Is It Normal for Siblings To Fight?
If you are a parent of two or more kids, you may have experienced conflicts, disagreements, and fights in your house. How often have you wondered if your kids will keep fighting all their lives? Will they ever have a healthy, positive sibling relationship or not? We understand your feelings are natural, but is it really normal for siblings to fight?
Fights among siblings are a common and natural part of growing. All parents want their kids to have a wonderful and empathetic relationship. But if brothers and sisters fight a lot, it’s totally ok. They will adore each other one minute and be furious the next. Although continuous bickering is stressful to watch, but fights among siblings have many advantages, like kids learning problem-solving, social skills, and patience.
Why do Siblings Fight?
Children are complex beings, as their emotional and psychological needs are continuously evolving. There are many factors that can cause siblings to fight. These include:
1. Arrival of a newborn
Usually, rivalry among siblings starts even before the birth of the second child. Due to her pregnancy, the mother cannot spend too much quality time with the older one, which causes resentment in the child. And when the new addition is welcomed into the world, the older kid experiences strong feelings of jealousy. The older sibling feels threatened as he was the only recipient of all the attention and love from the parents, and now a new baby has come to take his share.
As the kids grow older, these feelings grow stronger as the older one has to now share his toys, old clothes, and other stuff along with the parent’s attention. This is the root cause for most of the hitting, shouting, and fighting by the older sibling with the little sibling.
What Can Parents Do?
- Prepare your kid before the birth of the baby. Show him pictures of himself as a baby, read stories about babies and talk about his role as the big sibling.
- Be considerate of the kid’s emotions, as what he is feeling is normal, and the aggression is his way of channeling his inner feelings of jealousy and anger,
- Involve the older sibling actively in taking care of the newborn, like asking him to pass you diapers or feed the baby from the bottle.
- Spend quality time with the older sibling separately that doesn’t involve the baby, like reading him books, going for a walk, or playing games.
- When the kid is being gentle with the baby, praise it.
- If the kid hits the baby, don’t punish him, as it will make him resent the baby more.
2. Comparisons Between Kids:
As a parent, it is natural to compare your kids as they may have different habits, attitudes, and skills. However, when the parent compares one kid with the other in front of the kids, it can develop feelings of inferiority or superiority. The comparison also encourages unhealthy competition and rivalry among siblings. And when small kids experience such big feelings, they channel them out by hitting the other sibling.
What Can Parents Do?
- Stop comparing your kids.
- Motivate, but don’t compare. There are different ways to motivate your kids rather than comparing one sibling with the other.
- You need to realize that every child is different.
- You have to make an effort to stop comparing your kids; only then it will make a difference.
3. Call For Attention:
Usually, siblings fight as a way to get their parent’s attention. When a child feels insecure or unloved, he uses inappropriate behaviors like hitting, arguing, or fighting with his sister or brother. Fights among siblings are a quick way to get a reaction from parents, and for them, negative attention is better than having no attention at all.
What Can Parents Do?
- Give adequate attention to all your kids, as it will discourage jealousy due to unfair treatment.
- Praise good behavior equally. Don’t praise one kid and scold others all the time for not doing things your way.
- Always give attention to positive behavior, and don’t react when the child is demanding your attention by exhibiting negative behavior. However, calmly address him if his behavior becomes harmful.
4. Special Needs – Sickness and Hunger:
Hunger is another factor that leads siblings to fight. If the parent doesn’t provide attention to the hunger cues, it makes the kid angry, and he may take it out on his sibling.
Similarly, when one kid is sick, parents give more time to the sick kid, unintentionally neglecting the other kids. The healthy kid isn’t able to process this unfair attention emotionally and may show resentment towards his siblings.
What Can Parents Do?
- Try to develop empathy in your child by describing what is happening to his sick sibling.
- Involve him in taking care of his sibling.
- Keep an eye on hunger cues.
- Apart from meal times, offer healthy snacks to the kids to satisfy their food needs.
5. Lack of Extra-curricular Activities:
If your kids don’t have any hobbies or extra-curricular activities, they will get bored. When kids don’t get a positive platform to take out their energies, it leads to frustration and negative behavior. Since siblings are always present with each other, the probability of conflict arising is the highest in such a situation.
What Can Parents Do?
- Involve your kids in healthy activities like painting, mind games, and puzzles.
- Go to the play area daily so kids can get excited rather than bored.
- Involve the kids in home chores like cleaning the toy room, helping in the kitchen, etc. You can also offer rewards to motivate them.
6. Development Phases:
Kids go through continuous brain development. Their needs, preferences, and behaviors are continuously evolving. If a kid is behaving a certain way at school-going age, it is not necessary he will behave the same in his preteens. Kids process things differently and fight due to varying reasons at different phases of their development.
Toddlers: Toddlers are possessive about their things as their sharing skills are underdeveloped. And they are unable to process the division of parents’ attention. Since toddlers don’t have proper language and vocabulary, they find it difficult to express their big feelings of jealousy and anger. Therefore, toddlers react aggressively, like biting or hitting, when the younger sibling gets in his space.
What Can Parents Do?
- Provide undivided attention.
- Validate the kids’ feelings.
- Loads of hugs and kisses to make him feel loved.
- Motivate good behavior.
- Involve older kids in the chores of babies.
Child: School-going kids are in that phase where they learn the differences between right and wrong, fairness and inequality, and other moral values. So when one sibling gets preferential treatment either due to sickness or any other reason, they might not be able to comprehend it. Therefore, it is perfectly normal for siblings of this age group to fight to proclaim their rights.
What Can Parents Do?
- Fair treatment among kids.
- Don’t pay attention to every fight.
- Don’t get involved unless there is a risk of physical harm.
- Be calm and discuss the consequences of fighting with kids.
- Don’t take sides.
Pre-teens and Teenagers: They have a cordial and loving relationship with their baby or toddler siblings. But on the other hand, pre-teens and teen siblings fight with each other on almost everything. They are developing a sense of authority and independence. And any interference from siblings can lead to a big fight over nothing.
What Can Parents Do?
- Stay calm in the chaos and be a positive role model for your kids.
- Encourage the siblings to resolve their conflicts through discussion. You can also help in problem-solving by focusing on what went wrong.
- Don’t put all the blame on one kid, especially the older one.
- Don’t expect mature adult behavior from teens, as they are still going through emotional growth.
- Don’t be authoritative. Instead, be their friend.
So is it normal for siblings to fight?
The short answer is Yes! It is normal for siblings to fight. One minute you will see them playing together, and the next minute they will be hitting each other. But it allows them to regulate their inner emotions, teach problem-solving, and have a healthy relationship with each other in the long run.
However, parents play an important role. Proper attention and guidance are required by parents so kids can also have a positive approach to life.
