Parents: implement these four success factors to invite peace and calm when they go at it
The Four C’s will guide you toward influencing their development of important life skills
Siblings often have difficulty resolving conflict because doing so requires a well-developed pre-frontal cortex. Brain science has confirmed that full brain maturation doesn’t occur until about age 25. You give yourself and your children a gift when you accept the fact that they are not equipped to navigate conflict with maturity. And, because siblings must share limited resources, the opportunity for conflict between them is abundant. Thankfully, the opportunity – in each conflict – for siblings to acquire social, emotional, and experiential intelligence that will serve them in all of their relationships is also abundant. It is within these opportune moments where a parent’s powerful influence plays an exciting and crucial role. With four simple and effective practices, parents can be the most influential force in their children’s resolution of rivalry and conflict.
These Four C’s are about you being different, not them. Your new and different will impact their willingness and ability to approach conflict and rivalry with their new and different.
CHILL OUT
To chill out does not mean you do not get triggered when you hear a fight break out. To chill out is about noticing your own activation. Noticing helps you readily implement quick and effective tools so that you can mindfully respond from conscious awareness instead of react mindlessly to your own upset.
- Regulate your own emotions with your powerful thinking. Notice your typical thoughts that arise when you hear sibling complaints, whines and screams. Choose new thoughts that honor both the restricted ability and unmet need of your children: My children have unmet needs and big feelings right now. They’re acting this way because they’re not equipped in this moment to do it differently. Their urgency does not equal an emergency for me (unless there’s a safety issue). I can pause. This is an opportunity for me to teach and model.
- Regulate your own emotions with a reset action. Take a deep breath, stretch, grab a sip of water, or take a brief moment of physical space before engaging. These practices help prevent your thinking brain from getting highjacked by your big emotions.
- Set your intention for calm as you engage with your children and then respond with calm. Intentions don’t become new habits without action.
CONNECT. THEN CORRECT
No amount of correction by you will be effective when siblings have flipped their lids. When siblings are fighting, each child’s limbic system is in fight or flight and their thinking brain (prefrontal cortex) is not online until calmness prevails. Your response has influential power over their willingness and ability to regulate their intensity of emotion so they can gain access to their thinking brain. You influence a sense of calm and connection when you:
- Tune into the siblings’ unmet needs in the situation. Attunement is a powerful tool for influencing behavior.
- Connect to any immediate safety need. Address verbal or physical violence: “Words like that can hurt.” or “We don’t hit others, it’s hurtful and scary.”
- Soothe the hurt child without attacking, commanding, or shaming the hurting child: “It looks like that hurt,”or “It sounds like those words hurt,” instead of, “How many times have I had to tell you stop calling your sister a baby?!” or, “You better apologize to her!”
- Resist taking sides. When we referee the conflict we don’t stop the conflict by making the aggressor wrong. Instead, we invite ongoing resentment and sibling rivalry.
- Connect with the aggressor’s misguided attempt to get what they wanted from their sibling: “Seems like you wanted your sister to do it your way and when she wouldn’t you called her names, is that right? The aggressor will feel understood and more willing to hear your correction.
- Make the correction: “Sweetie, name-calling isn’t ok, feelings get hurt.”
- Take a break: If calmness has yet to prevail, institute a break for everyone. This invites de-escalation for everyone without taking sides. “We’re going to all take some space from each other because this feels intense right now. Let’s discuss in 15 minutes.”
COACH
We do a disservice to our children’s necessary attainment of life skills when we referee fights via arbitrating, mediating, and judging each sibling’s conduct with each other. We are our children’s social, emotional and experiential coach. When we invest time into fulfilling this role early on – especially during times of conflict – our kids learn to navigate conflict in healthier ways and eventually, they won’t need our frequent guidance. Here’s how to effectively coach sibling rivaly and conflict:
- Invite your child to put words to their unmet need: “Would you like to tell your sister why you wanted her to do it your way?” or “If you don’t want to play with your sister, how could you say that in a way that provides hope for another time when you will?”
- Provide suggestions of wording they can use: “Sweetie, how about trying, ‘It bugs me when you use my stuff without asking and I wish you would at least ask first.’”
- Give suggestions for negotiating a compromise where they both have to give a little to get a little: “Maybe you could take turns and do it your way for a while and then her way for a while?”
- Invite siblings to problem solve: “I think this is a problem you both could solve. What could you do about this?”
- Encourage and welcome emotions: Don’t negate, minimize or distract siblings from their feelings about the conflict or about their sibling. You can validate their feelings while, at the same time, address and correct the unworkable behavior. Naming feelings and accepting them helps siblings to refrain from acting out their big emotions in hurtful ways against each other.
COMMIT
In reality, everything your child does is a bid for connection, even when it doesn’t look like it. Their behaviors (both the easy and difficult) are motivated by an implicit need for a sense of belonging and significance in your family system. You have powerful influence on meeting these needs with these two commitments:
- Create 1:1 time with each child: Make yourself available reliably and consistently for quality time. Have a standing monthly date night. Have a weekly task you complete together. Have a daily ritual like watching a tv show.
- Talk less, hear more: “Thanks for sharing, tell me more,” during 1:1 time will go a long way towards sustainable connection during times of conflict. Your child will trust that you want to hear and understood them, even if they make a mistake with their sibling because they trust in the authenticity of your sustainable interest and connection with them.
Chill Out, Connect. Then Correct, Coach, and Commit are tools that create and hold space for your children to develop their healthy sense of belonging and significance in the family. Your willingness and ability to use these tools consistently will positively impact your children’s sibling relationship. Each sibling will feel more secure in the abundance of the resources of your unconditional love and attention – the greatest gifts you can give to your child’s developing brain.