When kids fight…ugh! This week Bonnie & Audrey discuss sibling rivaly. They talk about the funniest/most desperate thing they’ve done to deal with fighting kids, tips for how to prevent sibling rivalry before it starts, and why it’s so important to them that their children get along.
Mentioned in this episode:
Bonnie’s IGTV video about moral right and wrong
Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
This Momma Life on energizing greatness
Please support our podcast on Patreon
Automated audio transcription of this episode:
— Speaker 1 00:06 Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I’m Bonnie and I’m Audrey and we’re homeschooling moms to a combined total of 18 children. We know firsthand that motherhood is full of crazy chaos and overwhelming obligations, but it should also be full of love and laughter regardless of where you are on your journey. Come join us as we work together to find joy in the chaos of motherhood.
Speaker 0
Speaker 2 Hello and welcome to episode 38. Today we’re going to be talking about something that you guys have been asking us to talk about for a long time. Sibling rivalry.
something
Speaker 1
Speaker 2
from Canada. It says, a surprising little gem. I stumbled across your podcast earlier this spring and while I haven’t listened to all of the episodes, I’ve loved what I’ve heard, you work together so seamlessly and have such great advice. Thank you for the time you put into creating this insightful podcast. Oh, can I, and can I put in a request for a topic? Please give us me some advice on navigating teenagers, especially hormonal and emotional girls. I’m drowning here, ladies. Amen, sister. I have some girl teenagers, so I, I suppose I could relate. I don’t know if I could,
Speaker 1 01:30 yeah, let’s, let’s have you tell us all the tips. Yeah, good idea. Yeah, I’ll talk about boys. You can talk about girls. You got both, but, okay. So for a humorous segment today, because we’re talking about sibling rivalry, fights between kids, we thought that we would both share the most desperate thing we’ve done to stop our kids from fighting. So mine, I am sure there’s been something more desperate, but I wanted to share one thing that happened recently. I’ve been struggling to um, really focus on the good in my kids and not always be correcting their bad behavior, just focusing on the things they do. Right. So my six year old, this is especially difficult with because he is an instigator. He fights with literally every child in the house from the 14 year old to the two year old, not the baby. He doesn’t fight with the baby.
Speaker 1 02:18 Um, so I’ve been trying to focus on the good. So the other day the kids were playing with, um, like kitchen utensils, like spatulas and you know, for swords or whatever. And um, pot lids for shields. And so of course as they’re playing, somebody gets whacked in the head with a spatula and somebody whacks somebody back. And my six year old is really angry at this point. And so he lifts up his spatula and chucks it at the sibling and I, my, you know, my first reaction, I said, yell, no, don’t do that. And then I see him lift up the shield. What is like a metal potluck, right? That’s really gonna do some damage either to my wall or to a kid’s face. And so I immediately, um, like went into my like finding good phase of, you know, voice, ah, Oh, let’s please not do that buddy.
Speaker 1 03:06 You know, this is like totally out of character for me. I’m like usually screaming because, Oh, let’s not do that, but I don’t, we don’t want to hurt her or I didn’t, I think I said we don’t want to damage property or something like that. Cause I think he really did want to hurt her at that moment and then he dropped it and I immediately like stayed in that mentality. It was like, thank you so much for dropping that and not throwing it again. Totally out of character for me. I’m usually like, all right, let’s focus on what you did wrong. But the you, if you could have seen the look on his face, it was like pure shock. Wow. She just thanked me for not checking a metal pot lit at my sister’s ed, but I was like, I’m calling that a win.
Speaker 2 03:44 Oh yeah. All right. So my funniest or maybe most desperate thing I’ve done to get my kids to stop fighting is, um, okay. So when my oldest two were at the age where they just can’t seem to get along. And I know that at least with my kids, there’s been an age where they, they reach and there’s two of them. They just butt heads over everything. It doesn’t matter what. So I ha, I was just desperate. I didn’t have any idea what to do. So I decided I’d tried everything I could think of. So I said, all right, go get me a pieces of yarn. And they went and got my volley yarn and I tied a string around one end of, okay. So I tied one end of the —
00:28 <inaudible>
00:30 hello and welcome to episode 38. Today we’re going to be talking about that you guys have been asking us to talk about for a long time. Sibling rivalry, right?
00:44 Cause we’ve been fighting. Yeah, good times.
00:50 Okay, so we’re going to start with a review. Um, this one is left by Kay, um,
— yarn around one of their wrists and I tied the other end of the yard around the other end of the wrist and gave him about two feet in between. And I said, okay, you guys are no stuck together until you learn how to get along. And I tied them together and then I sent him out to clean the chicken.
Speaker 2 04:45 Now both, so like each other. So then you know that it’s kind of desperate, but it does throw them into us against mom mentality. So they’re not each other’s not the bad guy. Mark kind of runs the back gate and come on, it’s yarn. It doesn’t hurt. Right. So, so they conspired with each other and while they were in the chicken house scooping Pope, apparently they removed the yard, you know, and pulled one over on mom’s side. But they came back in and they were buddies and you know, that was really about some of the last times that they got into it together because I would just kind of have to say, okay, I’m yarn time and you know, that was, no, no, no mom, we love each other. Kiss, kiss, hug, hug. Yeah, there is some, and we’re gonna talk more about this later, but
Speaker 1 05:32 there’s something to be said about pitting them against a parent that actually helps them get along better.
Speaker 2 05:38 Those two now get along, um, better than I’ve seen any siblings ever get along. So I, I’m claiming the yarn trick did it, but it might’ve been, you know, just whatever, just to combine it just to, um,
Speaker 1 05:49 United front against the common enemy. That’s you. And hopefully the desperation that they didn’t want to get. <inaudible> I’ve always thought about throwing, fighting kids in the shower together and turning it on. You heard of that? I’ve heard of somebody doing that for teenage boys because my boys are now, but going to have to fight so hard that I don’t want to put insert myself in there, but I also can’t let them keep doing it. They’re gonna really hurt each other. So I’m like, Hm. Maybe the hose, I don’t know. Turn the hose on.
Speaker 2 06:23 Oh, all right. So today we’re going to talk all about sibling rivalry when kids will fight and um, we’ve got lots of experience with this. If nothing else, we can relate to people asking for help with sibling rivalry. Totally.
Speaker 1 06:37 We are going to talk about why we want, want our kids to get along. That seems fairly obvious, but I think there’s quite a few different reasons, um, in different ways to look at it.
Speaker 2 06:46 Okay. We’re going to give our best tips for helping them get along and I promise they’re going to be better than time together with string. That is an excellent,
Speaker 1 06:52 you got my back pocket. We’re also gonna talk about what to do when they do not get along. So when there is fighting or rivalry or you know, and, and when we say rivalry, we tend to mean something a little bit longer lasting than just like a fight here and there. Right? Something that that is hard, hard to overcome. So we’re going to talk about what to do when that happens.
Speaker 2 07:11 So why do we want our kids to get along? Kind of obvious. I’m for peace and quiet here now, right? Just to make the noise stop and to not have to always be the referee. Um, but also we want our kids to get along because we have a vision for a future clan that starts with these kids. And if they can’t stand each other because of how much they fought when they were kids and how much they didn’t get along, and if they have lasting resentment, um, there’s just not going to want to be around each other. And that’s not the vision we have for our family going forward into the future.
Speaker 1 07:43 You used the word vision. So we, um, have had various mission statements over the years for our family and we recently redid ours. Um, but I love the idea of teaching it to your children as a vision. So like envision us in 20 years and it’s kind of fun for kids to be like, wow, in 20 years I’m going to be 30 and 20 years, I’m going to be 28, you know, and say, what do you think your life is going to look like? Talk about that a little bit. What do you want our family to look like? Well, you’re not gonna live here anymore. You probably live with your own family when you come to visit on Sunday. What would that look like? You know? And to really get them envisioning their future and how their siblings and parents play into that. And that can really, really be beneficial to their relationships today —
— when they realize that they don’t want to be fighting over petty things when they’re 25 years old.
Speaker 2 08:27 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. We tell our kids, do you want to be friends when you grow up? And that starts now. That’s something I say to my kids a lot. I think
Speaker 1 08:36 that is a, uh, uh, S one of the biggest side blessings of a homeschooling is just more time together. Um, sometimes quality time, sometimes just quantity time, but, um, it’s easier to develop a relationship and you have more time together. But our, our reasons are similar to yours. We want peace at home. Obviously. I feel like everything goes more smoothly when there’s no fighting a, we want lifelong relationships. Um, and we want to set them up before also also to have good nonfamilial relationships. So I feel like people who can overcome obstacles in their family relationships are just that much easier to get along with outside of the family. Does that make sense? So they’re going to be a lot better roommates, a lot better spouses if they understand how to overcome sibling squabbles.
Speaker 2 09:21 Yeah, exactly. Um, I, I think I’ve mentioned this before. Um, my husband grew up in a family that, um, squabbled a lot or had a lot of discussions that got, um, compared to my family growing up. Yeah, they got quite heated and they would, sometimes people would argue the other side of the equation just so there could be some life in the conversation. Yeah. And when I, when I first came around this like, um, I didn’t know how to, um, I, I didn’t know this kind of lively discussion or debate or it just seemed like fighting to me and I didn’t know how to interact in a way like that. So, so to be able to have a relationship outside of, um, your family, like your family is, we’ve said this before too, it’s like the safe place to in our temper tantrum episode, the safe place to express your feelings and your disappointments.
Speaker 2 10:18 Um, and so the safe place to learn how to get along with people too. Right? Totally. Okay. So now we’re going to share some tips with, um, what, how to head off the S that a sibling rivalry, those fights, the competition before, before it starts. Um, so my best, uh, and favorite tip is to start before the sibling ever arrives. Um, we talked a lot about this in episode five on getting kids ready for a new sibling. And I’m in that episode, I specifically went through, um, what we do to get our kids ready for a new sibling because there is so, so many books out there and so much thought out there that you’re not going to be the baby anymore. And that does introduce rivalry or competition into a relationship
Speaker 1 11:02 most from the get go, you’re saying, Oh, you’re less special now. Sorry. Nobody wants to feel that way. Yeah.
Speaker 2 11:10 Yeah. So start before than sibling even arrives and talk about how they’re going to love each other and how hard they’re going to be friends and that, um, you know, the, uh, along that line, another thing we do is we discouraged competition. Um, I know that we are homeschooled so we don’t have as much opportunity for this, but we don’t put our kids in competitive sports. Um, not because they couldn’t do it or they wouldn’t love it or there’s not good things to be learned, but it’s just, um, part of our philosophy that we just don’t encourage competition in our kids. We discourage competition.
Speaker 2 11:44 And then, um, we encourage friendships. So like I was set a second ago, we talk about, do you guys want to be friends when you grow up? Do you want to do stuff together? Um, you know, imagine yourself shopping together or getting your families together for a barbecue or something. And how we do this is we, um, we have them do tasks together. So yes, I had my kids, um, cleaning the chicken house together, tied together and all that. But, um, I ha like, I’ll put two kids on one shore for the week. Okay. You guys are gonna, you know, be, take care of the goat, taking care of the goats this week, and, um, that’s your job together and help each other and, um, then give them rewards together too. So for example, you guys were on goats this week and you did so awesome. We’re going to run to town and we’re gonna, you know, do a special activity or go to a park because you guys did such a great job taking care of the goats.
Speaker 2 12:35 And so they get those two that we’re working together get rewarded t —
— ogether. And that’s, um, another way to encourage friendships. Um, another one that’s maybe a little bit of a toughie for adults is be friends with your own siblings. Um, so yeah, maybe you had some sibling rivalry or competition or, um, hard feelings, resentment from growing up, but we’re adults now and so like, if that can be resolved and if we can be friends or work towards friendships with our own siblings, um, to be an example of our kids, you know, what they might want to do someday that’s golden might be difficult. But it is like being a, being an example of what we want our kids to be. Right.
Speaker 2 13:24 And then, um, one thing, uh, I, I have my kids do, so if oftentimes there’s two that are there just butting heads and they just are, no matter what their setting each other off. So, you know, if they come to me and they’re constantly tattling on one one sibling, I always ask them to tell me one good thing about their sibling, the sibling that they’re struggling with before they tell me whatever thing they came to tell me. So you know, so and so was hitting me or whatever. So I said, stop, stop. You have to tell me something good about them before you tell me I have
Speaker 1 13:57 the bag, I’m T, I’m doing that. That’s awesome. And they kind of stop and blink and think, and then they’re like, Oh, because they really want to tell that bad thing. So, so they have to, but they’re not allowed to. They think thinking something about the good thing might take a little bit of the wind out of their hate sales, you know, like, Oh yeah, I guess I just don’t like them, but I’m still mad they hit me. So that actually reminds me of what we, one of our tips, what we do at the dinner table every night is we tell our highs and lows for the days, you know, we say my high was pointed his store and using my money to buy a toy, my low was when I tripped and fell at the park or whatever. Um, but some caveats of this are are your low, can’t be tattling.
Speaker 1 14:43 So it can’t be my low was when my brother hit me. You can say getting hurt for something like that. But um, and so it doesn’t become like just a title fast, but also it really helps others. Um, the other siblings encourage the one who’s telling it like, Oh, you’re high. Yeah. That was so awesome that you did that good job. And we all kind of, you know, the parents are the example of encouraging the kid in that or, or showing empathy when they talk about their low. Wow. That must’ve been really hard. I’m sorry that happened to you today. Um, and empathy is so, so important and something that I think many adults don’t know how to practice. And I still work on sometimes. But to teach your kid true empathy, you know, at a out of a totally selfless place is really, really powerful.
Speaker 1 15:25 Um, and along with that I realized how important it is to teach our kids moral absolutes like right and wrong. Like it is always wrong to hit your sibling. I don’t care what they did to you. It is always wrong to, you know, whatever else you’re, your rules are. Um, because then it becomes not a us versus them thing where mom’s nagging me again. It’s, uh, I just made a serious mistake because that is, you know, and that goes to, you know, into spiritual beliefs or whatever you believe is innately wrong. Like harming another human being is innately wrong. We don’t do it ever at our household. Um, but for them to understand that it’s not mom’s rules that I’m breaking and I want to rebel. It’s, it’s the universe rules. This is truth, absolute truth. So I actually made a video about that, um, that I’m gonna post on Instagram this week. But it’s a, it’s just a really interesting paradigm shift to go from it being mom’s rules to absolute rules that apply to everybody.
Speaker 1 16:27 Yeah. I like that. Um, I have a verse that I’ll often have my kids copy when they’re not, you know, for copy work at school, when they’re not getting along and it’s in Ecclesiastes, foreign, it says two are better than one and a threefold cord is not soon broken. So just getting them to thinking that this, this information that mom has given us is coming from somewhere. Exactly, mom. Because yeah, when they get mad at you, they might, you know, try to break all your rules. But if it’s a higher power that’s holding them accountable, that’s different. Yeah. And like we kinda mentioned before, um, it’s fun for me to allow my kids to kind of innocently gang up on me —
— , you know? So like you say, sometimes that’s forced, like making them do a tour together or making them do a project together. Um, but sometimes it just kinda happens and when they can kind of band together to do something, um, that, I don’t know, go make a big mud mess or something.
Speaker 1 17:23 It doesn’t have to be something, I mean, it shouldn’t be something bad, but what I mean is just something that they’re doing together that mom isn’t a part of. I think that’s so valuable because like, I love doing things altogether as a family, but in the end, my kids, when they’re 30, 40, 50 are probably not gonna want to come hang out with me as much as they’re going to want to come and go, go hang out with their siblings and each other’s kids. Right. So to have those relationships early on, that’s pretty awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 2 17:49 Yeah. I see that now in my teenagers, they’re, I’m there to the place where they have, you know, stuff that they talk about. Oh, I dunno. Like they, they ha, they talk about things on forms of social media that I’d even have ticked off or whatever, you know, and they laugh and giggle about something they saw or something they heard or something. And I was like, you know, I’m glad you guys are enjoying each other cause that’s going to totally over my head. And that’s part of the joy for them is that mom and dad are old fuddy duddies and they have no clue what tic talking is or whatever. Yeah, totally
Speaker 1 18:21 quotes or expressions or things that band them together that mom has no clue about. Some stupid Fortnite dancer,
Speaker 2 18:28 right on whatever, whatever the kids are into these days
Speaker 1 18:33 along these lines, you know, sleep is sharing a bedroom with a sibling can really help them that way. Especially if the kids aren’t getting along. Maybe say, you know, we’re going to have a couple of months where you guys get to share a room, see if you can work it out. I’m having like little secrets from mom, as long as they’re innocent, obviously girl talk, boy talk, whatever. Um, and then lastly, my tip is to be really cautious about labeling kids. Um, and we, you kinda mentioned this, you know, when a sibling comes around, like it’s not that you’re not the baby anymore, it’s, you’re still as valuable, et cetera. But pointing out when one kid is good at something can automatically make the other kid assume that they’re not. And that there’s some sort of competition. And we, and we often do this subconsciously. So I remember hearing a talk on church I think awhile ago, um, where the speaker said, if you say Susan is pretty and Jane is smart, the only thing Susan is going to hear is that she’s not smart.
Speaker 1 19:26 And Jane will hear, she’s not pretty. I thought, Oh, so true. We’re trying to find like something to build someone up with. But oftentimes if we do that individually in that, you know, that’s totally fine to do one on one, but we do that within the earshot of someone else. They’re naturally going to compare themselves. Like, gee, mom’s never told me I’m smart. You know? Um, and that might seem silly, but it really, it really can affect the kid and to, to Dole out those compliments generously and across the board. And if you want to say something personal to a child to do it out of earshot of other people, so,
Speaker 2 20:00 sure, sure. I’ve even heard adults say things like, Oh, um, I can’t paint because my sister was <inaudible>. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, I totally agree about kids sleeping together. Um, as I’ve mentioned before, we have a very small house and, um, all the girls sleep in one room and all the boys except the baby and the biggest college boys sleep in another room. And you know, it really does something for their psychology. When you have to sleep together at the end of the day in the same bed or in the same room, you kind of don’t want to make too huge of an enemy of that person. And they say that spouses should always go to bed together. Right. So that you can end that come together and the day on a positive note, Bonnie, now we’re going to get people requesting us to talk about our really marriage relationships and so on.
Speaker 2 21:00 Don’t want people don’t a, okay. All right. So what to do when they don’t get along? Because there are times when there’ll be two kids, uh, of a certain age and they hit that age and they’re just, no matter what, they’re just always fighting, n —
— o matter. So sometimes separating them works when they’re younger, especially this works sometimes just, okay, you are go on the second floor of the house and you go down on the first floor of the house and you guys aren’t allowed on the same floor. And then of course all they can think of is, Oh, I want my boy, you know, my whatever from my room upstairs. And the other one’s like, Oh, but I just wanted to, you know, whatever downstairs. And then, no, sorry, you weren’t getting along. And so for an hour you have to be on separate floors of the house. Speaker 2 21:43 And then they’re like, Oh, well, yeah, because it’s that way naturally when you can’t have something, that’s the only thing that you want for them to quickly get over their frustration because, um, they really wanna reunite and get the thing they need. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, um, but when they get older, I find, um, making them work together is better. Like if I say five and under, it’s, it’s different for every kid. But if I separate them when they’re five and under that works. If I make them work together when they’re five and under, they just won’t work. They’ll just sit there and fight. Yeah. But if they’re older and having to work together toward a common goal on a common task and I shoot, I’m not afraid to, you know, make him dig a hole and fill it back up again just to be working together.
Speaker 2 22:33 But around here there’s plenty of work to do, you know, clean out the goat shed or you know, weed the garden or whatever and having to work together hard physical labor. It really kind of take some of the VIM and vinegar out of them. Even if they get distracted and just end up playing, you still win, you know? Exactly. Oh. And then as parents realize it’s something they’re going to outgrow if we keep the, the major resentment, um, from allowing civil rights, sibling rivalry and encouraging competition. And, and if we are just, you know, on a mission not to let that happen in our family, then these, these squabbles, these petty squabbles, they’re kind of an age related thing and they will outgrow it and they’ll get along better when they’re adults. Um, just, just because that’s the way it works. Yeah. True.
Speaker 1 23:23 Along these lines, this goes, you know, those labels also apply to a sibling rivalry. Like if we start saying, well, Johnny and Sarah never get along. They just are always competitive and they just don’t like each other, you know, that sticks. And I found myself doing the same thing of those two are always like, you know, oil and vinegar, those two, they can’t mix, blah, blah, blah. And I realized that I’m harming my children because I’m not allowing them the opportunity to get over it, which I know they will someday because I just keep bringing it up. Speaker 2 23:56 Yeah. So, um, another thing, affective thing that I do is take away the thing they’re fighting over. Usually it’s uh, a toy or a book or sometimes when it’s just two going at logger heads for over anything is taken away like 10 items during the day. Okay. You’re fighting over that. I don’t like fighting in my house. That goes away. And the, this almost ended up as my humor segment. My husbands, there’s a legend in my husband’s family that he and his sister were fighting over a book and the dad said, Hey, let me see that. And they’re like, okay dad. And they handed him the book and he opened the fireplace and checked it. It slammed the door and they got the message. Yeah, next time it’s going to be one of you.
Speaker 2 24:41 Oh. But they got the message. And you know when, when you take away the thing they’re fighting over, that usually takes some of the steam out of their sales. They’re like, huh, okay. And then you know, then there, if it happens a couple times, okay, so you take away two or three things, they’re fighting over and pretty soon one of them will get it and there’ll be like, ah, you can just have that. Let’s not fight over this because mom’s going to take it away too, you know. Um, I have no problem with enforced physical contact, um, for when they’re fighting. So two kids that are made to sit next to each other on the couch, touching, holding hands, sitting cross legged, face to face, whatever, enforced physical contact in about 30 seconds. They’ll be laughing instead of fighting. I don’t know why, but if you just make them sit there and hold hands and look at each other, put their arms around each other, g —
— ive them a kiss, tell him they’re sorry. Give each other a kiss. Say I’m sorry. Say I accept your apology. It’s something about the physical touching and, and they’ll, they’ll turn around, you know, if I said, okay, you guys have to sit there on the couch holding hands until your friends in about, you know, 30 seconds. They’ll be laughing and joking and hugging each other. And they may not be friends, but at least give me a sense about that. Cause I wanted to do that multiple times, but
Speaker 1 25:59 just keep forgetting. So you do this with, have you done this with all ages or their specific ages? It works better with
Speaker 3
Speaker 2
Speaker 1
or do they just cause that that would be my concern is like alright, sit on the couch next to each other and they just keep slugging each other. Or maybe that’s just my kids.
26:05 <inaudible>.
26:07 Um, you usually don’t have to do it anymore after there. Oh, okay.
26:14 Okay. And if they’re already like physically fighting, does this work as well
Speaker 2
Speaker 3
Speaker 2
have to say that with, with boys, um, I accept a little more rough and tumble and I know we have to do an episode on raising boys versus raising girls, but I do allow, um, some of the physical rough and tumble. As long as I see that nobody’s getting mad and usually I’ll just say, Hey, Hey, I don’t want any, any holes kicked in my walls. Take it outside. If you’re going to wrestle with each other, go to that outside, you know, go play your whatever, wrestling, karate, boxing, whatever you’re doing, go take it outside. It’s not that I don’t want them to be physical and be, boy, Speaker 1 27:08 it’s just I didn’t want holes kicked in. My youngest boy, things often start off like that, but because he doesn’t have any brothers close to him and age, then someone ends
up getting hurt cause the girls don’t tolerate quite as much, you know, like it was rough housing or whatever. So then somebody cries, so then it’s a fight and I’m like, Hmm, I think I still need to separate you because you’re being physical and nobody likes it right now.
Speaker 2 27:32 Huh. Interesting. Yeah. We’ll just use, use your mother’s intuition and know what it’s appropriate to do at that time. Do these guys need to be separated until they cooled down and then they sit on the couch holding hands until their friends. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then I’ve also, um, given my kids a job or the torch chore or the task of making their sibling happy for a day. So if there’s two that I’ve been fighting, um, I’ll say, okay, you guys sit them down in the morning on, they come up first thing. So, okay. You guys spent a lot of your day fighting. And that’s not our vision for this family. That’s not what we want for the future. So today you guys’ job is to make each other happy all day long and you have to think about instead of what do I want to eat, what would my sibling wants to eat? What would make them happy to eat? And if you want a toy to play, what toy would make my sibling happy? And if you want, um, you know, something, a book to read, what story would my sibling like to read or have read to them? And your job today is to make your sibling happy. And again, this just gets them out of their own head and thinking about somebody else. So that’s been a pretty effective tool to kind of break up the, the ongoing prolonged.
Speaker 1 28:46 I love that so much. You know when that’s really worked for us is usually around Christmas time, we’ll do like the secret Santa tech thing and everyone is toast, sweet to each other for the week or two that we do it because they’re always on alert trying to see what that person’s interested in, what they’re struggling with, something they forget, you know, a chore. They forget to do that they could then sneak in and do for them. So I need to remember that other times of the year to when they’re feeling less of the Christmas fits, like we’ve been stuck in the house in the middle of the summer or something. So I love that. So I’m going, I offer a couple of tips of what to do when your kids don’t get along as well. But I just want to preface this by saying it can be difficult to have the right balance between interfering and letting kids work out their own thing.
Speaker 1 29:27 Right? So like when I was in my early mothering years —
26:27 26:28 26:30
Oh
yeah.
I don’t know. My kids have never, never done that. Okay. Now, now I do
— , I felt like I intervened all the time. It was like, Oh, don’t do that. Oh, don’t do that. Oh, let’s not do that. You know, um, and now I’ve chilled out a little bit and also gotten a little bit lazy. So now find myself looking like watching passively as kids fight, thinking to get off the couch or not to get off the couch like I run. Do you think that’s a challenge to give your kids a little bit of space to work things out on their own without allowing like real harm to come to each other just because you’re getting lazy or you don’t know what to do? Right. So I will just mention that, um, I do have an adult family member who for years, many, many, many years harbored some serious resentment towards a sibling because growing up, uh, this person’s parents did not do very much to separate those two and to stop the fighting. And there was some serious harm done both emotionally and physically between those two. And I just thought, Oh, I can’t let that happen in my house. So just to be aware of what’s happening and that if any of these rivalries start to, you know, last more than a couple of days or a couple of months to really try to try to focus on it and work that out so that there’s not lasting damage done.
Speaker 2 30:38 Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good point. Um, I, I totally agree with that.
Speaker 1 30:44 Okay. So like you said, doing some service for a child, um, is really, really helpful and sometimes the whole family can do it. You know, like if, if one kid’s having a hard time, um, and it’s just causing fights with everyone to just kind of gather around with everybody else and say, Hey, let’s all do one nice thing for Juliette today. She’s having a hard day and everybody can go out. Instead of everyone getting irritated at that person for having a short temper, we can all go out of our way to serve them. So I liked that idea too. Um, we can talk about, you heard the saying Oh to correct in private, but to praise in public. So that can be really helpful when siblings are squabbling to that. When there is something that one person is doing wrong, to pull that person off aside and say, Hey, I’ve noticed that you’ve been having a hard time with this. Can I help you out? And then when they do something right to do that, to say that in front of the other siblings. So what that does is um, doesn’t, you know, demean a child in front of everyone else. So everyone knows that kid is being naughty today, but everyone is more likely to praise another person because mom’s doing it in public. So anyway, that’s just kind of a a thought, especially when one kid especially as having a trouble.
Speaker 2 31:48 Yeah. That reminds me of, that reminds me of the way that Jo in little men would handle all her boys. That she was raising two little men loose me icon. Yeah. She had like a notebook and she would have a weekly session with each boy, um, with the notebook every week. And they would talk about, yeah, what they were struggling with and what, what, how they were improving and little things that she’d noticed about him that were awesome. And like she would just write it down and then she could remember and talk to each boy each week. Really cool. That really cool.
Speaker 1 32:24 I like that. And then the final thing I want to mention is I said earlier that I’ve been especially focusing as a parent lately on finding the good in my kids. Um, and I got this, I mean, it’s not a new concept obviously. I, I’m often thinking about this, but recently a fellow homeschool mom brought this to my attention and called it had a specific term for it. She calls it energizing greatness, which I really, really liked. Um, so instead of energizing the negativity that’s happening around your home, but to instead energize the greatness. And so what that means is changing your perspective a little bit. I think as a parent you’re used to, um, especially as an overwhelmed parent, which I think I am. You’re used to, um, you know, you’re, you’re on high alert when, when problems are happening, right. In order to stop someone from hurting someone else or stop them from damaging something in the house, but instead to be on high alert when you’re seeing good happen.
Speaker 1 33:17 And sometimes that can be really tricky, especially for the younger ones that don’t really go out of their way to do nice things to each other. But you can even something as simple as, I’m so happy you dropped the potluck instead of chuckin —
— g it at your sister or that was such a good thing to do, right? Like sound kind of any, but it really was a hard thing for him to do. Like that was a struggle. He wanted to throw it and he didn’t, um, to start very small in praising those, those great things for them that might seem small to us but really are a great thing for a six year, seven year old to do. Um, and, and within that to appreciate your kids’ love for each other. Like, well, I just love how you guys played together so sweetly all morning long. That was so nice. I was able to take care of the baby and do the dishes. Thank you. You know, and whereas any other day you might just think, yeah, they’re playing great. Finally I get some copies of quiet, but it’s to share that with them. Yeah.
Speaker 3 34:07 <inaudible>
Speaker 2 34:09 yeah, definitely. I, I can, um, relate to that. I definitely notice if I get negative with a kid, that kid gets more negative. It’s like a downward spiral. But yeah, you’re right. Um, I like that term, energize in greatness. You can like start plant the seed of positivity and they, you know, they can then that can keep going cause every kid like,
Speaker 1 34:29 yeah, exactly. And another idea that my friend does is she actually has a couple of chalkboards up in a room, um, where kids can write down great things that they’ve seen their siblings do. So it’s not just up to her to find it, but someone can walk by and say, Oh, so and so helped me find my shoe this morning when I was running late for something. Or, um, so and so, you know, let me his toy when I couldn’t find mine. I just love that idea because then kids can constantly be thinking of, you know, looking for this for the good as well. Just like you are
Speaker 3 34:59 <inaudible>.
Speaker 2 35:00 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s awesome. I did have one final tip come to mind for when you get a couple of siblings that are just, they can’t, they can’t seem to get along. It’s like you almost wonder if it’s their personalities that are just not suited for each other and if they’re ever gonna get along. Um, I have encouraged both of them like privately away from the other one just has sit down and have a little discussion. So, you know, I noticed you really have a hard time getting along with your younger brother or your older sister or whatever. Um, and I was just wondering, do you pray for your sibling? So again, kind bumping them out of their own mind and into a higher spiritual mind to think about, you know, what to other people think about this sibling. What does God think about my sibling? Or you know, what, how can, how am I responsible for, you know, my brother’s keeper and all that. So that is one final tip. If you’ve got these long lasting rivalries and you’re just kind of wondering if it’s ever going to stop, that is something that I have encouraged my kids to, you know, take it for, to a higher power and ask for help.
Speaker 1 36:03 Yes, I love that idea. And it’s so easy to overlook. You know, we personally, I’m sure every parent who believes in God prays for their kids, but to ask other kids, ask your kids to do the same for each other can really help them elevate themselves out of that sphere of she is so annoying to well that’s have great qualities and to start to see those goods because they are able to see them through God’s eyes. I love that.
Speaker 2 36:28 Yeah. Okay. So, um, I have a book to recommend. Um, it’s called siblings without rivalry and it’s written by the same people that wrote how to talk. So your kids will listen and listen. So your kids will talk. And I read these two books way back at the beginning of my parenting career. So they are outdated. There’s probably newer shiny or versions, but I don’t think the things that are said in them have gone out of date. So siblings without rivalry is how to talk to your kids in front of the other kids and how to talk to them. W you know, when they’re by themselves and to help, um, off offload. Oh, I love that. Offset. How to yeah. Offset some of that rivalry before it even starts just by the words that you’re using and the communication that you’re having in front of your kids. Oh yeah. I love that. I’m going to check those out. So that’s all we have for you today on sibling rivalry rivalry. We hope that something we have said has struck a chord with you. Maybe a little tip you can try or at the very least, just know that, um, at least you don’t have —
— nine kids.
Speaker 1 37:38 He’s fighting with each other. Life could always be worse. Or maybe you do, you know exactly what we’re, where we’re at. Good for you.
Speaker 2 37:50 Thanks so much for chatting with us about to, about this topic today. Speaker 1 37:54 That’s funny. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, we’d be so grateful if you’d leave us a written review on iTunes. If you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us@outnumberthepodcastatgmail.com and find us on Instagram at outnumber the podcast. See you next week.
Speaker 0 38:14 <inaudible>
Speaker 2 38:20 yeah. Okay. So, um, Hey, Bonnie, did you cover, you have dad’s story in parentheses. Was that, did you cover that or is that something different?
Speaker 1 38:27 Thinking about that, I think I’ll tell you that off air, because that might incriminate my dad. He might not like that, so just keep going. It’s fine.
Speaker 2 38:38 Okay.
Speaker 0 38:39 <inaudible>.
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