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Parents understandably want their children to love each other, to care about each other and hopefully learn healthy ways of working through differences. Witnessing acts of kindness between siblings is incredibly heart-warming for parents.
Although it’s easy to see the irony of reacting angrily towards a child whose unable to manage their urge to be aggressive towards their brother or sister, it’s also incredibly understandable to act from that reactive fight/flight response when one’s protective instinct is activated. The agony that parents can go through at these times can’t be underestimated, such disharmony can evoke feelings of guilt, shame, powerlessness, resentment and overwhelm! Then throw into the mix sleep deprivation, tensions with one’s partner or relatives and it can all feel way too hard to deal with.
Using threats and punishments intensifies resentment
Parents commonly appeal to the child doing the hurting to care about their sibling who they’re in conflict with: “Look how you’ve upset your sister!” When a parent feels powerless to protect one child from the other, especially when the one who’s the subject of aggression is their younger child, they can find themselves doing or saying anything they hope will end the chaos.
Parents often find themselves using all sorts of threats and punishments that would never have imagined they’d resort to. It’s all too easy to lose empathy for the child who is being aggressive on a regular basis, especially if it’s the older child. It’s nearly impossible for parents to not resent their child when they feel powerless to make them stop.
If this is your current struggle, you might have already figured out that appealing to your older child to care more about how upsetting it is for their sibling or for you doesn’t tend to work, but in fact it makes the child being aggressive even more resentful towards their sibling. That child tends to blame their sibling for “getting them in trouble”. You might also have figured out that all forms of threats and punishments can only work temporarily and invariably increase the resentment and hence the conflict in the long run.
The sibling doing the hurting also needs your help
Often one of the missing pieces, which cant be underestimated, is that the child doing the hurting is acting from feelings of stress and inner turmoil and they need a lot of help to become free of these very difficult emotions. They need to start seeing that you’re just as concerned about how hard these situations are for them as you are for the baby or younger sibling – yes even though they are clearly the instigator!
Counter-intuitive I know, yet without this element of maintaining connection while holding limits, all our talks, appeals and other strategies will likely just be experienced as a further rejection to a child whose already feeling a bit on the outside.
What to do and say when things get heated. Perfect for printing out or screenshotting to refer to on the go!
Finding your genuine empathy
Feedback I receive a lot is that when a parent starts to truly put this theory into practice, which can sometimes (but not always!) be as simple as intervening with words like; “oh girls, I know this is so hard for you both!” – this is often the very first time that the child who tends to instigate the hurting starts to express genuine remorse for their actions.
When the same child felt continually blamed for being the one to cause so much trouble, the weight of their strong feelings of jealousy, anger and resentment and their subsequent defensiveness made it impossible for them to open their hearts towards their sibling.
The more a child feels blamed and pressurised to change (without genuine emotional support and guidance about HOW to change), the more locked into defensiveness and resentment towards their sibling they become.
The changes that a new sibling brings start before birth
We go through a lot of changes during pregnancy, and a lot of these changes are felt by our children. These changes can be extremely unsettling and cause a lot of insecurity. Mothers tend to be more exhausted for much of the pregnancy, hormone fluctuations can result in mood swings. Mothers go through a lot during pregnancy and those changes can make it more difficult for the mum to be as present with their child as before. Parents often tell their child how great it’s going to be to have a little brother or sister, which is hard if not impossible for young children to grasp.
Then once baby is born, there can be initial excitement, yet that excitement can fall very flat as the day to day reality kicks of the greatly increased work load, stress and worries of caring for the newborn. The older child notices that life seems to revolve so much around the baby. All these changes and dynamics are normal, yet also very hard!
And while there are so many more reasons now for parents to get annoyed at the older child (since the needs have gone through the roof!!), the child can’t help noticing that baby sibling never gets in trouble and has become the focus of so much of the attention from parents, relatives, even strangers! In our family it was definitely when our second child was born that was the biggest struggle for us all.
Children really feel it when their parent shows more sympathy for their sibling
Children need guidance about what they can do instead of taking their frustrations out on their sibling. Parent and child may need to problem solve about what might work better in these repeating difficult situations.
Suggestions by a parent (if offered rather than enforced) can help an older child start to trust that solutions can be found; “hmm what do you think about playing with your blocks at the kitchen table where your sister can’t reach? That way you’d be closer to me as I cook. Do you think that might work?” Such a suggestion tends to invite much more cooperation compared to being told to move their blocks with a tone of exasperation.
When my older child struggled with his baby sister
I remember very well how hard it was for my older child, for all of us, when my second child was a baby. In this post I write about that time and how it was only when I managed to get back to a truly soft and compassionate heart towards HIS struggles, that his frustrations and anger could release.
To remain kind and effective, we need to keep developing our awareness of our reactions, learning to witness and recognise them and as this awareness grows, we can eventually learn to manage that aggressive impulse and instead take a deep breath and choose to speak with kindness – thereby modelling that which we want our children to develop.
Our point of power as parents lies in that moment between noticing that rising emotional charge and then responding to our child.
Other useful links on aggression in children and parents
Helping children when they hit, push and bite
Getting back on track – Why we explode and what to do
The audio download of the Teleseminar “Getting back on track – Why we explode and what to do” by Genevieve and Patty Wipfler of Hand in Hand Parenting gives parents lots of tips (and empathy!) for dealing with the anger that rises at such times. (For Member’s go to the the Resource Library).
Why we explode and how to prevent it?
The article on the same subject “Why we explode and how to prevent it?” which discusses why parents are inclines to lose their cool and ways to prevent yelling at their child.
Dealing with Anger in the family and in yourself
Genevieve’s Stress Relief for Parents CD
Genevieve Simperingham is a Psychosynthesis Counsellor, a Parenting Instructor and coach, public speaker, human rights advocate, writer and the founder of The Peaceful Parent Institute. Check out her articles, Peaceful Parenting eCourses, forums and one-year Peaceful Parenting Instructor Training through this website or join over 90,000 followers on her Facebook page The Way of the Peaceful Parent.
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