Anna Part 1 of 2: When Sibling Rivalry Upsets The Parent More Than The Kids

Sibling rivalry seems like your kid’s problem. But for most parents its not easy to tolerate all that bickering and figuring out when to step in can be confusing.  In today’s session, you meet Anna, a mother of three children, 8, 5, 2 who learns that what she is doing is actually making the sibling rivalry worse. She and her husband emigrated from Ukraine in their twenties but brought with them their own experiences of growing up.  Learning a bit about her history brings light to her current situation. And you may be surprised by the coaching that Leslie offers Anna to improve the sibling rivalry which includes some basic strategies based in behaviorism.

Time Stamps

5:29 Context is important when understanding or assessing a problem such as sibling rivalry

8:20 Noticing that people’s recovery time vary from person to person

10:00 Parents often ask “what can I do to stop the fighting”

11:25 Sibling rivalry is natural and a way to learn social skills

11:48 Behaviorism - jumping in reinforces the fighting behavior which causes it to escalate

• 13:28 Reinforce the behavior that you want more of
• 14:00 Nonverbally (Physically) support one child while talking to the other child

18:03 What happens when your best intentions makes things worse and doesn’t get you what you want

18:55 When Leslie sounds like terrible, horrible, no good parent

20:28 Can we give our kids a chance solve their own problems

21:08 We rob our children from so much learning when we jump in to fix it 

21:58 How to help parents sit with their own discomfort or anxiety  

• Announce the change in your parenting behavior to your children

23:15 Explaining an extinction burst 

24:20 ⅓ ⅓ ⅓ rule for sibling rivalry

• ⅓ = Do nothing, let them work it out on their their
• ⅓ = We can help them with conflict resolution
• ⅓ = We can notice what is happening or ending it without discussing it

25:20  A family is a system of belonging - sibling rivalry can be about individuation

30:20  Reinforcing your child to feel special is different from praise. 

34:07 Parents need to believe that they can love each of their children differently

35:02 The metaphor of the orchestra for treating their children differently

36:16 Balance the needs of your child, balance the independence and the dependence

36:55 Looking at the parents self care practices

38:36 Description of how empathy is a critical step of conflict resolution with a 

43:10 Empathy and being understood by the other person can be transformative.

43:40 Escalating emotions, getting louder or getting defensive may reflect that someone feels invalidated.

44:23  CLIFF HANGER;  Leslie doesn’t share the other steps of conflict resolution - only the step of empathy

Resources:  

Leslie’s Handout on The Need to Feel a Sense of Belonging

Leslie ‘s Handout on The Need to be significant 

Punishment by Rewards by Alfie Kohn

Leslie-ism: Practice empathy in your own conflicts

For a full transcript of this episode and more information about the host visit https://lesliecohenrubury.com/podcasts/ . You can also follow Leslie’s work on Facebook,  Instagram, TikTok and YouTube