Sibling Rivalry: Top Ways to Handle

Sibling rivalry is not uncommon. In fact, every parent would complain this. Negative feelings such as jealousy, anger, and sometimes hatred tend to creep in to the relationship. There are many reasons behind this.

Sometimes parents are more responsible for the problem known as sibling rivalry among children. This often results in children hating and competing with each other for the rest of their lives. However, it is easy to handle sibling rivalry if you focus on using certain tips. Here are some effective ways to handle this problem.

What develops sibling rivalry?

There are several things that results in sibling rivalry. Here are some of the most common reasons:

Comparison

Children hate comparison. They are too small and immature to take things in their stride. So if you say that the elder brother or sister is getting better rank in school or plays Judo better, the child will feel depressed.

His motive will not be to excel his superior sibling but to hate him for being loved and appreciated more than the other. He will feel that you do not love him any more and may even get depressed for the rest of his life.

Encouraging negative talks

How would you react when your son says that the younger one is not good enough and he can do things better? Do you encourage this feeling?

If yes, then this will develop a feeling of superiority in the child wherein he will not love his sibling and try to compete in every sphere of life.

Do not criticize

Strictly avoid criticize a child in front of the other. This will make one of the siblings feel superior and the other will develop inferiority complex. Your motive should not be to create differences between children.

Here is how you can handle sibling rivalry:

Allow to create a bond

You need to encourage your children to create a bond of love. This is the way they can be together for lives. You need to make them understand that they belong to the same family and sons or daughters to the same parents.

Do not compare

Comparing two children for their capabilities and flaws will be dangerous. Understand that no two individuals are the same. Try to encourage the positive points of a child than focusing on the negative aspects.


Encourage activities together

You can try to make them do things together to promote love and bonding between children. For instance, you can take them for swimming together; allow them to watch their favorite TV show and take them for shopping together etc.

Encourage helping attitude

Inspire your children to help each other. Try rewarding them for this. You can give examples from your own life by telling them how much you love your brother/sister. This will encourage them to develop a bond between them.

Allow them to do things for each other

You can ask the younger one to help in arranging for the birthday party of the elder one. Make him do simple things such as creating a greeting card, writing love quotes and decorating the room. This is the best way to create sisterly or brotherly feeling among them.

Having done all this may still have some amount of sibling rivalry left but this is healthy. Just make sure that they love each other more and care for each other.

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