this for yourselves.”
As a last resort, if the squabbling got out of control and turned into destructive arguing then I might say, “At times like this the two of you need to stop fighting about who is right and learn to agree to disagree. Now if I hear either of you argue this again then you’ll both be punished.” Or, the positive reinforcement version: “I have a reward for whoever will stop being mean and argumentative and instead be kind and respectful.”

Another way that parents get coaxed into refereeing their kids squabbles is when one child “tattles” on another. In this case, a child tries to get a sister or brother in trouble by complaining about the crime that was committed. Unless it’s a serious offense that’s being brought to your attention (like a physical injury, abusiveness, or danger) it’s best to not get hooked into the situation. I like to challenge my child that’s tattling, “I understand you’re upset, but you’re tattling. Instead, go back to your brother and tell him that you don’t like what he did.”

The key to each of these example of how to avoid playing referee is to not take sides and align with one child over the other (making one bad and one good), which is important since they’re both contributing to the fight. Instead of refereeing their conflict and solving their problem for them make each child take responsibility for his or her part in the conflict and then coach them on how they can resolve it. Sometimes the hardest part of this approach for us as parents is containing our feelings of anger and anxiety in the moment so that we don’t react. Obviously, when parents have an anger problem and are prone to losing their temper, being critical, or fighting then this will undermine the effectiveness of discipline. Calm patience and firm, loving persistence wins out in the end.

Set Boundaries, Don’t Cater
If you want to ignite sibling rivalry and conflict in your home then just cater to the child who makes the biggest fuss. Remember the story of how Jenny stole the swing from her one-and-a-half year old sister because she was envious? She wanted that swing and couldn’t stand to see her sister having fun on it so she tried to take it away from her! When I set the boundary and said no then she started screaming and fussing that she wanted to swing first. Even though Briana would’ve given into her bigger sister without too much of a problem (this was not true when Briana got a little older) I couldn’t let Jenny get away with this. I was tempted to though. For the moment, it certainly would’ve been easier to just look the other way; I would’ve saved myself from listening to about 20 minutes of whining, fussing, and moaning in the park. But it would’ve been a problem because it would’ve taught Jenny that if she wanted to bully her baby sister and get her own way then all she needed to do was to make a big enough fuss.

I was trying to teach Jenny not only the importance of fairness and learning to share, but also that she was responsible for her envious feelings. She couldn’t get away with physically bullying her baby sister and I wouldn’t give in to her tantrum no matter how miserable she tried to make me. She had to learn to manage her feelings and that if she’d be patient she’d get her turn to enjoy the swing too. And if she wanted to talk to me about feeling sad or angry or jealous toward her sister then I would listen with compassion. If she wanted to throw a tantrum and try to make everyone miserable with complaining or fussing then she’d need to go in time out until she was ready to talk about her feelings or at least have a better attitude while she played with her sister.

Encourage, Don’t force Sharing
As I illustrated above, sharing is an important value. Parents are wise to model, teach, encourage, and praise sharing in their children, but usually they’re best not to force their children to share. Parents who force sharing can exacerbate sibling rivalry by aligning with one child against another and confusing boundaries about ownership. For instance, if I forced Jenny to share her favorite dolly with her little sister then I’d be aligning with Briana against Jenny and I’d be violating Jenny’s boundaries and her sense of ownership of her “baby.” If as her parent I didn’t respect and affirm her boundaries now then she might be susceptible to having her boundaries violated later in life.

Now you might think, She has so other dollies she should share one with her sister. You don’t want her to be selfish! Well, you’re right. She should. And over time this is what I was trying to teach her. But I didn’t want to power up and force her to do what she should. (Often parents do this because they’re embarrassed for anyone to see their child act selfishly.) I didn’t want to teach sharing at the expense of respecting her boundaries and the principle of ownership. This is especially true because she was barely four years old and this special dolly was part of her identity, her sense of “self,” and a source of comfort to her. To take it away from her might feel like ripping her arm off! This was her doll and it was her decision whether or not to share it - not mine.

So if I don’t make her share her dolly how do I teach her to? I find it most helpful to talk to my kids about sharing being a virtue with benefits like having a friend or a sibling to play with and being able to play with their things sometimes too. One good way to impart this value is through reading your children books that illustrate sharing. One of our favorites is Rainbow Fish. The Rainbow Fish learns that to share his special, colorful scales with the other fish so that he won’t be lonely. Another thing that we did is to develop a little motto and we’d remind our kids of it from time to time: Sharing time is a happy time! In time children will learn to share if they’re given the freedom to decide whether or not they will share their things and at the same time they’re encouraged to share and taught the virtue and benefits of sharing.

Appreciate Differences, Don’t Compare
This is another tough one. When Briana was a newborn and Jenny was just two-and-a-half she wanted to be fed like her baby sister. Usually, we went ahead and fed her even though she could feed herself. We decided at the time that rather than teaching irresponsibility (we had plenty of other opportunities for that!) we were showing her we loved her too and there was still room for her to need us. But eventually it reached the point where even as a three year old Jenny wouldn’t eat unless we fed her! So we had to start saying no and teaching her to take care of herself in that way. Unfortunately, a few times we made the mistake of saying to her, “Jenny you’re not a baby like Briana is. You’re a big girl. You can feed yourself.” Ouch!

Fortunately, we caught ourselves and realized that we were comparing Jenny to her sister (and reminding her that her status as “baby of the family” was supplanted). Comparing siblings encourages competition and feelings of superiority or inferiority, neither of which represent positive self-esteem. Instead of comparing kids with each other it’s better to measure kids up against themselves. I learned to say to Jenny something like, “It sounds like you want Daddy to feed you like he used to. I enjoyed those times too. But you’re growing up now and you can learn to feed yourself. After you’re done eating you can sit in my lap and I’ll read you a story.”

Family Life
The Apostle Paul gave us some good instructions for parenting, “Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load.... as we have opportunity let us do good to all people.” (Galatians 6:4-5,10.) Raising children who carry their own load and do good to others isn’t easy. And dealing with sibling rivalry is one of the biggest challenges. Playing referee, catering to whining, forcing sharing, and comparing our children are easy mistakes to slip into. Sometimes we do these things in order to make life easier in the moment. In the long run though these approaches make family life more difficult because they exacerbate sibling rivalry and stress parents out. Stressed parents have short tempers, which in turn increases sibling rivalry. It’s a vicious circle.

Good family times are about good relationships. That’s why tempering sibling rivalry is so important. Our children will develop relationship skills when we do the hard work of coaching instead of refereeing, setting boundaries instead of catering, encouraging sharing without forcing it, and appreciating each child’s uniqueness without comparing. Disciplining our children and teaching them these values and skills takes a concerted effort year after year. And on those occasions when we catch our kids playing together nicely and looking so adorable and so loving it all seems worth it!