When it comes to relationships, few are more important to your kid than her brother or sister. Having a sibling helps kids learn to live with someone else, provides a roadmap for navigating future relationships and teaches them compassion and empathy.
As an only child and now the mom of two preschool-aged girls, I've wondered what my husband and I can do to foster a bond between our kids?
Turns out, a lot.
For advice, I turned to Adele Faber, co-author of "Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too."
She offered a handful of helpful tips to parents of multiple children, starting with:
- Acknowledge kids' feelings. That's especially important when introducing a new sibling.
"The very advent of a new sibling brings with it threats and fear - fear of loss of time, attention, of smiles, laps, hugs, all the sunlight a parent provides, which helps kids thrive and grow," Faber said. "Suddenly you are getting a lot less of it. There is that initial tension, which is there for many kids."
Parents tend to want to make things better, to smooth over difficult emotions. Instead, listen to your kid and acknowledge her feelings.
"Feelings need to be attended to and accepted instead of pushed away," she said. "Parents always try to make things better and push away the bad negative feelings and what we have learned over the years is that not until the bad feelings go out can the good feelings come in."
- Never compare your children.
Comparing kids is a common pitfall for parents. "Why can't you be more like your brother? He sits down and does his homework."
Even praising your child for doing something well in comparison to their sibling is unhealthy, Faber said. It leads the child to think they need to keep their sibling down so they can remain tops in their parents' eyes.
"It just leads to hostile feelings," she said. "It's a dangerous dynamic and yet parents do it because they want to give kids a boost."
Whatever it is, if it's positive or negative, slam on the brakes when you are about to compare. It's toxic stuff.
Instead, Faber said, praise your child by describing the behavior you like (and do the same when you want to correct or stop behavior you don't like).
- Treat your children fairly but not equally.
Treat your child as an individual even when he demands the same treatment as his brother or sister. When you treat your children the same, your child gets the message that "I am valued only in relation to the other person."
"There is no winning once you go down that equal road," she said.
- Don't put your kids in roles.
Declaring that your son is the athlete or scholar, while your daughter is the social butterfly or the dancer, locks them into identities that can stick with them for a long time. Parents who define their children this way often unwittingly trap them into roles. The child defined as a dancer may not explore reading or writing.
And parents should intervene when siblings try to define roles for each other. When parents acknowledge there's room for more than one dancer or writer in the family, "that says to each kid that the whole world is open to them and not be restricted by the special talents of a sibling."
"Just shake it up and open them up to all their possibilities," she said.
-- Noelle Crombie; firstname.lastname@example.org