Sibling Rivalry
I'm getting better at handling the squabbling that goes on between T and his older sisters -- ages 13 and almost 17. We've really been struggling with the tattling that goes on between them. "R threw a ball at me and hit me in the back." "T pinched my foot." "T has his shoes on the couch." "S won't move her foot off my train track."
I've reformulated the rules of telling vs. tattling. We've always had as legitimate reasons to "tell":
Bones (as in broken)
Breathing (as in not)
Burning
Bleeding
Essentially, if someone has hurt himself or is imminent danger of hurting himself or someone else, it is okay --and even advisable--to tell an adult. But telling for the purpose of getting someone else in trouble is tattling. For instance "T is riding his bike without a helmet," is legitimate. "T left his bike outside" is tattling. To that a fifth 'B' has been added:
Bullying. A child should always be able to tell an adult when he/she is being bullied.
And I'm learning, slowly -- it really takes practice -- to deal with the "T punched/hit/pinched me" complaints we get from the older ones. The parental knee jerk response has been to give consequences to the five-year-old who hit/pinched/punched, without regard to how he may have been provoked and without consideration that hitting/pinching/punching is a developmentally appropriate response for a child his age, with limited capacity to reason his way out of sibling squabbles. The ability to reason begins around the age of seven, so his skill set is limited for now.
"Why, what did you do?" needs to be the knee-jerk response. From there we can discuss with the older child her culpability in the five-year-old's physical response and how she can better handle the situation in the future.
Then the younger child is talked to about how he might have better dealt with the situation. We try to examine other options to punching/hitting/pinching. "If S won't move her foot so you can play with your trains when you tell her to, maybe if you say 'please' she will. And after you try 'please' if she still won't move her foot, then you can come to Mommy and Daddy and we will help you. But pinching is never okay." Refusing to move a foot that's in the way of a train set when asked nicely would fall into the bullying category, and thus the aggrieved child could legitimately come to us for our help in resolving that situation.
I'm hoping this is a good strategy. It takes two to tango, and by talking through strategies for how to have better dealt with the situations that went badly, perhaps all can learn better skills for dealing with confrontation, and maybe -- just maybe -- we'll have fewer of them. Hope springs eternal, after all.
I've reformulated the rules of telling vs. tattling. We've always had as legitimate reasons to "tell":
Bones (as in broken)
Breathing (as in not)
Burning
Bleeding
Essentially, if someone has hurt himself or is imminent danger of hurting himself or someone else, it is okay --and even advisable--to tell an adult. But telling for the purpose of getting someone else in trouble is tattling. For instance "T is riding his bike without a helmet," is legitimate. "T left his bike outside" is tattling. To that a fifth 'B' has been added:
Bullying. A child should always be able to tell an adult when he/she is being bullied.
And I'm learning, slowly -- it really takes practice -- to deal with the "T punched/hit/pinched me" complaints we get from the older ones. The parental knee jerk response has been to give consequences to the five-year-old who hit/pinched/punched, without regard to how he may have been provoked and without consideration that hitting/pinching/punching is a developmentally appropriate response for a child his age, with limited capacity to reason his way out of sibling squabbles. The ability to reason begins around the age of seven, so his skill set is limited for now.
"Why, what did you do?" needs to be the knee-jerk response. From there we can discuss with the older child her culpability in the five-year-old's physical response and how she can better handle the situation in the future.
Then the younger child is talked to about how he might have better dealt with the situation. We try to examine other options to punching/hitting/pinching. "If S won't move her foot so you can play with your trains when you tell her to, maybe if you say 'please' she will. And after you try 'please' if she still won't move her foot, then you can come to Mommy and Daddy and we will help you. But pinching is never okay." Refusing to move a foot that's in the way of a train set when asked nicely would fall into the bullying category, and thus the aggrieved child could legitimately come to us for our help in resolving that situation.
I'm hoping this is a good strategy. It takes two to tango, and by talking through strategies for how to have better dealt with the situations that went badly, perhaps all can learn better skills for dealing with confrontation, and maybe -- just maybe -- we'll have fewer of them. Hope springs eternal, after all.
My two sisters and me. We NEVER fought!
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