Taming Sibling Squabbles

Do your kids fight? Does it drive you crazy. Join us to learn some helpful tips for handling sibling rivalry and fighting. Our guest is Dr. Laura Markham, a clinical psychologist and author of several books, including Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids and Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings: How To Stop the Fighting and Raise Friends for Life.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why do siblings squabble?
• How is sibling rivalry and sibling fighting a good thing for our kids?
• How to teach sharing?
• What are the warning signs that a sibling fight has gone beyond a useful tool for developing those skills? When do we step in to stop sibling squabbles?
• What’s an effective way for parents to step into these sibling fights? 
• How to handle rivalry based on one child thinking you favor the other?
• What about verbal aggression, name-calling, etc? 
• A struggle common to kids impacted by trauma is a delay in emotional and social skill development. Identifying and managing internal discomfort can be challenging for our kids. Or all feelings are disproportionate to their situation (both bigger and smaller or shut down). 
• Can you speak to what helps kids develop these skills outside the moments of conflict?
• What practical strategies can you offer to help parents cultivate satisfying, loving relationships between siblings?
•  Would you offer a word about self-care for parents raising kids who fight all the time?

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Dawn Davenport  0:00  
Welcome everyone to Creating a Family. Talk about foster, adoptive and kinship care. We want to say, welcome back to our regulars and a shout out. Welcome to our newbies. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am the executive director of a nonprofit creating a family, as well as obviously the host of this podcast. We also have with us today, Tracy Whitney, she is one of our content creators. She is the brains behind all the articles that we have on Creating a Family, also as am I a parent through adoption. And she is jumping on with this interview talking about taming sibling squabbles, who amongst us have not faced the sibling fights. I certainly know that I will be raising my hand as someone who has done more than my share, both as a kid fighting as well as dealing with my own children. We're going to be talking with the person who's going to help us solve all of our problems. Dr Laura Markham, she is a clinical psychologist and the author of several books, including peaceful parents, happy kids, how to stop yelling and start connecting, as well as the one that's most directly relevant and what you're all going to want out to run out and buy is the book called peaceful parent, happy siblings, how to stop the fighting and raise friends for life. Welcome, Dr Markham, and I just want to say how much I appreciate the last part of the subtitle of that book, which is raising friends for life. Because honestly, that's what I think most of us as parents, it's what we really want. Or at least, I could speak for myself that that was the dream for me and my kids are now launched, and that's what I wanted so much, is for them to have a relationship for life. So with that said, why do we struggle? Why do our kids fight? Why are there jealousies? Why do they fight? Why do they both, physically and verbally? Do mean things to each

Speaker 1  2:00  
other well, because we're human beings and they're young, immature human beings who don't yet have a fully developed prefrontal cortex and the skills they need to navigate conflict. And I would argue that most adults don't have the skills they need to navigate conflict as well, and that we need to learn those in childhood. It wouldn't be it would be an amazingly different world if we all learn these skills that we're going to talk about today in childhood. But there's another reason, and that's that we bring our baggage with us, so whatever we haven't worked out inside us is going to get visited on the people we live with, so siblings, when they need extra support from their parents to work on something, we need to give that to them, or they're going to take it out on their siblings because they don't know what else to do with it. When little humans have, well, when any human has big feelings that they can't process right, that they can't process in their own minds or verbally with people who care about them, we tend to act those feelings out. That's what acting out means, right? Yeah,

Dawn Davenport  3:04  
we say that, you know, look at the behavior, and that is, they're expressing a need, yes, and that's what you're you're saying. It occurs to me, and I had a large family. I had four children, so obviously I'm going to, I'm I'm predisposed to want to say this, but I do believe there is nothing wrong, of course. Let me say if you have an only child, there are amazing advantages to having an only child as well. However, I do think there are advantages to having siblings. One of the advantages is that you do have to negotiate, you do have to fight, you have to figure things out. So what are some of the advantages for sibling rivalry or even, heaven forbid, fighting. How is that? How is that potentially good for our kids?

Speaker 1  3:49  
Well, it's practice. We all need to learn the skill of getting what we need in life, advocating for ourselves and what we want in life, without going on the attack to the other person, and think about that. You know, attack may be a strong word, but every sibling interaction that you can think of is, no, I want that last banana. No, I was playing with that. You're getting too much of mom's attention. Whatever it's all. I'm trying fiercely to get my own needs met, right? And hopefully I can do that in a way that resembles maybe non violent communication, where I say, these are my needs, but I'm not going to trespass on your needs. Let's work this out now. That's a really challenging thing to do. It's I have seen four year olds learn it, and I've seen 14 year olds who haven't learned it, and I've seen 44 year olds who haven't learned it right? So it's something that when kids fight, but it isn't the fighting that is the learning experience necessarily. Because think about it, if we let kids work it out for themselves with zero input from us, and that's what parents have been told to do for a long time, you have to let them work. It out, then they learn what to do. But the research on that is pretty clear, not true, not true. What ends up happening is the more powerful child will win, because there's no help from the adult forthcoming. You may have a house rule about Be kind, or about how you navigate sharing a toy or whatever, but the more powerful child will win if you just leave it to the kids and you don't intervene, right? And they will, even if the parent is there, but you're like, on your computer, you're not like, noticing the kids, and you probably are not if you're on your computer, you're not noticing the kids, right? But they believe, since you're there, or even since you're two rooms away in the kitchen making dinner, they believe that you are giving your stamp of approval to what's happening, because you're not intervening. They know if somebody was screaming bloody murder, you'd be intervening. So clearly you must be approving of this thing, whatever it is, what they're working out, and the working out could easily be the more powerful kid, threatening to hit, threatening to take away, threatening when I get you alone, and when I say more powerful, sometimes it's the younger kid. I'm going to tell mom that you blah, blah, blah, you know. So when you think about it, we want kids to have positive results from their navigation of conflict, but we have to provide some guidance for that navigation of conflict. And as I said, I see four year olds learn it. It's not that young children can't learn this, but we do need to understand it ourselves and then provide some guidance so they can develop the skills.

Dawn Davenport  6:29  
Yeah, that makes good sense. Go ahead. Tracy, I

Speaker 2  6:32  
was gonna say, so what would the warning signs be that it's time to step in and provide some of that guidance, or backtrack a little bit and say, Okay, this is no longer useful. It's not teaching you negotiating skills. It's not teaching you deference to each other's needs. When do we step in and what do we say? So

Speaker 1  6:51  
first of all, I wouldn't use the word deference. I would use the word consideration, because we don't want our kids deferring to other people's needs just because other people have needs, right? You You don't want your kid who's practicing the piano at school to have somebody else come in just randomly want to use the piano, and you got to prepare for something, and they had the rights to the piano at that moment, you're not deferring, but you are considering, Oh, you want to use the piano too. How do we work this out? Because I've got to prepare for my recital, and I'm already signed up for this time slot, right? So there's something about navigating that is different than deferring to needs. So that's one thing, I would say, consideration. But you're saying, When does the parent step in? How do we know what to do? So I would say, first of all, you don't drop everything and run in at the slightest anything you know, sound of a raised voice, you listen, you pay attention, but you also are informed by what happened yesterday and this morning. If yesterday and this morning, one your kids clobbered the other, it's going to happen again now. So you're going to step in more quickly based on your experience, right? If they've been getting along and working things out. And you're so encouraged by this, you can listen and see, see what you're hearing, but I want to actually pull the camera back and do a little bit of a wider focus before we get to that moment. I think that's critical question for parents. But even before that, what are the rules in your house? Have you ever discussed the rules in your house? So you don't want very many rules. They won't remember them. But I think every household's first rule needs to be be kind, right? And then everything else is, you know, can? You can decide where it goes on the list, and you don't want more than a couple of rules. There's a rule that you could write down or not write down, which is, parents decide. In the end, parents decide, if you know, it's not a democracy, you're the leaders.

Dawn Davenport  8:35  
Yeah, I was gonna say they may not need that rule in my house.

Speaker 1  8:40  
Rule of my house. My kids knew. My kids knew that I was a leader, but I've talked to a lot of people who say, but you do peaceful parenting. Isn't that the same as gentle parenting? So isn't it? Don't we let the kids decide I'm like, we let the kids decide what we decide. They can decide, like the red cup or the blue cup, but they're not decide when their bedtime is. I'm going to decide when their bedtime

Dawn Davenport  8:59  
is. Right? You're so that's so smart. Yeah. So I would often tell my kids, I'm a dictator. I'm a benevolent dictator on a good day, but I am a dictator. But I do want them to have decisions, because ultimately, by the time they leave our house, we want them to have experience with making decisions, failing, making poor decisions, making good decisions. We want all them when they're still and we can help pick up the pieces anyway. That's another I

Speaker 1  9:24  
love. That is an extension, but it's an important one, because I think kids develop good judgment, sometimes from bad decisions, right, often from bad decisions, to reflect on that decision, right, without a lot of blame and shame. So when we talk about us being the leaders in our home, I'm not talking about blame, I'm not talking about shame, I'm not talking about punishment. I'm talking about leadership. And leadership means there are rules, and we uphold those rules so that it's fair to everybody, and you're creating safety, because if you don't have safety, when I say safety, I mean if I think I'm reading this book, but. Yeah, if I get up and go to the bathroom and leave this book here, I heard this yesterday from someone. This had happened in their home. If I leave the book here and go to the bathroom, I'm a nine year old boy, and then my 11 year old sister happens by and sees the book. And of course, she wants everything I have, because there's some unresolved stuff there that the parents need to attend to and haven't attended to yet. But she picks up the book. Boy comes out of the bathroom. Girls reading the book. Whose book is it? At that moment, the mother was like, Well, I decided I should set a timer so they each get 10 minutes with a book. I said, Do you want your children to enjoy reading or not? Like, that's not going to do it. You have to have a rule in your house, and if the rule is, once you start a book, you're allowed to finish reading the book before you pass it on to a sibling. That's the rule, and you uphold the rule of law in your home, whatever you've agreed on. So back to we won't belabor this, but the preliminary thing is, you have a discussion about what are the rules, and you'll it's so interesting. If you ask your kids, what do you think the rules are in our house, they might say things like ice cream only on weekends or what you know, they won't really necessarily see the big picture. But you can say, well, what are the rules about sharing? And they may not actually think there's a rule about sharing. They may think, Oh, you always share. You always set a timer. It's like, well, actually, no, in our family, we're going to do it this way. When you're reading a book, you get it until you're done, or when you have a toy, you can have it till the next meal, or whatever your because that actually research shows works better for teaching kids to share, again, different topic. But the point is, you know what your family rules are, and you're the authority. So you work with your kids, you make that agreement, you have only, like a few rules, and you you're they're written down, and they're up somewhere. And even if your kid is foreign, can't read, you can point to that and say, our family rule is Be kind. I heard some words that could really hurt

Dawn Davenport  11:44  
you. Said something about sharing. And say, well, it's not really the topic, but isn't that? I mean, I think that so many of the squabbles are about sharing. So what do we know about what works with sharing? Let's

Speaker 1  11:56  
look at what the kid knows, what their takeaway is. So if you have a situation where kids are playing, they're fighting over the same toy. You're the parent. You're like, okay, all right, you get the toy first, I'm going to set the timer for 10 minutes, and then you get the toy. That's a standard approach, right? Think we're doing a good thing. So think about what the takeaway is. First of all, one kid was already using that toy. Now the kid cannot continue to use that toy, except for 10 minutes. Do we know how play works? Deep play, where kids actually engage with the toy, and they're learning and growing and and there's something creative happening. Deep play, the kid needs to use it for longer than 10 minutes. That's one thing. Second thing is, you're wrenching it out of their hands after 10 minutes, and they're feeling like, once again, I have to share with my sibling. Once again, everything I want gets taken away from me. Once again. Nobody sticks up for me. I hate to get my needs met, and I hate my sibling. That's their takeaway, right? And the kid who interrupted the play to say, but I want it. I expected to use that today, or I was using it yesterday, and I want to use it again today, or whatever, but they hadn't thought about it this morning, so their sibling got their hands on it. So that kid's like, oh, I made enough noise that I got mom's attention, and now I get to have the toy in 10 minutes. I make noise, I get it, even if it wasn't my turn. Suddenly I'm getting a turn if I just make enough noise and make things unpleasant enough for mom. So that's not a takeaway either, but let's get it. Let's look at a different option. Many families now are following the research on this, using the research on this to have a different rule. And the rule is self regulated turns, basically a self regulated turn. You decide how long it goes, but the kid with the toy gets to decide when they're done with it. Now, it can't be that I'm done with it next week, right? That I get to hide it under my pillow. And even though I'm not, you can't touch it, no, but it can be as long as I'm continuously playing with it, I get to use it until the next meal. You could say all day long. You know, for 14 year olds, all day long is fine. For a four year old, they can't all day long. It's just too long, right? It's gotta be like lunch or whatever. But let's look at the takeaways. Now, the kid who was playing with the toy gets to play with the toy until they're done with it. That's number one. So they get to do the deep play, and they know it's not just going to be taken away from them. Now, obviously it's pretty hard on the other kid. If you got a four year old and a six year old and the six year old is playing with the toy and the four year old wants it, that four year old is like, I want to get I can't wait for that toy. He has more of a burden on the parent, but look what the four year old is learning. First of all, they're learning them. I can make a fuss. I'm allowed to have feelings about wanting the toy. Doesn't make me a selfish brat, but I still don't necessarily get the toy right until it's my turn. That's one thing, another thing, my parent cares how I feel, and they help me wait. They're not disparaging me. They're not saying mean things to me. They're like, I know it's hard to wait for the dump truck. Do you want to use the snow plow while you're waiting? Come on, let's go over here. So the parent or caregiver is supporting the child to find a way to delay gratification. Delay gratification. Conversation and impulse control. We all want our kids to learn these skills, and parents ask me all the time, how can I help my kid develop impulse control? How can I help my kid develop the ability to delay gratification? This is one way, and it doesn't happen if we're like, stop trying, and it does if we say, I will help you wait. Let's use the snow plow while you're waiting for the dump truck. But the other thing is, we can teach kids some of those really important conflict navigation skills. So we say to them, Oh, your brother had the tow truck first, so he's going to continue to use it. But I can help you. You know, you know if you want to wait while you're waiting, if you want to use a snowplow, but remember, you can also say, Do you want to ask your brother when he'll be done with it? And as long as the kid using the tow truck knows you're not going to rest it away from him, he's going to be more civil about it. So the four year old says to the six year old, when are you going to be done with the tow truck? And the six year old says, Well, I'm going to have a long term not till lunch. Or he might say, he might be benevolent, and say, Oh, just until I get this hill built, you know, I'm pushing all the blocks into a pile to make a big hill. Whatever he says, it doesn't matter the other kids like, Okay, well, he's got the control right now, but it's the rule of law, and I know I am going to get it at lunchtime, or whenever the hill is built, and it'll be my turn, and then my turn will also be protected. So there's safety. Their nervous systems don't have to go into this state of dysregulation and attacking an alarm exactly fight or flight, where their siblings the enemy, because they know the rule of law is going to prevail and they're going to get a chance for the toy also. And in the meantime, there's a parent or caregiver there is going to help them wait, right? And here's the thing that researchers have found, when the six year old is done playing with it. Now sometimes they'll remember, but in the beginning they don't usually remember, because they're not used to this. They're like, they've made the hill, and now they're putting the flags on the hill and the little elephants and whatever they're doing, and meanwhile, the tow truck is just sitting here, whatever the thing was that they had been using, and the parent can say, are you done with that truck yet? Because remember, promise to give it to your brother. And the kids are like, oh, right, picks it up, turns to the brother. And here's the thing about human beings. We are a communal species. What happens in a human being. When someone hands you that thing, you feel that gratitude and on your face, and you connect with the person handing you that thought you're like, thank you. We love you on some level. It's like, yes, thank you. We're connected. I'm so grateful to you, and the other person feels the answer inside them their own heart, like I want to do more giving like that. So we've studied generosity. All these researchers have looked at generosity. That's how it begins, right? If we want our kids to be generous human beings, we need to let them like that. Six year old, have the experience of of their own free will when they're done with the truck, handing it to their sibling, because the sibling will feel that, and the two of them will have this bonding interaction that will strengthen their relationship forever. And if they have it on a frequent basis, it gets stronger and stronger. So that's how sharing could work.

Speaker 2  18:13  
Wow, where was this information when my kids were little? It's far more challenging to pull off those conversations and those interactions and guide them through those interactions when they're tweens and teens. Yes, yes. Benefit of learning this as a young parent.

Dawn Davenport  18:37  
Let me take a moment to tell you some exciting news for and about creating a family. In this podcast, we have been rated as number 12 in the top 100 parenting podcast, which we are thrilled about. It's a big darn deal. But one of the things I noticed when I was looking through the list and they were showing how many reviews each of the podcasts had, I noticed that we had fewer reviews than many of the other podcasts, some rated even below us, and those rated above us as well. So I have a favor to ask. We very much need your reviews. They matter. They matter a lot. So whatever app you are using to listen to this podcast, there's a place where you can rate and review. A star rating would take you literally seconds. A written review might take you a little longer. We'd be very appreciative of it. But in any event, please give us some form of rating. We would really appreciate it. Now I'll let you get back to this terrific interview

Speaker 2  19:39  
you covered the you know, kind of the prelude of of the stage we should be setting in our homes to get our kids there when it is time to step in because we're afraid that it's no longer a useful tool or it's becoming potentially violent. Can you give us kind of a do this and a don't do this rundown of things? Things that help us in that moment when the kids are kind of rising to the climax of that squabble, okay, outright, do

Speaker 1  20:07  
this. The do this part is first, do no harm. Don't bring in your cavalry with yourself on your high horse with your sword, because you will escalate the situation, and it will, you will make everything worse. So the first is, the first is actually what we were talking about earlier. We're listening. The first is to listen and see if it's getting out of hand. If they've had some issues in the past, especially with kids slugging each other, you want to be in there pretty quick if, in general, they don't touch each other, but somebody says something mean to someone else, and then there somebody comes to you crying and says, He did this. He said this. And then you have to navigate it. You can probably handle that. You don't need to go prevent the mean thing from being said, because there's a way to coach it after the fact. But you're listening right to see if they can work it out themselves. And when you hear something that resembles bullying, you go in like, if, if the kid is like, but I want it so sorry, your problem, right? Then, you know? Okay, well, we do need to navigate this a little better and coach both kids go. Maybe you need to coach one kid to stand up for themselves. That's very common. Okay, so you're listening. That's number one thing you do. Number two is you come in, if possible, before there's a problem. But you don't come in with your horns blazing. You come in, you're breathing on the way. You're reminding yourself it's not an emergency. They're acting like kids because they are kids. They're not bad kids. Yes, I do hear that this my oldest child, my daughter, is once again, lording it over the other kid, and that does make me angry when she does this. I don't think it's a fair thing, but I am going to not blame and shame her. I'm going to acknowledge that she has needs too, and she needs validation too, for whatever her needs are, and she still doesn't have to get her way right over the other kids, but I don't have to make her wrong and belittle her or put her down in any way, because that will make everything worse. So as you're going you're reminding yourself of the truths you've reflected on in the past about your children, right? It does not help the kid who's always the perpetrator. It does not help them. If you go in there feeling a lot of blame, it will always backfire. Okay? So that number one is you listen. Number two is you're reminding yourself of these things so that you can stay calmer. And, number three, you're breathing as you go into the other room and reminding yourself, okay, I can handle this. I've got this. I'm It's okay. It's not an emergency. So that's the third thing. All right. You go in, you say, Wow, I hear some loud voices, or if you heard some some words that were really not allowed in your house, like you're a poopy face or or I hate you, or whatever else you can say, I heard some words that could really hurt. Okay, you're not blaming anybody. Notice, I didn't label the perpetrator here, but I heard some words that could hurt. Now depends, of course, on the situation, but let's say you heard some words that can hurt. Let's say one of your kids use really mean language to the other kid. Most of us, what do we do in that instance? We try to figure out the right thing to say to the perpetrator to stop them from doing this ever again. Instead, we remember we were taking those deep breaths for a reason. We now turn to the not perpetrator, the I'm going to use the word victim here victim because we don't want them to be victims and perpetrators in their lives. So we're trying to change those roles. We're not jumping on the bandwagon to criticize the perpetrator, and we're not going, Oh, you poor little victim. Instead, we're turning to the quote victim, unquote, and we're saying those are some words that could really hurt your feelings. You can tell your sister you don't like it when she calls you names, and the quote victim says, I don't like it when you call me names, and the sister goes, Okay, or the sister goes, Well, you were acting like a baby, or whatever else the sister does, right? She could anything in between these like she could be totally conciliatory and apologetic, or she could

Dawn Davenport  23:59  
probably not, probably

Speaker 1  24:02  
she's mad the little one did something, right, right? Sure, called them names because she was angry that they interfered with what she was working on or

Dawn Davenport  24:10  
were past. It was a poopy face. Yeah, okay, yeah,

Speaker 1  24:14  
exactly, exactly. So the sisters like shrugs, let's say she's like, she doesn't care. And at that point, you might have to remind both kids of what the rule is in your family. You know the rule in our family is Be kind, and we've talked about before. That means no name calling. We don't call names. And then you turn to the perpetrator, and you say, you acknowledge her. You say, because it's not going to help to make her wrong, right? What is going to help us to acknowledge her? And we each need to be seen, every single one of us, even if we just called our sister or brother a mean name, we need to be acknowledged and you turned and if possible, I always tell when I do act this out in an audience, and I bring people on stage to do it, I'll be touching both of the people who are acting as my kids. If possible. You're touching both kids. So here's the kid who was upset that they got called the name, and here's the kid who did the name call, and I'm touching her too. And I say, seems like you were pretty upset at your little sister, and if you know what she's upset about, you can acknowledge that it looks like you were really trying to work on this. And she blah, blah, blah, knocked it down, whatever, whatever the sister did. And at this point, now that she's been validated, she's going to be like, yes, my little sister always does everything wrong. And parents, listen dust, are going to think, yeah, we've just opened a can of worms. Yes. We're not trying to shut down their disagreement. We're not trying to stop them from being angry. We're trying to help them express what they need and want why they're angry in a civil manner. So the sister says this, and the other one's like and we stop. We say, let's take a deep breath. You've got something important you want your sister to hear. We say to the one who did the name calling, you have something important you want your sister to hear. We need to calm down so we can say it in a way she can hear it. And then we turn to the little one, or the the one, the other one, who's going, but, but, but, we say, and I know you didn't like it when your sister called you that name. We need to listen to your sister and you can tell her more about how you felt. Let's take a deep breath, and then usually you won't remember who got to go first last time. I mean, sometimes when it's constant, I tell people, keep a dime in your pocket and just flip it, you know, like, say, Okay, we're just going to flip this punch. You can remember who went first last time. Great. If you've only got two kids, that's easier. But if you've got three kids or four kids, it's a lot harder. So you can also just say, I'm the parent, I'm going to decide, and you say, okay, and parents will also say, but I don't know who's telling the truth when they tell their story. I don't know what's true. Well, you don't have to know what's true, right? What you're trying to do is help them communicate with each other and uphold the rule of law and come up with a resolution where there's some repair. You're not deciding, because even if you know exactly what happened and who was wrong, you're not trying to make somebody wrong, and you don't know what happened yesterday or this morning, you only know whatever that moment is if you were listening from the kitchen. Okay, so we say to the one who is, in this case, the perpetrator, we say, so you had something really important you wanted to tell your sister. What is it? Well, I was doing blah blah, and you to blah blah, you did the you know. So she goes, she's mad. It's like

Unknown Speaker  27:24  
she's a fly on the wall of our house. Yeah, that's exactly what it sounds like.

Speaker 1  27:32  
And the only danger here is that sister is going to feel so attacked, she's not going to be able to sit for it. She's going to explode. So we keep our hand on her. We have to keep reminding her that right now our job is listening to your what your sister's saying. That's important, but I hear that you have something important to say too, and we're going to hear it in just a second. Right? We're still touching her, okay? This one says, blah, blah, blah, and we say, wow. So I hear you saying you were doing X, Y, Z, and your sister did this and it ruined what you were doing. No wonder you're upset. We're not making a right for calling her sister a name, but we're acknowledging that there was a reason she was upset. We say thank you for sharing that. Now the sibling is not ready to repeat back what she heard her sister say she's still too mad because she got called a name and she hasn't had a chance to offload. So we might, if she weren't so upset, we might say, What did you hear sounds like your sister is pretty upset at you for x, y, z, what did you hear her say? But she's not ready to do that yet. Probably not everyone has to get it off their chest first, whatever it was and she feels she was wronged. So we say, thank you for sharing that. Let's listen to your sister now. And we turn to her and we say, you're pretty upset. Thank you for listening to what your sister had to say. Sounds like you had something important to say, too. And she says, You're not allowed to call me names. That's our family rule, isn't it? You're the parent. You say, Yes, that is our family rule. You were pretty upset when your sister called you a name. Yeah, she's not allowed to, and it makes me feel bad, and you're not allowed to because you're a poopy face too. Yeah. And then say, then we say you're pretty mad at your sister right now, but you tell her what you want. No Name Calling without attacking or without calling her names. No one's allowed to call each other names, not your sister's not allowed to call you names, and you're not allowed to call her names, because our family rule is Be kind. That means no name calling, right? And so the the mad one is like, but I'm mad, and you say, I see how mad you are. And you want to tell your sister. You want to tell her how it made you feel when she called you a poopy face, when she called you a name and she's like, I hate you, let I'm going to bring I hate you, because this always trips parents out I hate Yeah, this one I hate you, yep. And we say, Wow, you are so mad that you're using the worst word you can think of, hate. Hmm, you know what I hate you means is I'm so mad at you that I'll never work this out with you. That's what hate means. And we're a family, and we always work things out. Families are allowed to get mad at each other and sometimes hurt each other's feelings, but they always make it better. We're a family, we're a team, and we will always make things better with each other. I hear how mad you are right now that you're using the worst word. You want to tell your sister how hurt you are about the names or about the fact that you weren't allowed to play with her, and then the name calling whatever she's just said, I'm going to tell your sister how hurt you were. That's making you so mad now, underneath anger is always hurt or fear. That's a great point. Yeah. So at this point, we've made it safe for both kids and the kid who's so angry that she was called a name and not allowed to play might say, you never want to play with me anymore, right? Notice she's getting a little close to tears. Then, yeah. So our job as parents. Now she might not. If there's months or years of ill will built up, there may be no tears, yet you may have to go through this five times over the next two weeks before you get to the tears, but you will get to the tears eventually. It always happens, because that's what's driving the anger. Sometimes you'll see that the older one will get to the tier or get close, but they're like, you always give her her way because she's little and cute. Yeah? Oh, you and really important for the parent to say, wow. That must really make you feel terrible if you think that I prefer your sister. Yeah, I'm hearing you say that I give her her way, like I prefer her, that must feel terrible to you. I am so sorry if I ever made you feel like I didn't love you as much. I could never love anyone more than I love you, and I could never love anyone more than I love you. So we're in this together. We're a family. We're going to take a deep breath, and then we're going to see what we heard each other say and how to make things better.

Dawn Davenport  32:09  
Let me pause here to remind you that you could have your questions answered by Tracy or I here at creating a family, but you need to send us your questions. You can send them to info at creating a family.org and we will select the right ones to do on our weekend wisdom podcast. It's a shorter form where we just take one of your questions and answer it directly. So please remember to send us your questions. We really need them. Thanks. Back to the show now.

Speaker 1  32:39  
Now if, in fact, the one kid told you you prefer her, then you have some work to do. That's called sibling resentment, or the chip on the shoulder. It is very, very, very, very, very common. Yeah, it is our job to work it through. And there are four steps to working it through. The first one is we acknowledge just like I just did. The second one is we really work on our relationship with that kid, because that's the most important, most important predictor of how the kids will get along is actually the relationship with the parents. If we really work on our relationship with that resentful kid, maybe they're our most difficult kid. Maybe there's such a handful that we're just like, oh my gosh, I can't deal with this kid. But we work on our relationship with that kid if we want there to be less sibling rivalry. So we have to do that. That's number two. Number three is we look for opportunities for them to bond and do things they enjoy doing together. And number four is we do uphold the rule of law so everyone feels fairly treated and there's a sense of safety, and they're learning the skills to work things out with each other. Those are the four steps to melting sibling resentment. We could do a whole hour on that, but that's right, those are the right and then the only thing we haven't talked about at the end of that fight is repair, which

Dawn Davenport  33:53  
is an important thing. I I've, I always felt like then, so how are we going to repair the damage that has now been caused? You know, you've you've done something that has hurt, and so how do we make up? Yeah, that was always an important part for me with my kids. Yep,

Speaker 1  34:08  
exactly. So, so we say, So you told your sister how you felt she interfered with what you were doing, and she wanted to play with you, and she asked you over and over again, and you felt pretty annoyed, and then she wrecked what you were doing. And you've told your sister how you really wanted to play with her and she didn't want to play with you, and how you felt left out. Then you tried to help, but it wrecked it, and you felt so terrible inside. And then she called you a name, right? That's what you said, and that's what you've said. Okay, well, those are some big feelings, and what I'm really hearing is a misunderstanding. Here I'm hearing two sisters who are pretty mad at each other, and underneath you love each other, and underneath you wanted so much to play with your sister, and underneath you just wanted to be left to do your project without your sister getting involved, and you didn't know what to do. When she wrecked it and you called her a name because you were so frustrated and upset, right? So we have a misunderstanding here. But how can we make things better? Because I hear one girl who really wants to be able to do her projects, and I hear another girl who really wants to play with her sister. I hear also want to make sure both of you know what the family rule is, which is we work things out with each other, and we don't call each other names, and we try to be kind, right? So what can we do to make things better here now both kids have done something to offend the other one. One wreck that one's project, and the other one called that one a name, right? So if we had just come in with our guns blazing and said to the name caller. You know, better than to call your sister a name, right? We would have ignored the fact that she had a problem she needed help with, and we would have escalated the sibling anger, right, right? The resentment. But we didn't do that. We listened to both sides. They both heard each other's positions. If they're in a good enough place, we can say, What did you hear your sister saying? I heard her say she wants to play with me. Yeah, yeah. How's that make you feel? Well, it's not my job to play with her, and I really wanted to do my project, but I do like her. I mean, they sort of grudgingly get to their actual the affection under it, and she has sort of like to play with her, right? And what did you hear your sister say? She said, I can't wreck her project. I wasn't trying to. I just so you're sorry You wrecked her project, right? Yeah, I wonder if you could make things better with your sister. One of them is going to speak first. Maybe this one will say, I'm sorry I wrecked your project, but will you let me play with you next time? And the other one might say, I can't let you play with me every time. Sometimes these projects are really delicate, and I'm three years older than you, and I want to be able to do this myself without you doing whatever right she might say that again, acknowledge you need some protected time to do your projects without your sister involved. And I heard your sister say she wants to play with you sometimes. What do you think about that? Is there a way you could make that happen? Yeah? And she says, Yeah, you could play with me with XYZ later. And you say, Huh, do you think that would make things better? You turn to the other one. You think that would make things better for you if your sister and you got to play XYZ later? She's like, Yeah, we want to play that with you. Like, all of a sudden, things are better, right? We've got to the root of the problem, which is little sister felt left out and wanted to play with big sister. Now, again, if you've got a lot of sibling resentment going on, you're going to have to do a month or two of work before you're getting to an interaction like this. But if you generally a good relationship, that wasn't about anything from the past being brought into the baggage. It was just about that moment. Then you've just strengthened their bond, found a way to get to the problems underneath, reinforced your family rules, right? And when you do this, you do have to do it for a good month before they learn the language, but what you'll hear is one of them saying, but you hurt my feelings, or, but our family rule is, yeah. Or I was still playing with that. I just went to the bathroom. Can you give it back, please? When will you be done with that? Can I use it next? Will you give it to me when you're done? And

Speaker 2  38:12  
those are the kinds of things that you will hear that kind of signal you that they're catching it, that they're catching on,

Speaker 1  38:18  
yes. And you don't have to intervene, because, in fact, you'll hear them working it out right, and you really won't have to intervene, except in big moments after they learn this. But it can take a month or two to learn it, depending on their age. Four year olds learn it faster than 14 year olds. But also, by the time they're 14, they have baggage. They have their the resentments that have built up, and maybe we the parent have inadvertently escalated some of that resentment by favoring one child or by always ruling in favor of that child because they were the quote, right? So it really matters the way we intervene, right? Intervening to coach both kids. Are we taking sides? So you ask for what to do and what not to do. We talk a lot about what to do, right, right? Great. There are a few things to not do. Okay? One thing to not do is take sides. Always, always a bad idea. Now, you may have to reinforce the family rules, but that's different than taking sides. In this case, one kid had called another a name, and that was against the family rules, but the other kid had Rector project, right? So if you avoid taking sides, but you instead help both kids to express their needs and wants without attacking the other one. Then, then you're actually going to get to the bottom of what the problem is and help the kids to learn the skills to stand up for themselves, you know, to work things out with another human being.

Dawn Davenport  39:41  
Let me interrupt this podcast again to remind you and to thank Vista Del Mar. They have been a long time sponsor and supporter of this podcast. We couldn't do what we do without these organizations who believe in our mission are willing to put their money behind their belief. Vista Del Mar is one of them. They are a. Licensed nonprofit adoption agency with over 65 years of experience helping to create families. They offer a home study only service as well as full time infant adoption as well as international home studies and post adoption support. And they have a foster to adopt program. You can find them online at Vista Del mar.org/adoption, thanks, Vista Del Mar. And now I'll let you get back to this interview.

Speaker 2  40:28  
I think another thing to do that I don't want to neglect to mention is in kind of the prelude leading up to all of this, it's really imperative that we parents do some self work, understanding our own triggers, understanding our own family of origin, where things were maybe not resolved or not healed, that has been significantly impactful in the way I'm parenting my own kids who have their own triggers. Speaking of triggers and challenges like triggers. It feels like kids that are in our community, specifically adoptive, foster kinship kids, they often have an additional struggle beyond the trauma, impact of feeling rejected immediately or feeling not heard immediately, an additional struggle that they often experience is delayed emotional or social skills, delayed language skills for those emotions, can you speak to how we can help our kids develop those skills again, kind of in a prelude way, where we're leading up to how they would handle the immediate so

Speaker 1  41:41  
there are two ways to think of this, and I think they're both important. One is, what are the skills they need to develop? And that's the question you asked, and that's what we're going to talk about. But before we go there, I want to add something about the nervous system. So the nervous system is what determines our behavior. The nervous system is our fight, flight or freeze reaction, but a healthy nervous system isn't in fight, flight or freeze a healthy nervous system that feels safe is in a state of well being. It's in a state of play. It's open to play, especially for young people, and that includes even 14 year olds. But you know, the younger we are, the more we're used to using Play to work things out and to learn and to grow. And play is our natural state of being, and so if a child is in a state of well being, they are curious, they're open, they're excited to learn, they're in a state where they're open to play. That's where we all wish we could spend all of our time. And I think that could be an aspiration for all of us, right? Because when you're in the state of well being, everything is good, and you have all the inner resources you need to draw. However, when you're feeling a little threatened by your environment, you're walking down the street in New York City and there's some loud horns and you know, or you're in your living room and there are some loud children's voices, you feel your nervous system is like, oh, danger, danger. And you go on alert. You go on vigilance. Now you might not be all the way into fight, flight or freeze. You might not be ready to take your kid down. You know, fight and you're not. Might not be booking your ticket to Tahiti, getting your coat

Dawn Davenport  43:16  
to leave the house, but you

Speaker 1  43:20  
might feel like it, yeah, I certainly feel it well. Felt like that, delayed

Unknown Speaker  43:23  
gratification. Book, the truth.

Speaker 1  43:26  
Amen, yeah. So so as the nervous system starts to get worried, it's not our full state of dysregulation, right? It's not in fight or flight or freeze, but it's starting to get worried and vigilant. We lose some of that sense of well being. We lose the curiosity. We stop wondering. Well, why did our kid call that other kid and our other kid a name? Right? Well, she did it for a reason, but we don't, you know if we're if we're in a state of alarm and emergency, we're on the attack curious. So we start to lose some of our curiosity. We lose the ability to be playful so often with children, even if they're allowed voices, if you come in and you are silly, immediately, they're like, oh, there's no danger here. My parents being silly. And they're like, Wait a minute. You two are fighting over that. But I want it. How come I never get what I want? I want this pen. Nobody can get this pen from me, right? I learned that actually, from Lawrence Cohen, who wrote playful parenting, like, grab the nearest pen or whatever, and, you know, just turn it into a thing where they chase you for whatever it is, and then suddenly they're not fighting with each other, they're teaming up against you and their their whole question of fighting about this thing that's silly is just like been dropped, right? And then later, you can actually have a reasonable conversation, but you've turned it into a game, which makes the whole thing funny. And when we laugh, we know what happens when we laugh, oxytocin is released. Oxytocin is the bonding hormone, so they're bonding with each other now and with you, because there's laughter going on, right? But here's the thing, if we're in. Starting to go into fight, flight or freeze, we can no longer get into playfulness. We are beyond playfulness. We may not be in a state of emergency yet, but we're like moving toward one. So when you said, what are the skills we need to keep our kids? I would say the first skill that we all need is to notice what's happening in our own nervous system and then our kids, because an adult is in a dysregulated state, there, by definition, as true for all human needs, unpredictable, right? Fight, flight or freeze, where it's unpredictable, what's going to happen next with us, and we are not providing safety to our kids when we're unpredictable. When we are in a dysregulated state, they cannot calm down. We've got the the loud voices. We have a couple of kids upset the minute we get dysregulated, too. They're like, Well, nobody's in charge here. Clearly, and my my adult, who's my safe person, is now unpredictable, so I have to watch out for number one, I'm going to cling harder to this toy, or I'm going to give everybody a whack and run to my room and lock the door. Yeah. So the number one skill for the adult is to notice, on a daily basis, all day long, how's my nervous system doing, right? Can I calm myself down? There are things I you, you've you know you would see me stroking my upper arms. That's actually proven by research, to calm us down, right? So the different things work for different people. It's really helpful to notice what your belief systems are and to confront those so we talked earlier when I said, calm yourself down as you're going from the kitchen into the room where the kids are fighting. It's not an emergency. They're acting like kids because they are kids. They need my help. She's not a bad kid. She's having a hard time, right? All of those things that we're telling ourselves to calm down. So notice your nervous system and work to re regulate before you get into fight, flight or freeze. That would be the number one skill for parents. Yeah. Second skill for parents is to connect with the child. When you're in a regulated state, you're connecting child, because this all goes back to what you said so wisely a few minutes ago, Tracy, which is, we have to work on ourselves first, if we don't do the work. And you're right. Part of that is work on our family of origin. Part of this work on our triggers. Part of it is just notice in the moment, because when we do that, we're laying down the neural wiring that we calm our nervous system. We calm the amygdala that's setting off the alarm bells at the moment. We strengthen the prefrontal cortex that is taking charge of the brain. Right when we can do that, we're laying down more neural wiring for us to stay regulated so we can provide more safety to our kids, and then we can teach them the skills they need. So full circle back to the skills that they need that you were asking, what do we do? We've got a kid. Maybe they have some delayed language. Maybe they have some delayed prefrontal cortex. Maybe they're not used to getting seen and validated. So there are all kinds of ways, on a daily basis, before the conflict ever happens, that we can do those things to help our kids develop those skills. So one would be validation. You've heard me mention it a lot. We all need to be seen. A kid coming from a trauma background did not get seen, right? But most human beings don't feel like they come even if you don't, you wouldn't call your background a trauma background. Most of us could have used being seen a little bit more in our childhood, being heard a little bit more. So you don't have to agree with your kid to validate, right? You know, I don't agree that my kid just called her sister a name, but I can validate that she really wanted to work on this project without interruption, and she felt annoyed to get interrupted, right? Or that crestfallen that her project got ruined, right? So we want to on a 24/7 basis, and you won't do that because you're not Mother Teresa, who, by the way, was the mother. I'm just saying she wasn't a mother,

Speaker 1  48:38  
yeah, but we will try to increase our ratio, and all we're doing is we're noticing what's going on with our child, and we're validating. You wish you gotten to the door first. You want it to be the one to push the elevator button, but your brother got there, he pushed it, he pushed it, and you're pretty upset. And now we have an elevator full of people, and you wish, you want, you want to start over and you want to push it, we're going to have to figure out a solution before we come down, since both of you really like pushing the button, but I right now that you feel pretty bad that you got here a second. That's all you know you and hopefully you've got enough of relationship with your kid that you've been doing the preventive maintenance of your kid, each of your kids, on a daily basis, and validating them, so that your kids, like you know that's right, but they can hold it together instead of kicking and screaming in the elevator with a crowded element, right? So validation would be one of your first things that you're always doing to build emotional intelligence. What you're really asking me when you say, how do we build these skills? It's emotional intelligence. So that's one thing we do, another thing that we do. It's a little different than validation, but it segues right in as empathy. You wish you could have gotten here first. You always want to be the one. You don't have to agree with the brother either. You always wish you could be the first. I know most, most of us like to be first in everything. Don't wait. You think that would work? Do you think there's a way to work that out, that we could all be first all the time? Now, you notice I'm joking. Okay, but the is, you're validating and you're empathizing. We're helping them notice their own feelings, and we're giving them a really clear message, there's nothing wrong with your feelings. You're not allowed to be first in everything. Sorry. It doesn't work that way, and you do have to give your brother a chance to push the elevator button, but you're allowed to have those feelings. It doesn't make you a bad person, right? And so when we allow kids, we accept and validate and allow them to have their feelings, it actually helps them develop the prefrontal cortex and the emotional skills that you're looking for, because they start to think, I'm not a bad person. I just I'm not allowed to do that thing and act on it, right? I'm allowed to feel it. It's like we talked about earlier. We want to get on our coat and walk out of the house. We don't do it, but there's something you know, it's okay to want it feel like that. Then you notice it, and then you take action to do something that's a little different than that. That works for everybody, but your kid is allowed to have the feelings, right? Making the feelings go away? Well, they won't go away. We'll just make the kid feel bad and wrong. They'll stuff him into the unconscious where they're not under conscious control, and then they burst out, or they actually does, walk his brother in the elevator that's full of people. Yeah. So the two kinds of skills I've just talked about developing, I'm going to give you a third one, is validating and empathizing, right, right? So what about noticing what other people are feeling? That can be pretty hard, especially if you had to fight to get your needs met, and your family of origin your situation, and now you're in a new situation, but you may still feel like you have to fight to get your needs met, right? So one thing that helps with that is to help the child notice other people's needs in a way that doesn't cost the child anything. So there's a lot of research on this. They went into homes with a new baby and a toddler or a preschooler, and they taught the parents how to talk to the toddler preschooler and say things like, I wonder why the baby's crying. I wonder what she needs, or, look the baby's smiling at you. Oh yeah. Thinking, yeah. So they did that, and then they also had a control group where they, I don't know, read them stories, or they did something completely different, but it wasn't that. A year later, they came back, and they had the parents rate the relationship between the siblings, and they also observed in the families, and the researchers did their own ratings of how what was the relationship like between the siblings. So the baby's now a year old, can't talk still. Have you got a toddler or a preschooler? The toddlers and preschoolers who had been given these very simple interventions, I wonder what the baby is feeling or thinking. Wonder what the baby needs right now, those kids were more warm to their siblings. They're more understanding of their siblings. They actually seem to read them better to like, Oh, he wants the block, right? The relationships were better. And the control group, they were just sort of normal, like, like any sibling pair, where they hadn't done an intervention like this, then they took, did an extension of this, where they went in while the babies were in utero. Oh, do you feel that foot in mommy's belly? You feel that? I wonder what the baby wants. I wonder the baby needs. You think he's doing karate in there simply to humanize something that you can't even tell us human at that point, same effect that those children, once the baby was born, were better. So thinking about families where you're creating a family and you have foster kids who came from different places and different places and different experiences, right? What could we do again? You wouldn't guess or do 24/7, but how could we increase the ratio of just noticing you're on the playground with your three year old or your seven year old, and you say, I wonder why that kid is crying, right? Right? Right? I wonder what he needs. I wonder what he needs.

Speaker 2  53:43  
Yeah, we talk a lot in our community about narrating what you see around you to normalize their own emotions, but also then to normalize other emotions that they see going on around them. This has been fantastic. Dr Markham, thank you so much. I feel like I have some homework assignments I need to carry out now in my own four walls here at our house. But I so appreciate the time that you took to share all this information with us and the very practical scripts and language that you gave us for talking to our kids. The only thing that I would add, and I hope that I never get tired of saying, this is parents, when you've gone through one of these interventions and you've worked hard to negotiate these conversations with your kids and model for your kids how to have these conversations. Please make sure you're taking some time for self care. Go back to a quiet room somewhere else in the house and sneak a bite of chocolate or have a nice cold glass of iced tea, something that refreshes you and restores you. Write in your journal how it felt when you were walking your kids through that whatever it takes to re energize you and help you reconnect back to the normal rhythms of your family life from a position of strength so. Thank you, Dr Markham, and we really appreciate your time with us today.

Unknown Speaker  55:04  
It was my pleasure. You.