Helping siblings get along

I am the second-oldest child in a family of six kids. When I tell people this, I’m sometimes met with shock. Often, it’s the delighted kind (Oh, how fun!). Sometimes, the bewildered kind (Wow, I can’t even imagine!). Occasionally, the mildly horrified kind (Oh, your poor parents!).

People are sometimes equally shocked to find that all six of us get along great. Not only do we love each other, but we also genuinely like each other. We enjoy spending time together. We recently went on a week-long family vacation—15 of us in total between siblings, parents, significant others, and kids—and it was, simply, the best.1

Now as a parent myself, I’ve wondered how to encourage this type of relationship in my own kids. I thought my soon-to-be 3-year-old was adjusting well to having a younger sibling, until recently, he learned that his baby brother would soon be turning one. Almost time for your brother to turn one year old! We said. Almost time for him to go back in mom’s belly! he replied, a bit too hopefully.2

So, how can we encourage positive relationships between our kids?

The good news is that there is research on this! Studies have identified many of the “essential ingredients” for healthy sibling relationships. These skills can be taught, and have been tested in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with kids ages 4-8 (though many apply to children of any age).

Let’s get to it!

1. Encourage fun

Positive sibling relationships should involve plenty of opportunities for shared activities, joint play, and fun. This might seem simple (and it can be!), but there are a surprising number of barriers here. For example, siblings of different ages may have conflicting needs or interests. They also know each other uniquely well, which can bond them, but also mean they know how to push each other’s buttons.4 And finally, they may simply lack the skills to initiate, decline, and/or maintain play with each other.

What you can do: 

• Look for ways for siblings to spend positive time together, whether it’s playing a game, sharing a room, or even completing chores, like washing the car or watering the plants
• Develop a list of activities that work for kids of both ages. This may take some trial and error.
• Teach kids how to initiate play with their sibling (i.e., teach them to ask, Do you want to play soccer with me?). This may seem obvious, but many kids don’t intuitively understand that they can and should do this.
• Teach kids how to politely decline play, too. This could involve them saying something like No, thank you. I’m playing with the sidewalk chalk right now, offering to play together later, or helping their sibling get involved in a separate activity.
• As kids get older, and various playdates and extracurriculars begin to fill their schedules, you may also need to be more intentional about protecting family time

2. Remind them of their sibling’s point of view

A key skill kids must learn in sibling relationships—and, in fact, all relationships—is that the other person may not share their point of view. Recognizing how another person may be thinking or feeling is also an important step towards developing empathy. Perspective-taking takes practice, and improves as kids get older, but we can facilitate this in a few ways.

What you can do:

• Teach kids that sometimes, people think the same thing, but sometimes, they think different things. You can point out simple areas of similarity and difference, e.g., You and your brother both love ice cream! Your favorite flavor is chocolate, and his favorite is strawberry.
• Encourage siblings to consider the other’s point of view, e.g., It sounds like you want to play on the swings today. What do you think your sister would like to play?
• Depending on age, you can also prompt kids to ask their sibling for their point of view.
• Research also highlights the benefits of helping children form positive (rather than negative) attributions for their siblings’ behavior. For example, Maybe your brother stepped on your sandcastle by mistake because he just wanted to play—not because he is being mean or doing it on purpose. 

3. Help them regulate their emotions

Sibling relationships tend to bring up intense feelings. The highs are high (laughter, joy, love), and the lows are low (anger, sadness, jealousy). This is especially true when you are 6 (or 16) years old and have not yet learned to manage those feelings.

Research indicates that improving kids’ emotion regulation skills often translates into better sibling relationship quality. When you catch your baby brother gnawing on your beloved Puppy stuffed animal, both of you will be better off if you can recognize how you’re feeling (angry), and practice some strategies to manage that feeling (deep breaths) before you take action.5

What you can do:

• There are many approaches to emotion regulation, but most involve the same basic steps: recognize the emotion, label the emotion, and, if necessary, use strategies to modify the emotion. We can help our kids with each of these steps.
• For younger kids, just naming emotions can help, i.e., I see that you’re making a fist and frowning. It looks like you’re feeling angry. Or I wonder if you felt sad when your brother did not want to play?
• Make it clear that it’s okay for them to feel any emotions they’re feeling, but that it’s not okay to act out in ways that hurt others. Encourage them to talk about how they’re feeling instead.
• Teach coping strategies. Just like with adults, what works for each child will differ, but some ideas: deep breaths, taking space to calm down, getting help from an adult, hugging a stuffed animal, singing a song to themselves, looking at a book.

4. Help them manage conflict

Anyone with a sibling, or with more than one child, knows that conflict comes with the territory. Is it infuriating for parents? Sure. But is it a sign of a doomed sibling relationship? No.

Not only is conflict incredibly common—some estimates suggest an average of 7-8 disputes per hour in siblings ages 2-9—but many researchers argue it is actually very healthy, serving as a perfect context for teaching kids some of the skills we’ve already discussed (e.g., emotion regulation, perspective-taking). At the same time, resolving conflict is not something that comes naturally to most of us—kids (especially young kids) need support in learning strategies to work through disagreements.

What you can do: 

• Encourage them to think before they act. Some programs teach this as “stop, think, talk,” and others as “red light, yellow light, green light.” The basic idea is the same. When their sibling does something they do not like, they should first stop. Then they should think about what to do next (which might include calming down). Then, they should act, typically by talking to their sibling about the problem.
• Remind them to consider how their sibling might be thinking or feeling, i.e., Why do you think your sister did that? Or I wonder if your brother is wanting a turn with the truck?
• Teach some basic problem-solving. When possible, this should look more like narrating than refereeing. For example: I hear Billy saying he wants to play with the train. I also hear Jack saying he wants to play with the train. How do you think you two could solve that? If they’re stuck, you could also offer a few suggestions (taking turns, playing with it together, etc.)
• Remember: simple disputes do not necessarily require intervention, but you should put a stop to any harsh teasing or physical violence
• When kids perceive differential treatment by parents, this can also breed conflict. Try to be intentional about this, and have explicit discussions about why treatment may be different (e.g., Your brother gets to stay up later because he is older. You’ll get to stay up later when you’re older, too). It can be helpful to remind kids that fair does not always mean equal.

Learning from the best

For many years, I had assumed the good sibling relationships in my family were due to chance—shared interests and senses of humor, personalities that just happened to mesh, etc. When I had kids of my own, I asked my parents how they thought about creating this family dynamic.

Sapiens, it was not due to chance.

My parents were very intentional about forging strong relationships among their kids, and, though their experiences were anecdotal, they also happen to align with the research. As it turns out, this seems to be true of most of their parenting decisions. Go figure!

And so, I’ll conclude with my parents’ tips for encouraging positive relationships between their kids:

• Model the behavior you want to see, including positive interactions and healthy conflict resolution, among themselves and with other members of the family
• Have a no-tolerance policy for meanness between siblings
• Encourage them to be happy for one another and celebrate each others’ wins, rather than compete with each other6
• Try to treat every child as equally as possible
• Create a “family first” culture. In my mom’s words: Friends will come and go but family is forever.