7 Tips for battling sibling squabbles

"I want it!" "I had it first!" "Gimme it!" "You're such a stupid head." Sound familiar? With families being home 24/7 it's inevitable that the kids will fight, argue, bicker, and pick on each other relentlessly. Have you felt like a referee in your own home? For some families, this has been quite a challenge having to endure the kids fighting while you are trying to figure out how to live in peace and harmony. If you're like me, it pushes my angry buttons to the point of yelling at them to stop or separate. Yet we all know there is a better way. After all, no one feels good afterwards. Parents often feel guilty, probably even ashamed about how mean and ugly they acted or sounded, wondering who in the neighborhood heard them. Or maybe parents feel justified, thinking, well, they deserved it for how they treated each other! On the other hand, kids may feel resentful, hurt, and more than likely, discouraged. Well, the good news is there is a better way and I am going to outline what I've learned in my 10 years of being a parent, and 7 years of trying to figure out how to manage sibling fighting.

1. Get yourself calm. I seem to forget this more than I should. But take a step back, take a deep breath and mutter a quick prayer for strength and wisdom. Walk away if you need to (as long as no one is in danger, of course) for a few minutes to get your mind straight. Our brains have a tendency to go into "Fight, flight, or freeze" mode when we enter into an argument or even hear one. We are triggered to protect or intervene. Kids are the same way; when they are in the middle of an argument, they are already in this mode, which makes it very difficult for everyone to think straight and make smart decisions.

2. When you are ready, go to them and get on their level. Maybe your child needs a soft loving touch of your hand on their shoulder or you being close to them. When you get on their level you are less threatening to them and they are more willing to see you as someone who will help them rather than feel threatened where they may shut down.

3. Ask them questions, which engages them to think, such as, "what is going on here?" Or make a comment such as, "It looks like you are having a tough time here, do you need my help?" " I hear a lot of yelling...."

4. More than likely, one or both of your children will start to yell or try to defend themselves by blaming the other. Help them to calm down as well by saying, "let's take some deep breaths to get ourselves calm first, then we can talk about this by one person talking at a time" (you may want to talk about handling conflict with each other by talking this through during a family meeting first, since this may be a new approach for them).

5. Discuss solutions to the problem. Try to have each child think of at least 1 or 2 solutions on their own before offering your own ideas. This way, the kids will be more likely to "buy into" the solution. Instill confidence in them by saying, "I know you two can figure this out."

6. Compromise on a solution if one of the children does not agree to an idea. Keep in mind that if this is the case, that child may need more time to calm down, which is fine, just have them separate until they are ready to calmly discuss the problem and work it out.

7. Apologies necessary? Don't force this issue, but ask if there is anything that needs to be done to repair the hurt or the damage that was done. It may not come in words, maybe it would be helping the other do something that was destroyed. This is another one of those, allow the kids to think of their own apology, whatever it may look like."

I have used this in one way or another plenty of times to say that it works so much better than yelling and forcing them to go their separate ways. After all, what does that really solve? This is something that your children can learn and will hopefully be something they will be able to use their entire lives! I think we all need a little problem-solving skills under our belts. If you would like to learn more about these skills, a great resource I will give you is from Jim and Lynne Jackson's Connected Families organization. They identified 4 great steps in solving conflict in siblings called the Peace Process. It is where I learned many of the ones listed above.

I hope this encourages you as a parent and gives you some new ideas to use when your kids start down that path of arguing. You got this!