Episode 79: Coaching Sibling Squabbles
/I hope you learn a lot from the Challenging Behavior Series for the past two weeks. If you have any questions about this topic, please let me know! I would love to hear your thoughts, concerns, and your experiences.
Okay so, since last week's episode I have been getting quite a lot of questions from parents asking how they can approach sibling conflicts. SO many of you are wondering how to navigate bickering, hitting, jealousy, etc. And so, for this week's episode, I will be teaching you how to get out of the middle of your kids disagreements and start coaching THEM on solving their own problems.
Here is a summary of this episode.
Mindset shifts on how to view and approach conflict
Reframing arguments as a learning opportunity
Getting out of the middle and allowing them to take responsibility for their relationship
Teach your kids how to solve their problems collaboratively
If you want to have MORE support, I am so excited to announce an opportunity to learn all about Sibling Relationships with me LIVE! My dear friend and colleague Anna Seewald of The Authentic Parenting Podcast and I are collaborating to bring to you a comprehensive two part workshop designed to help you navigate the murky, sometimes turbulent waters of Sibling Relationships.
DETAILS:
October 21st & November 4th @ 11:00 AM Central
Replay available for those who can't attend live
10% discount for my BalancingU members (email me if you want to join before you register to get that discount!)
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TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts, and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hi everyone, this is Dr. Laura Froyen. So today I have been wanting to talk about siblings stuff and I taught a class at Uw Madison to parents on siblings and it was a lot, I tried to cover way too much in the one class. So I'm going to break it down into little bits today and over the course of the next few weeks and I, so I pulled my groups, the people who are in my online communities on Facebook to find out what their biggest struggles were. I also pulled people who follow my page and it seems as if one of the biggest struggles parents have at least in the groups that are following me or that I'm interacting with is around conflicts and specifically how children will triangulate or bring in a parent to solve the conflict for them.
And lots of parents are really interested in figuring out how to get kids to solve these problems themselves. And so that's what we're going to talk about today and I'm going to offer you some mindset shifts kind of reframes on how we view conflict that can change the way we feel as we enter into helping our children with them. And then some of my favorite strategies is for teaching this important life skill. And so I want to start out, one of the things that I worked with the most on parents really is a frame of mind shift. So often we view our children and their fights with a lens that's kind of cloudy.
It's like we have sunglasses on and we need to shift our lens and change the way that we view the conflict before we start trying to interact with the conflict. So I want to give you three major mindset changes today that can help transform how you see the conflict and how you interact with it. So the first one is that we need to start viewing our sibling interactions between our children and this applies to families that only have one child but engage in play dates or out of the park with other parents.
So this isn't just for kids, okay, but when we see children in their peer group or maybe even outside of their peer group interacting together, we have to understand that conflict is an inevitable part of life, disagreements, differing viewpoints, differences in desires or agendas and goals. Those things are part of human nature and they're going to happen. It's simply a part of being social animals. And so we need to start viewing conflict as a learning opportunity rather than something to avoid.
And this can be really difficult for parents who have grown up in conflict-avoidant homes. I grew up in a somewhat conflict avoid at home and that was really difficult for me as a person who really likes to be upfront and honest and authentic with my emotions and kind of bring things out into the open. I've kind of pulled my family kicking and screaming into being really direct with conflict and open and honest and vulnerable and compassionate, but it's not what's come naturally and I happen to have married a partner who grew up in a very conflict avoid at home and that means that when we see our children fighting, sometimes we get a little triggered because we think of conflict as being bad as something to avoid.
It makes your heart starts racing, our faces get flushed, we go in a little bit into fight, flight, or freeze mode. And the problem with that is is that the kids, if they're fighting, they might already be a little triggered and already be in a little bit of the survival brain mode, The brain that's working back here and they need us to be better regulated and so we need to calm ourselves down. Reframe these arguments as a learning opportunity as a wonderful, beautiful chance to practice a skill that they're going to need for the rest of their lives and start viewing it as an opportunity to teach them and to coach them and to support them and learning how to do this really cool life skill. So the other one is um, I want you to start projecting confidence and viewing your children as capable and able to handle these disagreements that they get into.
This is a part of human behavior that's always been there and it will always be there and we are designed to handle it well sure. We need skills that we need to learn, but we fully believe in the capability of children to learn all of the other schools that they need skills like walking and drawing, and writing with the right supports. You know, they learn those skills. It's the same for conflict. And so we just need to have lots of confidence in their capabilities and viewing them as capable and able to solve these problems on their own were kind of lending our confidence to them. And it kind of projecting that onto them, lets them feel confident in themselves and lets it feel like not like it so much of an emergency or so much of a bad thing. And so that sense of confidence can be really important. Okay.
And then the other big mindset shift that I want to offer you today is to recognize that when children are in a conflict or disagreement, particularly when one child has hurt, the other child may be hitting or taking toys. Maybe one is crying. We have to recognize that in that moment both children are hurting and that both children have unmet needs. It can be really, really easy to take a side in these disagreements to see one child as the victim and one child as the aggressor. And it's really important that we approach these conflicts from a place. Uh, the therapeutic terms, I'm a therapist by training, the therapeutic term is called multi-directed partiality.
And the, basically the simple way of saying that is that we're able to hold space for both realities. Both children, both children are allowed to be hurt and have needs that aren't being met in that moment, even when their conflict when those needs are at odds with each other. And so it's really important to start seeing your children not as victims, not as aggressors, but as individuals with individual hurts and individual needs and those moments and approach the situation from that place. And so that plays into one of the tips that I have that I'll share with you in just a minute. I want to make sure that we are super clear on these shifts.
So viewing conflict as a learning opportunity, projecting confidence that your child is capable of handling these conflicts with grace and compassion most of the time with support and learning new skills and then also recognize that both children are probably having a hard time in this moment, that one is not the victim and one is not the aggressor, that there's probably kind of moving out of that framework and seeing both children as having unique needs that need support in those moments. So now moving on to my tips for coaching, so one of the biggest things you can do and my first step in intervening in a conflict that's heating up well, the first thing you want to do is make sure everybody's safe.
There is physical boundaries set in terms of keeping people physically safe, so move over, get close to them with calm, kind of a calm, assured pace. Again, this is the projecting confidence like you know, that they're not going to really, really seriously injure each other and get to a place where you are able to be present with them and intervene if things get physical okay, so, getting close connecting with them first and then start describing or sportscasting what you see. So say what you see, notice what you are, what's happening, and say it without judgment or blame. So something like let's say they're fighting over a toy, you can say I see both kids are holding on to one end of the toy, jenny really wants it and so does Maggie, you're both holding on really hard. Maggie is saying, mine jenny is saying no, I had it first.
So you start sportscasting and for sometimes for older children, the fact that you've noticed and that you start kind of bringing the conflict out into the open is enough and they can start building on the skills you've already offered them to start negotiating the conflict themselves for younger kids, they'll probably start talking to you and you can continue to narrate and empathize and validate. So this next tip is to not take sides to really get good at this idea of multi directed partiality, that's a big term and we can maybe dig into that term and another time but really what it means is not taking sides and holding space for both kids, reality is being empathetic and validating both kids perspectives at the same time and it can be tricky, this is a skill that you need to learn to do.
But being able to say you really wanted that toy, you are not done playing with it and then being able to turn it around to the other one and validate their feelings of and you really wanted it? You saw it, You feel like you saw it first and you feel like you should have a turn with it, you know, and going back and forth and holding space for both of them, getting them both able to express their feelings and be heard and seen in those feelings without invalidating the other one. And this is something that you have to practice.
So doing some role-playing with your partner can be really good and fun to do over you know, dinner after the kids are in bed and the other tip I want you to do is thinking about this from a skills perspective, we want to start scaffolding these interactions. Scaffolding is a term that comes from Big Lebowski who's a child development theorist. And the basic idea is that for young children, you provide a framework for how to have an interaction and you slowly remove supports as they get more and more skilled and need less and less intervention. You wanna scaffold these interactions in a very intentional way.
So older children will need less of your intervention and help and younger children will need more direct intervention. So when let's say somebody has grabbed a toy, you can, can intervene and have them validate that they would really like a turn with the toy, the other one isn't done and then help them come up with the term, what would you like to use it next You would okay tell her I would like to turn when you're finished, when will you be done? And then if the sister says something like I'm never going to be done, I'm not going to be done until you know we go to bed then you can validate. Okay, so it sounds like you really want a long term with this toy, you're not going to be done for a long time, is that right? Yes, I need a long-term. And so you kind of go back and forth, you become the mediator, like a legal mediator, and help them see each other side point of view. You hold space for each of their desires, but you kind of really scaffold this interaction, and then as they get more and more skilled you pull back.
So in doing this with my own children, I have just turned three years old and a 5.5 years old when we started really specifically attending to scaffolding this, these interactions with them. She was about to, my youngest was about to so we've been doing this for about a year with really like focused attention and now the intervention that we need during their conflicts is to be able to say come in sportscasts, what's going on um I see you two are both want to play with this, talk to each other, I'm confident you can work it out and then they start negotiating and they become really good negotiators with each other and sometimes when we step out of it and don't make all of the suggestions for all of the solutions, they can come up with solutions that are really, really interesting and creative that grown-ups would never have thought of.
So as much as I'm talking about intervening, the goal with your intervening is to teach them skills so that you intervene less and less and they start getting creative and problem solving together. They just need the skills and the words to do it. Let's see Kayla says, I'm pretty good in everyday recognition of each kid’s need how would you recoup from emergency reaction? Like no, don't step on his head as I walk over quickly. Like if somebody is in actual danger, you do have to move quickly, you stop their bodies. And then I would take a minute to and I would actually say out loud, everyone's safe And with, with any child, if I see them attempting to hurt their sibling, I usually use the words I'm going to help you stop yourself. I know in their heart of hearts deep down, no matter how angry they are, they really don't want to hurt their sibling.
All right there in fight, flight, or freeze mode and if they're hitting their literally fighting and that is a triggered, impulsive reaction that they don't have the skills to stop themselves. And so I hand them that language that I'm going to help you stop yourself, recognizing their intentions toward their sibling are good that they don't want to hurt their sibling. I will sometimes even say, I know you don't really want to hurt Evie, my oldest is the one who does more of the hitting. I know you really don't want to hurt Evie. I'm gonna help you stop yourself. No, I can't let you hear her. I know you're very angry right now and then you say you coach them in verbalizing and recognizing their needs.
So with my, my older one who is like at the age that yours is now Kayla I think is your older 14, my oldest was about three, we went through a phase where she would be, start hitting or pushing seemingly out of nowhere and well, of course, couldn't let that happen, but we started to recognize that she would do that when she hadn't had enough one on one attention with one of us. And so in those moments, we coached her to recognize that need and to ask for the need to be met in a way that was socially acceptable. So she was asking for one on one time by hitting or pushing her sister and instead we taught her, you know when you start getting pushing with heavy, that tells us you need some alone time and we're happy to have alone time with you.
So if you start feeling like you want to push or hit, just say I need mommy alone time or I need daddy alone time and we will whisk you away and we'll have a nice playtime together. And what's amazing about giving her that language, we would see it happen, we would see her go to start pushing or right hand back to hit, stop ourselves and say, I feel like hitting, I need some mommy alone time and we would just come together and kind of get her to the alone time that she needed. And so I think sometimes we don't bring that out into the open enough with our kids and bring our thought process because they're not as capable of thinking those things through in their heads. They don't have the cognitive ability to do it, They need to do it out loud and so bringing that out loud, that regulatory process of I need to stop myself and I need help stopping myself. It needs to be more tangible for these younger kids.
They aren't as able to do it inside their own heads, yet giving them the language, you know, helping them recognize their own cues and then helping them engage in those regulatory behaviors to stop themselves. I think it's really important. I hope that helps it's so wonderful to help our children take ownership over their relationships and conveying that we have confidence that this is something they can do is so lovely and I feel so proud of my kids and I see them start to do this and you know, now we're at the point where when they start saying, mommy, mommy, somebody did this or daddy, daddy, somebody did this, we're able to say, oh this happened, what can you do? And they work it out together and but it takes effort, it takes a concerted.
Like I said, we've been spending like an intentional amount of time for a year in coaching them in these skills. And so it's not gonna happen overnight, but teaching them a few phrases, helping them, supporting them scaffolding those interactions, and then slowly withdrawing your support just to see where they are. And then you can always come back in and offer more support during times when maybe they have less self-regulation abilities, they're tired, they're hungry. We all get angry. Sometimes it's recognizing that they might need more support at different times. Let's see Lora Mae walker, I'm having difficulty with an 11-month-old and a 27-month-old baby follows the toddler around everywhere and just wants to take everything from the toddler.
Okay, So that's super normal because your 11-month-old is learning from the 27-month-old and the older sibling is the most attractive learning partner for your younger one where social learners by nature, that's the way that we're, we learn the best as humans, as primates, particularly from the fellow young And so, um, your 11-month-old is biologically driven to learn from your 27th month old and it's very natural and normal that you're 27 month old would be super annoyed by that. She says toddler doesn't appreciate it at all.
No, I can understand why that would be super annoying. The best thing you can do is to have coached your toddler, make sure that your toddler you're older, toddler has a space that's just there's 27 months old, don't need a big space. So it can be a small space. And my kids for those ages, we had to play. He always says it's baby's napping. Of course he does. Oh man, being a big sibling is hard and you can validate to him. Like man, being a big brother is rough sometimes and the fact that maybe he misses one on one time with your time alone with you, where he doesn't have to compete for attention. But those are hard things. But making sure he has some quiet, some space where he can play with his things alone would be really great where the baby can be gated out and coaching him to again recognize like I'm getting tired of my brother following me around.
I need to go to my alone space and you give him a name for it and give him that space there. You can get really creative and even in small, I don't know what your living situation is, but I work with a lot of families who are in student housing. So the graduate students, I mean they're in very small apartments, but we figure out ways to get those older siblings. Even in like two-bedroom apartments, we help them get their own space, even if it's just like a little pop-up tent that the little one isn't allowed in. And then you firmly defend that boundary, that child's boundary. And then you can also talk to your younger one. You can validate that they want to learn from their brother that they want to play.
You know, that their brother’s toys are really fascinating. But I can't let you, I'm going to stop you from following your brother. He doesn't want to be followed right now. He's not ready to play. He wants to play on his own. So when they're younger, like you have two very young children, you have to be more intervening. But you can set the stage right now and you can also give that 27-month-old, the language to use with his brother to be. So be able to say to your brother, tell your brother that you don't want to be followed. I want alone time. Tell your brother, I want alone time and you can really coach those things with them.
Heather says I have a closet that my six-year-old can go play in with his legos. Great. See a closet. Perfect. They don't need a lot of states. They love little caves and hideout. That's the thing that they love. So good thinking how they're nice job. So I made a meditation album. It's a quick five minutes meditation, a self-compassion-based meditation. And the idea is that you can use it with your family. And so I'm bringing it up within the context of this discussion because it's another tool for your family toolbox for moments where maybe you've had a day where everybody is just getting on everybody else's nerves.
Some days like the flow and harmony and the family is just awesome. But some things are really rough and I made this meditation to help shift the mood shift the energy of the house. And so I wanted to offer this tool, I'll put a link to it where you can go and download it. But I just wanted to offer that out there and let you know that this is something that I use with my kids to shift the mood. And it's also something you can do on your own as a daily practice. And what research shows us is that meditation has the ability to shape and rewire our brain so that we are able to be less reactive and respond with more intention in the moment and it can also really calm our nervous systems.
So let's see, respectful parent-connected kids say, I love that you mentioned that sometimes kids just don't have the social capital to solve their squabbles. I see that with mine all the time and sometimes forget to have extra patients and compassion with for that it's so true. You know, sometimes they just have more ability is and sometimes their dreams like at the end of the day, I think that most families that I worked with mentioned at the end of the school day when they come home from school or daycare is the hardest time. Parents, energies are strapped, kids are done in its rough and so offering compassion to each other in those moments can be really great. Actually, I have a couple of families who have been using this, this meditation that I'm going to link to, they use it as their connection ritual for when they enter the house.
So they come in, they all sit down on the couch, they play this meditation, it's only five minutes long and it helps center them and helps them move into their time together as a family with intention and with compassion and with gratitude for their family members and they have a much more relaxed enjoyable evening. So that's one way you can use it to bring more compassion and more gratitude into your family with kind of using it as a ritual has really nice. So I'm going to put that link to the meditation on. I hope that you'll download it and share it if you think you have friends who would be interested and it's but yeah, it was so nice to get to see you guys. I love the interaction we had going today.
Love helping you out with all of these things. Let's see, Laura says, my nine-year-old never acknowledges when he's heard the seven-year-olds feelings that can be so hard, wow, you have a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old to you are busy mama and a blessed mama. Right? So the nine-year-old, I am guessing has some feelings of guilt and shame around having her through sibling and I don't know that necessarily have to force apologies or force recognizing and another nine-year-old. Okay, so maybe google like you know why we don't need to force apologies but and maybe google also restorative justice.
So one of the things that they, self-compassion meditation does, it teaches people to be forgiving and loving to themselves first because you can't offer forgiveness to someone you love without first offering it to yourself because it just won't be heartfelt. It won't be as fulfilling as it would be. So, the meditation might help a nine-year-old can be really good at those things, especially if there may be learning it in school are much. Apparently, lots of nine-year-olds are these days. I don't know that I'd worry too much because I would imagine if they're refusing to say they're sorry that they probably are quite sorry and they will offer an apology or recognition in some other subtle way.
Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from.
And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out um, and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family, and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.
All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this.