No more sibling rivalry

By Rachna Buxani, Counsellor, Delhi Private School, Sharjah 

Every child wants to be loved, and those who are not only children in their families must live in the shadow of the other children from time to time. The natural need to feel important can cause any child to become jealous of the attention and privileges that their siblings receive. Surveys of parents show that sibling rivalry is one of the most common irritants to family life.  

Helping your children get along better with each other will promote their growth socially and psychologically.  The following ideas are suggestions for ways to increase any child’s sense of personal belonging and emotional security: 

Arrange Special Days

Give each child a day to be King or Queen. On their special day, the child will have fewer chores, decides the menu for the day, chooses the family activity etc. 

Have Regular Pairing-Off Times

Each parent should spend time alone with each child devoting full attention to that child. Spend time at least once a week in some sort of recreational or cooperative activity like shopping, going for a walk or playing a game.  These times build closeness.  Siblings are far less jealous of the attention given to each other when they know for sure that they have their own special time with each parent. 

Decrease All Forms Of Competition

Competition and sibling rivalry go hand in hand. Children who are jealous of each other become competitive. This competition can be very destructive in a family.  Avoid comparing your children to each other.  

These comparisons are discouraging and insulting rather than helpful.  Teach your children to compete against their own past performance rather than with each other. 

Increase your support for each child’s unique talents and preferences.  When a child feels affirmed as a unique individual, there will be less need to compete with siblings. Do everything to support a high self-esteem in your children. Children with a good self-image experience far fewer feelings of sibling rivalry or jealousy.  

Encourage All Forms Of Cooperation

Teach your children to compromise and cooperate with others.  Encourage among your children any actions or statements reflecting courtesy, sharing, generosity and sensitivity to others.  Teach them to be flexible rather than demanding of their own way.  

Show them how to settle issues peacefully rather than by bullying or competing. You can help teach your children cooperation by playing cooperative games. These activities can help in building harmony and teach children the value of group effort and the importance of helping others rather than trying to defeat them. 

Strengthen Family Bonds

While the individual connections between each child and parent are crucial to reducing sibling rivalry strong family ties also help in providing an atmosphere of harmony.  Get together as a family regularly for meals, discussions or play.  Encourage functioning together as a unit with the common goal of cooperation and companionship.

Anything from cleaning the house to building a sand castle can enhance your family bonding.  Teach your children to express their gratitude when someone in the family does something for them.  Expressions of gratitude sustain love.  

Avoid Over Involvement With Any Child: 

Over indulgence in one child on the part of the parent can foster sibling rivalry to a great extent.  Brothers and sisters witness this seemingly excessive love, time and devotion and have negative feelings.  As far as possible parents must try to treat all their children equally.  Make sure that your love for all your children is not different in type and quantity.  

Privileges that are given to the children should be attuned to the individuality and uniqueness of each child.  For example, the privileges that you give to your adolescent will not be the same as your school going child.  The privileges will be given keeping in mind their age and degree of responsibility. 

Your gifts of time and commitment are priceless in helping your children reduce sibling rivalry.  By honoring each child’s uniqueness, developing high quality times together, decreasing competition, strengthening family bonds and preventing over involvement in any of your relationships you can create meaningful harmony and greatly reduce rivalry among your children!!

Photo courtesy: sibling-rivalry.ca, cuttergallery.com & bbc.co.uk

Rachna Buxani, with an M.Ed in School Counseling from Suffolk University in Boston and a B.A. in Psychology with a concentration in Child and Youth from Eastern Connecticut State University, USA has specialised in Middle and High School Counseling. Rachna's expertise is in assessment and management of problems related to adolescence. She would be regularly writing on parenting issues on womenone.org and would be providing answers to readers' queries related to it.