How To Handle Sibling Fights: Parenting Tips That Work

Welcome to Mom On Purpose, where it’s all about helping moms overcome challenges and live their best lives. My hope is by being here, you are more inspired to become the mom you are made to be. I’m Natalie, your host, a wife, boy, mom, dog, mama, Chicagoan, and former lawyer turned professionally certified coach. If you’re here to grow, I can help. Let’s go.

Hello, my gorgeous friends. I am so delighted to be here with you today. How are you? I hope you’re doing well. I am over on Instagram @mom.onpurpose. If you would like to say hi, let me know that you came over from this podcast episode about How To Handle Sibling Fights and we can chat about your kids or about you. Just say hello. I love being able to go back and forth, and that seems to be the best, easiest way to do it, especially if you’re not one of my coaching clients.

So, what else is happening? I am a few months postpartum. This postpartum has been easy peasy. My friends paternity leave for my husband has been life giving. I was telling him the other day, you know, this is super easy if no one works, if you just have both parents with all hands on deck, it’s pretty, pretty luxurious, pretty easy. And of course that’s not our reality. Both of us work. My husband’s back to work and I am back to work as well, and it’s a new transition again. But I just want to say here that my postpartum experiences, for the most part have been pretty great. And I want to say that not to brag, I want to say it to normalize a different type of experience. I think we’re getting pretty good at doing that with labor and delivery and pregnancy, but I, I don’t really see that with postpartum.

So for example, with labor and delivery and with pregnancies, you will hear a wide variety of experiences. You’ll hear women talking about how easy it is or how hard it is or different types of symptoms or different birth plans and all of that. And I love that. I think that’s really amazing. What I noticed is that with postpartum, there’s really kind of just one narrative out there, and it’s the narrative that it’s pretty hard. You should take things pretty slow and, you should get lots of help if you can. And, and I just don’t see a ton of varying narratives out there. And I want to offer to you that if you have an easy postpartum, that’s amazing. I had an easy postpartum experience this time around, and I will take it. Our transition from two to three, I would say has definitely been easier for us than the transition from one to two. And again, I think that depends on so many variables in your circumstances and you know, your mindset, your brain, your mentality, your perspective. So, for those of you who have many kids, you may have had a different experience. And if you are thinking of having more kids, just know that everyone’s different and, you can have an even better experience going from two to three than you did one to two. I am proof of it. So with that in mind, I have a baby who has been my angel baby I call him because he’s so chill and easygoing and his personality. And I find it just fascinating how you can learn so much about your kids through them being babies, through just the way that they, react when they’re put down the way that they sleep, right? Sleep is so personality driven.

We were able to successfully sleep, train my first son, he still sleeps through the night. I anticipate this baby will be even easier when the time comes in a few months probably to sleep, train him, just based on his personality. And my second son, it didn’t, work for him and we still go in a couple times a night for him. He’s probably got a little bit of separation anxiety, and so sleep is really about separation. And so, I just find it to be such a privilege to be their moms and be able to notice that and to know, what works for one child doesn’t always work for another child. And that dovetails so beautifully into what I want to talk with you about today, which is how to handle sibling fights, parenting tips that work. I have this topic planned and I kind of keep like a, a bank of ideas and many of them come from the podcast hotline and questions that come in.

So I had had this topic planned and coincidentally at the same time had just finished reading or listening to the book called Siblings Without Rivalry, How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too. And this book is by Adele Faber, F-A-B-E-R. And Elaine, I’m not even going to try to pronounce his last name. It’s M-A-Z-L-I-S-H-I think. Yeah, let me see. It’s a number one New York Times bestseller. So you may have already read this. If not, it’s fantastic. I am just so endlessly amazed and surprised that the more books I read, the more I realize how, duplicative so much of the teaching is and how in the very best way it reflects all of the work that we do at Mom On Purpose. So, so much of what I took away from this book is simply about your mindset. Sometimes, you know, in the book the authors call it your perspective and you know, I’m in another membership as sort of a tangent, but it’s a parenting membership.

And the, creators and the coaches and the professionals in there pretty much never use the word mindset, but it’s all they’re talking about. They’re talking about the perspective that the parents have and what’s going on with your thoughts. And I just find it to be so validating, right? Of course it’s validating because I love doing this work, but it’s just a reminder that, at least for me, I love continuing to learn and grow and read about things I’m interested in including parenting. And, it’s such a nice way to compliment the work that we already do. Now, obviously this book is specific, it’s about siblings and having siblings who, aren’t at each other’s throats. And again, it’s just applying the thoughts and feelings work to yourself as the mom, as the parent, and then seeing the impact that that has on your kids.

So this, podcast is not a review of the book, but I thought just because of the just sheer coincidence that I was planning this podcast and I had just finished reading this book, I would mention it here. I 10 outta 10, recommend it, love the book myself. And, I thought that many of the lessons were complimentary to the work that we do in Mom On Purpose. And I think that if you like this podcast, if you like the work that we do here, then you will probably really like this, this book as well. So with that introduction, I have several, I think, gosh, 10, points that I want to talk with you about for specific strategies to parent your kids when you have multiple kids who are fighting with each other. And I picked one specific email subscriber’s question to read to you for the beginning of this because she’s asking about sibling rivalry and I get questions and comments and coaching on this a lot.

But this one really summed it up so beautifully. She wrote in, hi Natalie, thanks so much for all you do, and congratulations on baby number three. I know you have three boys now, so I’m sure they fight just like mine. Do you have any tips or suggestions? It seems like my boys are constantly fighting and I’m always needing to step in, take sides and separate them. Honestly, I don’t think I do a good job and it’s also exhausting help. All right, I’m so, grateful to this person who wrote in, I can 100% sympathize and relate to what you’re saying. Yes, of course my boys fight and I don’t anticipate that that will stop anytime soon. But I also don’t see that as a problem. And I will say that since implementing the tools and strategies that I’m going to talk with you here about today, their fighting looks different in a better way.

So they still have the initial sort of disagreement, but they’re able to work through it. I teach a course inside the Mom On Purpose Membership that’s for adults and it’s for Navigating Conflict In Relationships. And one of the philosophies that I teach in there is something that applies here and it’s, we don’t want to stop disagreeing. We want to learn how to disagree better. And that’s really at the heart of navigating parenting multiple kids who are fighting. Your goal is not to try to stop the fighting, to stop the disagreeing and have them just agree 100% of the time, right? As adults, we don’t even do that. And I don’t think that’s the goal. The goal is to learn how to coexist with other people in loving connected relationships, IE to disagree better. With that in mind, let’s jump in with tip number one, which is to normalize sibling conflict.

Fighting is a normal part of sibling relationships and child development. Have you ever thought about this? It teaches kids how to navigate being in a relationship with someone else. It teaches them problem solving, it teaches them negotiation, it teaches them emotional regulation. I mean really it just teaches them how to be around others. My boys fight over all the things, including toys, including who sits where at the table, including which, you know, tower they want to go into, including who goes first, including who gets to help change baby Jack’s diaper. I mean the fighting really could be about anything, as I’m sure you know if you have more than one child. And the first part of how I navigate their fights is just changing my mind and my perspective about whether it’s a problem. I know as a mom, it is not enjoyable to hear your kids fight about something that is so insignificant to you, but I promise you to them it matters. To them, it’s really important. And so for me, I have shifted my mindset instead of seeing fights as something’s gone wrong, as even, you know, some moms will say it’s like a parenting failure if their kids are fighting or not getting along or not best friends. I don’t view it as any of that.

I think about siblings fighting as opportunities for them to learn how to navigate relationships and conflict. So again, I know that it’s not the most enjoyable experience, particularly if it’s happening all day long, but I like to think about it as they’re in school. They are in school for relationships and they’re getting a lesson right now. They’re getting a lesson on what happens when you take someone’s toy. They’re getting a lesson on how to navigate frustration when it doesn’t go your way. They’re getting a lesson on how to do hard things. All of these lessons are playing out in front of us as moms. And honestly, I know this sounds a little bit kind of cliche, but I really do view it as a privilege. I think it’s so cool that we get to help our kids learn about relationships right in front of our eyes.

And I’m telling you this mindset shift is huge because then I just expect it. So this tip is all about normalizing it. I don’t go around hoping and praying and thinking, okay, maybe today’s the day where they’re not going to fight. I say, oh yeah, they’re definitely going to fight today. That’s a normal part of being siblings and I’m going to be there to help them and help them navigate it. And they’re going to learn as well, nothing’s gone wrong. This is a normal part of having a sibling. Okay? Tip number two is to stay calm and model emotional regulation. Your reaction sets the tone. If your yelling, they are going to see, oh yeah, this is something to have like a heightened stress response about. But if you are calm and now being calm, allowing space for their emotions does not mean being permissive in the actions. So it doesn’t mean that you just sit there and let one kid push the other and hurt them.

That’s not what I’m suggesting. I’m suggesting that you model being calm, you can hold boundaries, you can separate, you can make sure that each of the kids is safe and you can do all of that while being calm. This is why I love doing this work because most of mothering is about mothering yourself first way more than it is about any parenting strategy. So you have to be able to go inward, calm yourself down, even if you’re feeling frustrated, even if you’re feeling overwhelmed or overstimulated, it’s your responsibility to process those emotions and not act out on them. Not yell, not get upset. And you know, I’m not saying it’s easy, but this is the work my friends, we can do this.

And with that in mind, you can approach their fights calmly, confidently. And you can do that in a way that models to them this isn’t a big deal and you are there to help when help is needed. So I have been there myself, my friends, I have lost my cool, I have yelled some of you think that because I teach yelling and in general I don’t yell all of the time that I’ve never yelled before. It’s just not true. We’ve all yelled before and I still think I’m a good mom. I’ve repaired and I really work on it. I work on processing my frustration. I work on taking deep breaths, I work on the mindset that I have so that I expect my kids to be acting crazy like they do. And I always say, you know, my house is loud, there’s a lot going on here. And I say that on purpose because it normalizes it for me.

So I know for sure looking back that when I’ve lost my cool when I’ve yelled, it just doesn’t help anything. When I don’t feel calm, it’s not helpful. When I’m impatient they see that and I think it just makes everything worse. No one wins. It’s so much more effective when I’m calm, when I’m connected, when I approach them from a place of being regulated myself and that is fully within my control. That’s why I love doing this work. It’s like okay, I can control that. I can’t control if one of my kids takes a toy from the other kid. I can’t control if one of them says something nasty to the other one. But I can control myself, my mindset, my emotions, I can stay calm. So I love the mindset shift for this tip. If I want my kids to stay calm and conflict, I have to model it first.

Alright, moving on to parenting tip number three, pause and assess if you need to intervene. Not all fights need you to step in. So adding that pause and assessing if you need to step in, will really help you give them space to work through it if possible. What I’m not saying is don’t step in if there’s physical harm or if you feel like the emotions are just too much for them to navigate. So I always tell myself my number one job is to keep them safe. So if someone’s getting hurt, if someone is in someone’s personal space and it’s not just for fun, if someone is really upset, I’m going to step in. But I’m telling you from personal experience, adding in the pause and assessing if you need to step in is so helpful. I’ll give you an example. Not from last month from this morning I was applying this tip personally.

My boys were fighting over this little squishy ball thing, okay? I paused and I asked myself if I needed to step in. Now no one was being harmed, no one was too kind of emotionally upset. There was just a little bit of screaming and kind of they were both pulling on this squishy ball. So I paused and I gave them an opportunity to work through it and guess what that incident resulted in them playing catch with each other. If I would’ve just swooped in, you know, separated both of them, given one of them the ball and told them, you know, they have to share and this one gets it first and then the other one, they would’ve never come to that resolution on their own. And I’m telling you, for someone who likes to be in charge, likes to be in control, who you know take seriously, like they’re still little, I want to make sure that they’re safe.

It is my knee jerk reaction to jump in. So just give your kids a chance, pause and assess If you need to intervene, give them a chance to work it out. They will surprise you, I promise you. Okay, parenting tip number four, teach conflict resolution skills. I think that siblings fighting, disagreeing, learning how to play together, live together is an opportunity to teach how to navigate conflicts in relationships. So let’s say that, my boys want to both play with hot wheels, but one of them was playing with them first I might say to both my boys, okay, Robert was playing with the hot wheels first. So Robert can make the decision whether he wants to share them. And I know you two can figure this out. And that’s really coming from this mindset that my job isn’t to stop the fight, it’s to give them tools to solve it.

And in that example, this is a made up example, but very likely scenario, uh, Robert May or may not want to share. I do not force my kids to share. I don’t think that’s helpful. I want to empower them to see an opportunity to share if they want to, but know that they don’t have to. I do think also that teaching is the most effective out of the moment. Now in this example I gave one in the moment, but you can also do a lot of teaching out of the moment when you know they’re not looking at each other ready to tackle one another. Particularly I know this, this subscriber who wrote in member of the community, uh, it sounds like she has boys as well. So my boys like to roughhouse.I’m sure the third will be the same way if the first two, even though they’re so different, are any indication.

So I know that in the moment when their nervous systems are activated, it’s not always the best time to teach, but sometimes there are moments when you know, they’re kind of calm, they’re just trying to grab a toy from one another like in this example and it can be a moment for teaching. I also like to teach through story and use examples from my life as as teaching moments. So I might talk about how I learned to share as a little girl or how I felt really frustrated when my siblings would take toys from me and how I processed that frustration or how I did it in a way that wasn’t effective and then learned how to do it in a way that is effective. Any type of story that you can use to normalize sibling conflict and teach can be really powerful. Your kids will love to hear about you as a kid and particularly your mistakes.

Okay, parenting tip number five, use the mindset of being the coach, not the referee. This one is such a game changer for me because I think, again, I alluded to this, my default is to feel like the referee, but instead I want to encourage you to not view yourself like that. So your mindset isn’t okay, I need to jump in there and take sides and stop the fight. That’s my default mindset, I think. So instead what you want to do is think of yourself as a coach. A good coach asks questions like, what’s going on here? What happened? What do each of you want in this situation? How can we fix this? What might be the best way to move forward? I’m confident that you guys can figure this out. Asking them question empowers them to think. I’m always trying to ask my kids questions to get them to think.

I can tell you that when I’ve picked sides, it typically just backfires. And that doesn’t mean that I don’t ultimately help them if they need help, right? Like if they can’t figure it out, or one of them got hurt or something like that, of course I’m in there holding boundaries, but in general I’m trying not to take sides and I’m trying to help them help themselves. It’s guiding them to solve it together. So I like to think to myself, I don’t need to be the judge. I can help them help themselves. Such a powerful perspective shift my friends. Tip number six, be mindful of the roles you attribute to your kids. If you view one of your kids as the bully and one as the victim, then that is likely to play out repeatedly because it’s what you’re looking for and they know it.

Or if you view one of your kids as the good kid or one of your kids as the bad kid, even just viewing them in their birth order, viewing them as the first born the middle and the baby can create problems. So, you know, very simple example. You tell your oldest, oh big boys don’t do that. You’re not a baby anymore. Don’t do that, right? That’s an example of where you would be attributing a role to your child in an unhelpful way because you know, you just want to let them be them. You want to let them be uniquely them. And you know that example’s on my mind right now because there are lots of instances where older boys will act out, little baby things during the transition of getting another sibling with respect to fighting. Notice what identities in specific roles you are attributing specifically the victim and the villain.

And how you can kind of fix this is to practice viewing the one who you typically see as the victim as strong. Help him build skills to stand up for himself with confidence and then conversely, practice viewing the one who is typically the bully as really kind. Help him see that you believe he’s kind and capable of letting his brother play or whatever it is that they’re typically fighting over going first or you name it. I promise you that this will make a huge difference in the outcomes of their fights because what you believe about your kids is what they learn to believe about themselves.

And for me personally, I think my tendency is to jump in as I mentioned really quickly and then see one of them at fault. And I try my hardest not to do this. It really is a conscious ongoing practice, but it makes such a difference. So I’ll think a mindset like no one is at fault, no one is to blame. I can help them figure this out together. Being on the same team, that type of mindset shift for me has the effect of helping me show up as the mom I want to be. And it also has the very practical effect of helping them through their fight. Alright, moving on to number seven, teach out of the moment. I talked about this a little bit already, but I think it deserves its own tip here. A lot of times when I’m coaching moms inside the Mom On Purpose membership, they will try to do the teaching in the moment.

You cannot teach effectively when people are dysregulated. So if you have kids who are screaming and crying or biting or hitting or throwing or, saying mean things, whatever it is that they are acting out in their dysregulation, that is not going to be a moment of effective teaching. So for example, something that I love to teach repeatedly out of the moment is saying, all feelings are welcome, all actions are not. I teach my boys that it’s okay to feel mad, it’s okay to feel angry, it’s okay to feel jealous. It’s okay to feel frustrated. It’s not okay to hit someone. It’s not okay to bite someone. It’s not okay to throw something at someone.

Teaching them what actions are unacceptable is so important out of the moment. But then also I teach them what actions are acceptable. So I might say something like, it’s not okay to hit your brother, but it is okay to hit a pillow. I think part of our jobs as mom is to teach emotional regulation, but the way that we are capable of doing that is only if we know it for ourselves. So a lot of times when moms are learning this for the first time inside the Membership, I will help them with language that they can say to their kids that just shows that they’re still working on it too. So I never try to hold myself out as the know-it-all in my family. So I really do practice telling my kids, I don’t know, but I’m figuring it out. I don’t know the answer to that.

Or Mommy is still working on X, Y, and Z. It really humanizes you. So if you are still working on managing your own frustration, you can tell that to your kids and that way they, they kind of respect what you’re teaching them out of the moment a little bit more. Number eight, help your kids repair and reconnect. If you view your kids as being friends and being on the same team, if that’s your mindset, then you will act that out. If you view them as at each other all the time as so different from each other as struggling to get along, if those are the thoughts that you are constantly focused on, then that’s what you’ll see and make true and you’ll forget that there’s this beauty and this opportunity to teach and help them repair and reconnect in their sibling relationships. When you view them as being on the same team, you can teach your kids how to apologize.

You can teach your kids how to work through a disagreement or a conflict or in this case, you know, a fight fighting over the toy. Even just encouraging small acts of kindness to rebuild their relationship can be helpful. I don’t force my kids to apologize. As I mentioned, I also don’t force them to share, to give hugs to do anything they don’t want to do. But I do like to teach them the benefit of that. And I do also like to model that first and foremost. So I model repair, I apologize to them and I ask them if they want to apologize to their sibling for doing something that we don’t allow in our home. So if one of them hits or one of them bites or one of them throws something intentionally or something like that, I will, you know, first hold the boundary, show up calmly, help them work through it and offer to the one who did the hitting or whatever it was.

If it’s an opportunity for them to apologize, do they want to? And oftentimes the answer is no. And I think that is because of the shame because if you work on your own judgment of yourself and you don’t have shame, you’re so much more likely to apologize. I think that’s why doing the work as an adult is so effective because we can work through that as a kid, it’s a little bit harder to do. So I’m not forcing any of this on my kids, I’m just showing up as a mom because I know that as the mom who I want to be over time, this is going to be the story that they remember that resonates with them. Oh yeah, I remember my mom talking about how it’s okay to apologize. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad kid. This is, you know, part of life and relationships and how we treat each other when we love each other and all of that sort of, narrative that I want to show my kids and and exemplify for them.

But I’m basing my success as a mom based on whether I show up and teach, not whether they learn it and do it. So I’m encouraging apologizing, but I’m not saying, oh good boys apologize. I would never say that, right? That’s shame-based parenting. Essentially, I offer to them that when we make a mistake or we do something that isn’t acceptable way to treat someone else, we can apologize and we can repair the relationship and talk about why. That’s why I apologize to them when I do something and when I make a mistake and how it’s normal to make mistakes and we try again next time. So that’s sort of the dialogue that is going through my mind and that I’m having with them. So it’s not about punishing the fight or punishing whoever you know did something that’s unacceptable in your home to the other person. There’s no punishment here, but it is about teaching them to repair and reconnect.

Number nine, see the good in your kids and speak a positive identity into them, especially out of the moment. So if you have the thought, they always fight or you know, one of them is always giving the other a hard time. Your thoughts truly do become how your kids act. So your kids become who you believe they are. Your kids become who you believe they are. Remember that. Think of the you are statements, you are fill in the blank. If you’re saying you are always fighting with your brother, guess what? They are going to live into that.

You want to create positive encouraging statements for them to live into. You are so loving, you are so kind. You know how to work through challenging situations. You are resilient, you are strong, you are someone who knows how to communicate well. I promise you when you use these statements, even with the kid who you struggled to view that way, it is life changing for them. This is where being really careful to not, limit your kids to a specific role. So if you, if you have one kid who’s really smart and one kid who’s naturally athletic, you want to be careful that you’re not over emphasizing those roles because the kid who isn’t as smart or the kid who isn’t as athletic is going to limit themselves and not see themselves as capable in either academics or athletics in each situation. And so it’s not that you want to like lie to them, but you want to believe in them.

Okay? So it’s a little bit harder for you to, run and jump. That’s okay, let’s keep going. You can work through anything, anything that you want to do, you put your mind to, you can figure it out, right? Believing in them and their capabilities means that you see beyond their natural gifts. Yes, we can promote their natural gifts, but it’s important here because it comes up so much in the way that we view our kids including and especially when they’re fighting and kind of going through challenges together inside the home. So speak a positive identity into them so that they start to view themselves in that way. It’s a game changer. Okay, lastly, number 10, reframe your role in their relationship. Your job isn’t to eliminate fighting, but to teach kids skills that strengthen their bond and that help them navigate relationships. So encourage teamwork. Something I always say around the house is teamwork makes the dream work.

And it is a delight as a mother to see my kids repeating that it’s so fun, right? They got that language from me. You can be that to your kids. Encourage shared experiences, encourage them being friends. Encourage positive sibling moments. Now encourage does not mean force. I’m not talking about you should share with your brother if you were a good boy. That’s shame-based parenting I’m talking about. I really like sharing with you. It’s fun, it’s fun to play together. Back to my boys initially fighting with that squishy ball earlier and it resulting in them being able to play catch with each other after I held back and, kept out of it for a minute. It was so fun to see them get the benefit of that. They were delighted to play with each other and really view each other as friends. I could see it in their eyes and that would not have happened had I jumped in and tried to stop the disagreement at first.

Lastly, I will leave you with this mindset shift. Something that helps me is thinking I’m not here to stop fights. I’m here to help them shape lifelong bonds. So I really view myself as somewhat of a relationship skill builder. It does not mean that I need to be perfect at it. I’m certainly not. If I can show them that I’m still working on these skills too and that the benefit of working on them is that you get to have amazing relationships and amazing doesn’t mean perfect. That’s why we work on repair and reconnecting. But it does mean showing up and doing our best, showing up with love and working through challenges, together. And I know mama, I know when your kids are fighting, it’s hard to remember these, but go back through all 10 of them. Choose a couple to try on. Get coached if you’re in the Membership or find a good coach to help you because it’s a game changer when you don’t view conflict and sibling fights as such a problem. It’s a game changer when you view your kids as being on the same team and your whole family’s on the same team and you’re in it together and you’re not trying to stop the fighting. Instead, you’re learning how to work through fights and disagree better. Alright, my friends have an amazing, beautiful rest of your week. I will talk with you next week. Take care.

Thank you for being here and listening. Now, head on over to momonpurpose.com/coaching to learn more about the Mom On Purpose Membership, where we take all of this work to the next level.