Help your children get along

The sibling relationship is often the first real peer relationship a child has, particularly if the age gap is just a year or two. This relationship can offer a safe, predictable environment as each child learns to interact with another child close in age. Siblings deal with all kinds of feelings, ranging from admiration and affection for each other to jealousy and anger. They can learn to share and to see another person's point of view; they can also learn how to stand up for themselves, but also how to compromise in order to resolve conflicts. They may learn how to make a friend or, in some cases, how to deal with a foe.

Conflict between siblings is inevitable, but parents can reduce jealousy and competition between siblings by the way they treat each child and by the way they allow each child to treat the other.

Settling sibling disputes
Most squabbles between siblings generally develop and continue by mutual consent. Allow your children to settle such disputes between themselves. But let them know they must observe the family rules of no hurting, and make it clear what types of behaviour are off limits -- abusive name calling, physical fights, and damaging the other's personal possessions.

Parents have to make their own judgment calls as to when and how to intervene, and you must be careful about taking sides. If you always defend the younger or weaker one, you disempower that child. It's preferable to teach each sibling to take responsibility for working out conflicts. They need to learn how to hear the other's side of the story and viewpoint about the situation. As children learn how to listen to all sides of a story, they develop the skills needed to solve problems and resolve conflicts. They learn to be assertive, rather than just aggressive or passive, in creatively working out a solution that includes part of what each one wants, but that both can at least live with.

Sibling rivalry may turn into abuse when, through repeated acts, one child becomes the oppressor and the other the victim, When one child overpowers, punches, kicks, chokes, or actually injures the other, that's physical abuse. A pattern of nasty name calling or ridiculing, of vicious swearing or terrorizing also becomes emotionally abusive.

As with any adult-child abuse, the abuse of one sibling by another, whether physical, emotional, or sexual, can cause lasting damage and lifelong problems for both the victim and the perpetrator. Parents sometimes fail to recognize the seriousness of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse between siblings because they believe that fighting between siblings is normal. It you're concerned that your children's relationship may be abusive, you must take action. Give each child an opportunity to express his feelings without being interrupted. Establish clear guidelines for their behaviour toward each other and set out the consequences you will impose as discipline. Be sure to follow through. Consider also whether your children should be at home alone together after school, or whether they should be separated until their relationship improves.

It may help if parents spend more one-on-one time with the child who's the aggressor. Often there's something else going on in the child's life or in your relationship with him that causes him to take out his anger and resentment on his sibling. When you help him deal with his problems -- whether at school, with friends, or with you, you may find that his relationship with his sibling gradually improves.