Siblings! How to Cultivate Great Sibling Relationships - Jonathan Caspi

24:22Hunter Clarke-Fields:It's just blaming them both. Yeah, and it doesn't teach anything. It doesn't give them new strategies. Plus, and this is really important, and I think this is really important for anybody listening to this, is that they were playing together nicely for 20 minutes before they started yelling. And that's the thing that requires the attention. If you can go in and say, man, I love how you two are playing with each other so nicely and how you're sharing and point out the things that they're doing that you like, how you're complimenting each other and being polite. And then you can walk out and then you come back in and you reinforce it again.

24:59Then the good behavior gets your attention and gets reinforced. And it doesn't have this sort of negative experience for everybody when people come in and try to wing it when their kids are fighting.

25:09Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need to have some kind of strategy. All those are, they're terrible. Yeah. Why don't, why can't you just be nice to each other. What does one say to that? Well, mother, because right now my fight, flight, or freeze stress response is activated, and therefore I cannot use my thinking brain. Exactly. This is not going to happen. So it's important to understand this. And I think this is so like what you were saying before, the closer in age you are, the more conflict you have. And if you want your kids to have close relationship, that means they spend time together, they're going to be in conflict.

25:44And sometimes I think that we want to avoid,

25:46Hunter Clarke-Fields:a lot of parents want to avoid all conflict, but to be in a relationship is to have conflict with each other. And we're going to have conflict with our kids. We're going to have conflict with our parenting partners. We're going to have conflict with the people in our lives who are close to each other. So we need a strategy to be able to handle this conflict that we can deal with. And we also need to teach our kids a strategy for handling conflict they come into with each other. I imagine you're nodding, you're agreeing. Yeah, all of that. Oh, that is true. You know, the belief is that siblings are always fighting with each other over parental attention or favoritism or that.

26:25But most of the fighting that happens between siblings is just living together. You know, it's having to share the same space. It's the same thing that happens between couples when they live together and they run into conflict. It's not like you're fighting over your in-laws' attention. I mean, maybe some families are. But it's more just the day-to-day. Like I wanted to go here on Thursday afternoon and you want to go there. And which way are we going? Or I washed the dishes the last five days and you've done nothing. And I feel like I'm being, you know, taking advantage of it. It's typical just kind of living together stuff.

27:02And I do a lot of couples counseling. And what I often say to couples is it's not that you're, we don't have a goal that we want to stop fighting. You're always going to get into some conflicts because that's just the nature of relationships. It's how quickly you can manage it so that it doesn't linger and how to let go of little things and kind of address the bigger things. And so it's the same thing to some degree with siblings, which is you're going to expect that there's going to be conflicts. To think that your children are not going to fight with each other is fantasy. Now, not all kids do, right?

27:39There are some that have learned, you know, either it's the personalities or the culture of the family, and they don't go at each other that often. And some are at each other all the time. So the ones that are at each other all the time are the problem situations. And that's typically what happens is how the parents then get involved with this constant bickering or fighting in those things is exacerbating and not reducing it. If any parent tries to reduce the behavior and it doesn't go away in a couple of weeks or change, I should say, they're now in on it. They're part of the whatever's happening.

28:16Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah. That's good to understand for ourselves, you know, is am I helping the situation or am I hindering it? And I imagine kids are learning. I mean, everything is modeling, right? Like we're always modeling for them all the time. So I imagine they're learning their conflict resolution skills from their parents, right? So if mom and dad start yelling and bossing each other around or bossing the kids around, then the kids are going to do that with each other. Is that right? Yeah, a lot of it is, you're correct, is modeling. And if, you know, if parents are not resolving their conflicts or just yelling at each other, it doesn't demonstrate a lot.

28:55But also, you know, children, especially young children, don't have a lot of relational skills and they don't have a lot of higher order cognitive skills to make sense of, you know, to really understand what's going on. And so you do see some behaviors that are very different from adults than you do with children. You know, kids often hit each other and push each other down and rip things out of the other person's hand and so on. And, you know, you do see that in adult couples, but not as much as you do with little kids. And those moments are great teaching moments. And a lot of that is just developmental, right?

29:37Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah, I can remember being really perplexed because I was like, why are they hitting? Like, they're not seeing that at all in the family. So what can parents, like when kids are fighting, what should parents do? Well, one thing is if we could back up to what you said a minute ago, is that being prepared, like having strategies is helpful. And so what you want, first and foremost, is you and your parenting partner to be on the same page and have a similar approach. Because if you don't, you can very easily end up undermining the other person's authority. And so you want to be together and you want to have a plan.

30:15So if you know that conflict is happening a lot, you can come up with, what do we do if it happens? And if the kids are very young, you can have this conversation first with your significant other or co-parent, and then you can say, these are the things we expect to see from you when you're interacting with each other and when you're fighting with each other. And you make the rules for what they're supposed to say. And then after you have those clearly laid out, you either meet with the children or you develop these together with the children. and then when it happens, you know, somebody say shoves the other person and you say, no, he said there's no shoving.

31:01What do you do if you want to play with a toy and the other person's not sharing? And, you know, different families are going to have different approaches for that. It might be, you know, ask politely. It might be, can I play with it in five minutes? And it might be asking for a parent to help with that. And then the rule for the other person is to say, I will let you play with this when I'm done with it, which, you know, maybe in a few minutes. So, you know, can you please wait a few minutes and then I'll be happy to give it to you. You give them some sort of direction about how to behave. And then when they do it, you just praise the hell out of it and reinforce it.

31:39And when they don't do it, you say to them, remember the rules, remember what we talked about. And then you say, let's try again. right and you give them an opportunity to do it again and then you can praise it and if they don't you may for some children have to lay out some consequences and for some children they don't require that so it depends on how how much they push back on things you're basically saying teach

32:03Hunter Clarke-Fields:them what they need to learn in this situation right like i need to learn how to interact with my siblings so you got to teach them very explicitly how how do we do this right like you know when you're when you're when your brother runs away with the cheese grater say hey it's like the cheese grater brag whatever it is that was a q a that was submitted here to the podcast oh my god the cheese great uh there is another rule by the way which is if anything is dangerous and you have to intervene quickly yeah if a child's punching another child you You can't be like, well, parental intervention makes it worse.

32:41You have to get in and keep your kids safe. And cheese graters can do some damage.

32:45Hunter Clarke-Fields:Cheese grater could be damaging. Yeah, I'm glad you concur. That was my advice I said. I think that this is one for the adults to step in on was the cheese grater. Oh, absolutely. It's like running around with a knife. Watch out for that hacksaw, honey. Quite exactly. Okay, so we can step in when our kids are fighting and we can give them some tools. We can practice those tools. And what I also heard in what you're saying is that you're not being punitive, right? You're not saying, what's wrong with you for making a mistake and messing up? You're just saying, okay, we got to just try it again, right?

33:18Hunter Clarke-Fields:Like, and what I'm hearing in what you're saying that's underneath the surface is that the parents need to be regulated. They need to not be adding a bunch of fuel to this fire. They need to be kind of downplaying it, right? It's so much easier to regulate your own emotions when you have strategies and you have a plan. Because if you know these are the steps I'm going to do, then you feel more confident in the way you intervene. If you're winging it, you're much more likely to scream and feel overwhelmed. And then the children don't respond and then it just escalates. And so emotional regulation is an internal strategy.

33:56But having a plan is always the best way to regulate. You know, for folks, for example, like you were mentioning before, who struggle with anxiety, if you have a plan for the thing that's causing you to worry that you think is dangerous, you're much more confident in going in than just winging it. And it's the same thing for parents when they're with their children. The more you have strategies for yourself, and that requires you taking the time to have conversations about what is it going to look like? How am I going to intervene? How am I going to give them another chance and not be like, nope, you messed up.

34:32You're done. Go to your room. But rather like, okay, you're angry right now. Take a deep breath. Take a minute. Calm down. Now come back to it and try again. Now you have things that are much more likely to go well and that you can reinforce. and you walk out of it feeling good and they walk out of it feeling good and nobody walks out of the screaming feeling particularly good no no no one

34:53Hunter Clarke-Fields:does stay tuned for more mindful mama podcast right after this break this episode is brought to you by Peloton break through the busiest time of year with the brand new Peloton cross training tread plus powered by Peloton IQ with With real-time guidance and endless ways to move, you can personalize your workouts and train with confidence, helping you reach your goals in less time. Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross-Training Tread Plus at OnePeloton.com. All right, so have some strategies. Implement your strategies as calmly as you can. Try again, big one.

35:40Hunter Clarke-Fields:Try again. Try and try again. Begin anew all the time. Okay, then how can we, other than those moments of conflict, can we cultivate them getting together? I remember wanting my girls to not hate each other. That was my goal. I want them to not hate each other. And I had a book about sisters, and I would talk about how they're lucky to have their sisters, different things like that. I don't know if that was right. You tell me. What can we do to cultivate warmth and connection between them? Well, I mean, clearly it was right. And you've done a lot well because you said that they are friends. And that's great.

36:19That's a really nice thing. And so, I mean, the evidence is the best evidence, right?

36:28So there's a few things. And some of them are don'ts and some of them are do's. So we can run through that as well. It don't take sides, right? If you go in and say you're older, you should know better, you're the big sister, that only builds resentment and resentment builds distance and relationships. So that's a no-no, right? You're not defending one against the other. The second is the more parents compare their children, the more competition is fostered and a sense of winning and losing and mom likes you better, dad likes you better. or whoever the parent is, and that leads to resentment. And so we try to focus on individual behaviors, not comparing to brothers and sisters, which is very hard to do because they want to compare themselves to each other too.

37:26And then, of course, you have teachers and coaches and everybody else, grandparents and cousins, all doing this comparison. But the more you minimize that, the less you foster this sort of like, okay, that's my rival, and I don't want to lose, especially if it's the comparisons or high price comparisons. Like we were talking about earlier, if like you're from a family that is like super into football and you have one child who's great at football and the other child, he is not interested or doesn't want to play. It very quickly can become, well, you like that one better than me because they're a football player and you don't appreciate art, but that's what I want to be.

38:05and so now you feel like an outsider in your own family. And so that also cultivates greater distance, right? So if there are these high-priced comparisons, that will create more distance in relationships. Sending people to their rooms and telling them to stay away from each other creates apathy in relationships and distance. It doesn't build closeness. And so, you know, all those things I would avoid. Reinforcing the positive moments, telling them how great they are together. giving them opportunities to have shared experiences, you know, and even on neutral ground shared experiences. Like, you know, sometimes vacations are the absolute worst things for families because all rules and all bets are off and everybody's tired and stressed.

38:50And so there's a lot of fighting, but it also creates nice opportunities for shared experiences that they aren't having with peers, for example, or other people. So, you know, helping them, you learn pro-social skills, such as complimenting and praising and showing interest, advice giving, being able to go to your sister or your brother and saying, like, how do I do this? This is not something I can talk to mom and dad about. It's too embarrassing. Like, you know, how do you know how to kiss somebody the first time? You know, those kind of things that you don't talk about with parents. All those things cultivate closeness.

39:29And this might sound almost cliche at this point, but getting kids off their phones, because that really builds a lot of disengagement into relationships too. The siblings end up very much in their own social circles, in their own place on the phone, and they could be sitting next to each other on the couch and not know each other at all. And so they have to have opportunities to have shared experience. And also, if they fight and they resolve it, that actually makes people closer. Yeah, yeah.

40:03Hunter Clarke-Fields:These are great. Yeah, I love that. I was thinking about all the vacations and how when we encountered our first climbing wall and all these different experiences and when we hiked that hill and we were almost blown off by wind and all these different things. Yeah, I think those are really wonderful. And yeah, and the whole idea of just kind of, sometimes I think of it as like a campaign to catch them in the good times, right? Like what you're saying, like reinforce the positive things like, oh, thank you. I appreciate you being so kind to your sister or whatever it is. Those I think are really great.

40:44Hunter Clarke-Fields:What do we do? This question came from my team member. Or how do you address it if one sibling gets upset and says, I hate my younger sister? It's a good question. There are going to be those moments. And sometimes, as you said, the person you never had a choice in being in your life is somebody that you don't particularly share interest with or has a very different personality. But more often, it's related to feeling like the presence of your sibling is either overshadowing yours, that there's some favoritism that's happening. And so that sibling makes you look bad or is winning parental favor.

41:30And sometimes it's that the person that's hated is able to get away with things. So it's like a violation of boundaries and personal space. And they go in and borrow the sweater without asking. Or they share a private moment publicly that's supposed to be kept private within the family. And those feel like violations. And this builds up this feeling of like, I really dislike this person. It doesn't have to be a permanent state of affairs to feel like you're always in that place. And so, you know, what I tell parents is that when kids say things like that, you have to take it seriously. And actually, not in the heat of the moment, not when kids are like really heated up, but, you know, to come back after they've calmed down a little bit and said, can we talk about that?

42:17That's a really powerful statement. And, you know, I don't think that you want to hate your sibling. And I certainly don't want you to hate each other. So tell me what you think is going on. and to be open to feedback that your child might say, well, because you guys favor him or her more, and I hate that, and not to go, no, no, no, I love you all the same and dismiss it because if you dismiss it, it only makes them feel even more like an outsider.

42:45Hunter Clarke-Fields:They won't want to tell you more. Yeah, exactly. So take it seriously and treat it like it's real. And I'm not saying if it's a one-time explosion and it's super dramatic, you can let that go. But if it seems to be like you're hearing it regularly, then something's up, right? And so why not put it on the table and really try to understand it and not try to rationalize the child out of it? Like, well, it's just because you don't understand, right? It's, you know, actually listen to what they're saying. And, you know, from your warning earlier, like there could be stuff going on. Like this is the relationship in which it's maybe most likely to be happening.

43:21Hunter Clarke-Fields:So let's, you know, be open to understanding as uncomfortable as that may make us feel. I guess I would say, like, if someone said, the kid said to me, like, I hate my younger sister, I guess I would just, I don't know, validate that or empathize with that first. Like, oh, wow, you're so mad right now. You're really frustrated with them, right? And just then see kind of what happened there, you know, in as far as what to do in the heat of the moment, when that is really fresh coming up. Yeah, oh, that's great. Yeah, 100%. You want your children to feel like you're their advocate and ally and not like you're there to defend the other child or to say, why are you being so dramatic and over the top and those kinds of things?

44:11Because that will only make things worse in the big picture. And you're 100 % right. Just taking the time out to validate it and show some empathy is a great place to start.

44:23Hunter Clarke-Fields:There's so much here. I think it's, I didn't get, I have all this huge list of questions I didn't get to ask you. Anyway, I guess it means maybe we'll have you come back on again some other time, but. That would be great. You know, I teach courses at the university, siblings, and it's like 15 weeks, an hour, and three hours a pop or something like that. It's hard to get it all in in an hour. I guess it is. I guess it is. Well, this has been so fascinating and interesting. I think anybody who has multiple kids or who has siblings themselves, it's so interesting to think about these very special relationships.

45:05Hunter Clarke-Fields:I think on the positive side, it can be this great relationship that you can have for life, right? With somebody that's kind of in your life forever. And that's my hope for my kids. So hopefully some of these strategies will help people do that. I'll just add one more minute because what you said is critically important, and I don't want that to get lost on anybody. The area of positive sibling relationships and its effect on humans over the lifespan is incredibly impressive. this sounds nutty when I say it but there's there is research on this that siblings are in adulthood the number one predictor of of happiness is a good relationship with sibling longevity because if you think about how isolated people get towards the end of life having a close sibling relationship can make a huge difference and so related to that is better health people have better relationships with their spouses if they have good relationships with their siblings.

46:10They do better at work. They get promoted more. They make more money. It's got a lot of amazing developmental benefits. And to even reinforce it further, and this is really what I think is fascinating, is that a good relationship with your sibling in childhood acts as a buffer for very difficult events that happen in life. So for example, when parents get divorced and kids really struggle, they end up doing generally okay, but in the beginning they fall behind academically and behaviorally and those kinds of things for a short window of time. But if they have a good relationship with a sibling, you don't see that.

46:52And so it really buffers these negative effects in very, very powerful ways. And that's because you have somebody who understands you and is shared witness and you can commiserate with. It's extremely powerful. And so people with poor relationships actually do worse on all the same things that I just said. So it's not just stopping the bickering in the house so that you can have a more peaceful house. You want to create an environment where your siblings develop real closeness and friendships and can support each other through the course of the life cycle. because it has incredible benefits the entire way through.

47:31Hunter Clarke-Fields:Okay, so would you, as your kids are old enough to understand some of that, would you share some of that with them? I mean, I remember talking to Maggie and Sarah about like, yeah, when friends will come and go in your life and your sister will be there forever and they're going to be there for you if you guys are kind to each other. Would you do that? Oh, 100%. Yeah. And even you can create some of that early on by if a child comes to you and says, you know, I'm having trouble with a kid at school who's kind of being mean to me. What do I do? You can say, you know what? Your sister or your brother had something similar happen.

48:11Why don't you go ask for some advice there? And, you know, have them have those kind of serious conversations and help to advise if the older sibling handled it in an appropriate way. If they did, that's a different story. And you could still provide guidance as a parent, but you can bring their brothers and sisters into it so you can foster those moments too.

48:34Hunter Clarke-Fields:Oh, wow. That's awesome. I'm so glad you jumped in. Well, I was going to ask you, is there anything that we missed that you would like to share with the listener? And tell us also, you have several books, and tell us where we can find you, the listener can find you if you want to take the conversation further. Oh, thanks for asking. Yes, I have a book just out now called Raising Loving Siblings. That's out and you can find it on all the online booksellers. Not hard to find. And I have a website, which I'm not the greatest at updating, but I do get there. And it's siblingexpert.com. And you can like - There are some fascinating articles from 2014 there.

49:23Yeah, you're killing me. There's actually a good one. I think I'm going to try to update it later today. There's an interesting new research out on which kids parents tend to favor because most parents do have children that they favor, even though it's such a taboo subject. And it's an interesting thing, so I'll get that up there on there too.

49:44Hunter Clarke-Fields:Oh, good. See, that's going to be a teaser for us by the time this podcast is out. We can go to, say the website again. SiblingExpert.com SiblingExpert.com and find that. John, thank you so much. This has been a real pleasure. I really enjoyed it. I'm so glad you're doing the work to share this with the world because I think it's incredibly important. So thanks for coming on. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I really appreciated the discussions, the questions, and the subjects were really good ones. You hit all the important notes.

50:18Hunter Clarke-Fields:Thank you so much for listening. I think it's so fascinating to learn about siblings, this relationship. Hopefully we'll have all our lives. So I'm glad you listened. I know, know, know that you have at least one friend today who could benefit from this episode. So please text it to them. And if you're that friend, make sure you are subscribed so that you get every episode of the Mindful Mama podcast in your inbox. There's so much here to learn from and to grow from. So it helps you. It helps us be able to grow the podcast and helps us to keep our team happy. So share it with a friend. And thank you.

51:02Hunter Clarke-Fields:Thank you for listening. I'd love to hear your takeaways. I'm at Mindful Mama Mentor, wherever you can find me. And I'm wishing you a great week. I hope some of this helps. You have more enjoyable, steadier, happier, less stressful relationships with your kids. And I hope that you take some time this week for quiet, take some time for a walk, a moment, a few minutes without a device, without a distraction, just to breathe and be with yourself and breathe in the air. Hopefully you've got some lovely springtime stuff going on where you are and I'll be doing those things too with you so that we can have our steadiness, have our self-awareness so that we can make conscious choices in a kind of crazy world.

51:56Hunter Clarke-Fields:And yeah, wishing you peace and ease and joy and all that good stuff. Thanks for listening. Namaste.

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