Anna Part 1 of 2: When Sibling Rivalry Upsets The Parent More Than The Kids

Sibling rivalry seems like your kid’s problem. But for most parents its not easy to tolerate all that bickering and figuring out when to step in can be confusing.  In today’s session, you meet Anna, a mother of three children, 8, 5, 2 who learns that what she is doing is actually making the sibling rivalry worse. She and her husband emigrated from Ukraine in their twenties but brought with them their own experiences of growing up.  Learning a bit about her history brings light to her current situation. And you may be surprised by the coaching that Leslie offers Anna to improve the sibling rivalry which includes some basic strategies based in behaviorism.

Time Stamps

5:29 Context is important when understanding or assessing a problem such as sibling rivalry

8:20 Noticing that people’s recovery time vary from person to person

10:00 Parents often ask “what can I do to stop the fighting”

11:25 Sibling rivalry is natural and a way to learn social skills

11:48 Behaviorism - jumping in reinforces the fighting behavior which causes it to escalate

• 13:28 Reinforce the behavior that you want more of
• 14:00 Nonverbally (Physically) support one child while talking to the other child

18:03 What happens when your best intentions makes things worse and doesn’t get you what you want

18:55 When Leslie sounds like terrible, horrible, no good parent

20:28 Can we give our kids a chance solve their own problems

21:08 We rob our children from so much learning when we jump in to fix it 

21:58 How to help parents sit with their own discomfort or anxiety  

• Announce the change in your parenting behavior to your children

23:15 Explaining an extinction burst 

24:20 ⅓ ⅓ ⅓ rule for sibling rivalry

• ⅓ = Do nothing, let them work it out on their their
• ⅓ = We can help them with conflict resolution
• ⅓ = We can notice what is happening or ending it without discussing it

25:20  A family is a system of belonging - sibling rivalry can be about individuation

30:20  Reinforcing your child to feel special is different from praise. 

34:07 Parents need to believe that they can love each of their children differently

35:02 The metaphor of the orchestra for treating their children differently

36:16 Balance the needs of your child, balance the independence and the dependence

36:55 Looking at the parents self care practices

38:36 Description of how empathy is a critical step of conflict resolution with a 

43:10 Empathy and being understood by the other person can be transformative.

43:40 Escalating emotions, getting louder or getting defensive may reflect that someone feels invalidated.

44:23  CLIFF HANGER;  Leslie doesn’t share the other steps of conflict resolution - only the step of empathy

Resources:  

Leslie’s Handout on The Need to Feel a Sense of Belonging

Leslie ‘s Handout on The Need to be significant 

Punishment by Rewards by Alfie Kohn

Leslie-ism: Practice empathy in your own conflicts

For a full transcript of this episode and more information about the host visit https://lesliecohenrubury.com/podcasts/ . You can also follow Leslie’s work on Facebook,  Instagram, TikTok and YouTube

Transcript

[Music: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music]

0:03  Anna: I'm trying to understand how I can resolve this situation better. What can I do next time, or what can I say to them to stop them being so physical and instead, just talk it out?

0:22  Leslie Cohen-Rubury: Wanting to understand how to do things differently or to prevent something from happening again is a great strategy, and I use it a lot in therapy to help people understand what leads to problematic behavior. But in this family, it backfires, and it's making the problem worse. This is, Is My Child A Monster?, a parenting skills podcast where you get to listen in as real parents and caregivers share their trials and tribulations in coaching sessions recorded live. I'm Leslie Cohen-Rubury. And no, your child is not a monster, just misunderstood.

This week, we meet Anna, a stay-at-home mother of three, who spends her days home schooling her children, eight-year-old Sasha, five-year-old Kate and two-year-old Daniel. Anna is at her wit's end. Her children are constantly fighting with each other for her attention. And she keeps hearing that all too common accusation, “You love her more than you love me.” Anna knows that's not true, but she doesn't know what to do about it, and everything she's trying just isn't helping. So she's here to work with me on some new strategies. 

Now, as a reminder, all of the names and identifying information have been changed. And although I'm a licensed clinical social worker, this show is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapeutic intervention. 

So let's begin. 

1:55  Leslie: Hi, Anna. How are you today?

1:56  Anna: I'm well. Thank you. Hi, Leslie.

1:59  Leslie: Alright, so I'm going to let you start: Why are you here today?

2:04  Anna: So I have a situation with my three kids. I’m a mom of three. They're all different ages, roughly three years apart. I have two older girls and a boy, and I'm homeschooling them, so I'm mainly with them all of the time. I rarely take vacations or anything, so I'm pretty much primary care for them 24/7, I'll say. Because we wake up, we go to bed pretty much all together. I don't really get a break from school, but that's my choice, right? 

So the situation that I started to encounter with them, my older…my girls, they started being aggressive towards each other. So I have this kind of sibling rivalry situation going on. And I would like to understand how to address it better, because my parenting style…I never like to kind of yell at them, to punish them and stuff. I always try to negotiate. I try to understand two sides of a story where they’re both coming from. 

So, for example, there could be a situation where my middle child, Kate---she's five—tends to go into aggressive side when something doesn't go her way. She tends to scratch my oldest. She tends to, I don't know, push her, throw things, break things. Just because she's mad. My oldest, Sasha, for a long time she was tolerating that. It was hurting her, but we would kind of address it to her, “Oh, she's younger. You have to understand, she's learning her emotions,” and stuff like that. But as they get older, my oldest, she started to fight back. And now it kind of goes into more of a physical situation where they both can end up being scratched, they both can be pushed, that someone gets hurt, and it all ends up in tears. 

Another thing that I'm noticing with homeschooling—they’re Kinder to third grade—so my Kinder, I have to teach her more basic stuff, letters, numbers, anything like that. So I kind of tend to spend more attention with her one-on-one. Where my third grader, I know some stuff she can understand on her own, and I actually like to give her space and have her think about problems before I go in and explain. I mean, I will explain, but then I give her time to think about it. And now they both demand my attention, like, “How come you spend more time with her, not with me? Oh, you don't like me anymore. And all you do is just…you want me to do this from the first time, but I don't do it on the first time.” It's hard. And I'm like…

5:10  Leslie: Oh my goodness. So you have a lot to figure out with the girls. But the thing you want to talk about, is sibling rivalry. 

5:22  Anna: Yes.

5:23  Leslie:  So I like to both understand the sibling rivalry—who the kids are—but I also think it's really important to understand the context. So you started to give us a lot of context when you described that you're homeschooling. And the way you describe it—correct me, if I'm wrong—you're with the kids all day. You've got all three kids from the morning till the evening. 

5:50  Anna: Yes. 

5:51  Leslie:  Okay, and so when you're schooling them, you've got all three right there. And you're working with both of them, or you go from one to the other, which is where some of the “I want more attention” is starting to come up. 

6:06  Anna: Hm-hmm. Yes. 

6:07  Leslie: Okay, so let me understand a few other things. This is going to go way back. What was it like for you growing up? Did you have siblings? Was there sibling rivalry? Did you homeschool? Tell me a little bit about that context, because that helps me.

6:22  Anna: I came from Ukraine. I grew up with a brother. We are two years apart, and we did fight a lot when we were little, up until he left for college, maybe a little bit earlier we finished, I don't know. But I'd say, like, thirteen, fourteen…when he was thirteen, fourteen and I was younger. We did fight a lot, and he did judo. So imagine my childhood. [Laughter]

 6:51  Leslie: Oh, my goodness, Very physical,

6:54  Anna: …trying to survive that. [Laughter] My resource of protecting myself was, I remember, I was throwing furniture, little stools or something like that, anything I can find just to kind of push him away. But not all the time. With him, it's actually kind of funny. We rarely fought really hard. Whenever we fight, we could fight really hard. But then 15 minutes, and we would go in peace. That's the connection between him and I. We never hold…is a grudge, is that the word? We never had that negative emotion for too long. With my girls, it's about the same—they would fight, but then, I don't know, fifteen, twenty minutes later they go their own ways. It's like it never happened. And I'm going, How can I calm myself? I know you girls are okay, but now I need time to kind of process all of it.

8:08  Leslie: I'm going to  pause for a second because I don't want to forget something that's so important about that, and that is what we call recovery time. And two things about that. One is you and your brother fought a lot, and yet you didn't hold grudges. You moved on, and you're noticing your girls do the same thing. And a lot of parents think, All I want is my kids to be close. They're never going to be close if they fight like this. Are you and your brother, as adults, close or not close? 

8:40  Anna: We're very close. 

8:42  Leslie: You're very close. So if you fight as a child, it does not mean you will fight as adults. And the fighting that happens with children is like their first peer group. They're learning a lot of social skills. How to negotiate. How far can I push this person? What happens if I hurt them? And just because they do that in their sibling situation doesn't mean they're going to do that as adults. 

So the first point that I really want to make is this idea that recovery is a wonderful thing to see. If we didn't see that, we'd have another problem on our hands. So that's very good. And you are the one who's struggling with the recovery, because you don't recover quite as quickly. So when you see them fighting, why is that upsetting to you? Why do they just move on, but for you, it really is much more upsetting, and it takes longer to recover? Which is not wrong, it's just a fact about how you feel.

9:46  Anna: I think my internal process…it's not that I'm being negative to them, it's I'm processing myself, my own emotions. In a way, I'm trying to understand how I can resolve this situation and better to prevent it from happening again. This is kind of my internal talk with myself. Okay, what can I do next time so it doesn't go this far? Or what can I say to them to stop them being so physical and instead just talk it out? That's my internal thing. It's not that it takes me a long time to process, “Oh, they just fought. Oh, my God, they got hurt,” that stuff. I mean, I fought a lot. For me, it's more to understand how to make it easier on them, because every fight is: it's something that haven't spoken to each other, something that bothers them, something that they cannot resolve verbally…and they starting to fight. So I'm looking for ways to teach them to express themselves more, rather than being physical.

11:01  Leslie: That's a great goal, and you might be trying a little too hard. I would say the pressure on you, to turn down, that you need to teach them faster and more and make sure this doesn't happen again. First of all, we really see it in the natural animal kingdom. Kids fight, puppies fight, cubs fight—that part is natural. There's a natural occurrence of that. As I said, it's a way of learning skills. So they're not doing anything wrong, and it is sometimes a great place to teach them how to communicate differently. But we don't need to do that all the time, because if you jump in, or you're thinking to yourself…That's another question I want to ask you: How often do you jump in when they're fighting? Because if you jump in all the time, you're actually reinforcing Well, we get Mom's attention when we're fighting.

12:04  Anna: I do it all the time.

12:06  Leslie: You did because you thought you were helping.

12:08  Anna: Because I'm next to them pretty much all day. And whenever I see some escalation of the situation I wanted to negotiate, I want to kind of dial it down. It doesn't happen all the time, but…

12:24  Leslie: So we look very carefully, from a behavioral point of view, what's been reinforced. And when you jump in, there's no greater reward for a child. Think about it. They love their parent. They want more time and attention from their parent. If they fight, if they're fighting with their sibling and Mom starts to get more involved because you raise your voice, or you start to jump in with more energy, they can feel that kind of increase in your attention. And so if they feel that increase, unknowingly, their behavior is being reinforced. 

13:02  Anna: That's a good point. 

13:03  Leslie: It's behaviorism. So the first thing is, there is a combination of trying to focus on when they're not fighting. So let's say you're sitting down to do some homeschooling, and Sasha comes along and she hands Kate, “Hey, Kate, here's your book,” or, “Kate, I brought you a snack so that we can have snack,” or she does something that's cooperative. She does something that's collaborating. Even if she's quiet, while you're working with Kate and Sasha's really quiet, you might just say, “Sasha, your working independently was really helpful so that I could focus with Kate. Now I'm coming back to focus with you.” It's really important to reinforce the behavior you want to see more of.

13:50  Anna: That's a great point. 

13:52  Leslie: Parents hear that a lot, and they forget that they actually have to intentionally do that. Another way of reinforcing, let's say Sasha is working independently, and Kate is working with you, and she needs your help. You put your hand on Sasha's back. Even though she's working independently, she has you there. Or you're sitting next to her, your hand is on her back, but you're talking to Kate. That's a kind of like, I'm here for you too, Sasha, but I'm working with Kate. She has my visual attention and verbal attention. You have my physical attention because my hand is on you. 

These are all little tricks for saying, How do I reinforce the behavior I want more of? So that's number one. I would really do that. The idea that you're jumping in to fix them, as I said, that gives them the message that whatever they're doing they should do more of, because they got Mom's attention. So what are you going to do the next time it escalates?

14:59  Anna: I'm going to take my time and just observe from a distance. Actually, I tried a few times just to observe, and I was watching my husband's reaction. He was so calm. I'm like, Really? But that time, it didn't end up well, because my oldest, she pushed my middle one, and she hurt her head, and I'm like, Okay,..So I still have to watch them.

15:29  Leslie: What’s the worst case scenario there?

15:32  Anna: Well, we just moved, and they’re learning their space around them, and I think it wasn't her intention to push her that hard. She bumped her head from the edge of a bed frame, and I know she felt very sorry about it. I know that. So they learn in their new space. And I think it's also they’re  still learning their own body, their own strengths, when it comes to these activities, because they don't do it all the time. 

So we haven't really said anything negative towards, “Oh, my god. How did you do it? Why did you do it?” And so I know she didn’t mean it. From her look, I know she didn't mean it. We would just address it from the point, “You see how your situation, what it led to. Could it be different? Could you guys not push each other this hard? Or can you talk it out?” So we kind of went from the other side. We didn't address it like, “Oh my God, you hurt her so much. You did this and this, you were so bad,” and stuff like that. We didn't do that. And whenever it's something physical like that, we would always address from the point, “This is what it can lead to. This is why we are asking you guys to not fight so much, and stuff like that. 

17:01  Leslie: So let's talk about the fact that she got hurt. It's very subtle. But what's so interesting was that—and I know they push each other and scratch each other like you said—what's really interesting is, yes, they're learning about their strength. They're learning what happens when they push hard or whatever. That's all good learning for them. But you did something different. You said you didn't intervene, you didn't jump in and say, “Girls, Girls, no more fighting. Let's do something different.” You sat back and observed their fighting.

17:40  Anna: Well, I actually didn't see it. I heard that because they were on the second floor, I was on the first floor. I heard them start to fight, and I'm just listening, just listening, listening. And then when I heard a huge crack, I'm like, okay…

17:55  Leslie: Even more so. That only reinforces this idea that we really want to look at things from a behavioral point of view. Parents do not understand how their best intentions could really be reinforcing behaviors you don't want. So they were fighting. You heard them. They know normally you would have popped upstairs and said, “Hold on, girls, enough already. Time to stop fighting. Let's work this out.” Let's say that's what they expect. Well, you didn't pop up. So what happens when behavior doesn't get what you want?

18:34  Anna: I guess they just went all the way in. 

18:37  Leslie: Yes. The behavior got bigger, the behavior got worse. And so then she got hurt, and then you're running upstairs. I'm going to say—this is going to sound like I am an awful parent—what would have happened if you didn't run upstairs when you heard the bigger and louder activity of Ouch, someone got hurt and all that? What would have happened if you didn't go upstairs?

19:08  Anna: I mean, internally, I couldn't hold still. I'm that parent that cannot hold still if I hear cry. At least I have to see if they are okay, if they're alive and they still breathing. We did see she hurt her head. It was bleeding. But at the same time, we're not like, Oh my god, she was bleeding—no, we never do that. Me and my husband both came, and we kind of like had an eye contact, like: it's bad But we never mentioned to any of them at first, you know?

19:44  Leslie: Okay, so I'm still going to sound like that terrible, horrible, no-good parent. I'm going to stay downstairs. My kids are upstairs. They're fighting. One just got hurt. What do you think would happen to them? I know what happens inside of you. It's torment for you.

19:59  Anna: I understand where you're going. You would say that whoever did wrong,, let's say my oldest, Sasha, she pushed Kate, my middle one,you're leading towards the conclusion that whatever she did, she felt sorry, and she would go and help her out. 

20:20  Leslie: Wouldn’t that be something? They would then be solving their own problem. If it was a situation where nobody really got hurt, but they were fighting, even though it's escalated and you didn't run upstairs, they have a few options. They can make it worse. They can move on with their fights like they do. They could just move on and that fight would be over and it's like, phew, that one's done. Or they would come down and get you. “Mommy, she's doing this to me.” “Mommy, she's doing this to me.” Or, “Mommy, she got hurt, please come down and help her.” So your children will actually figure out what to do with their problem. 

And so there's so much learning that we rob our children of when we jump in, because our own anxiety is dictating our behavior. And I get that, and if you do it, it's okay—you just need to understand the consequences. And you can do it mindfully and wise-minded because you ran upstairs, you didn't start accusing, you didn't start blaming and yelling at Sasha. You calmly said, “Okay, let's deal with this.” 

It sounded like you knew you needed to address it. You did great. And I just want to offer you some of these ideas, because children's behaviors will escalate, especially when they're used to, we fight, we bring Mommy on board. Now I can hear you saying, “I can't tolerate this uncomfortableness,” so some of the work is regulating your own discomfort, knowing how to sit with that discomfort. 

And one thing, one little trick, that I can give you about sitting with your discomfort is: announce the change to your children. “Hey, I usually jump in when you two start fighting. I realize I might not be giving you a chance to resolve your problems on your own. So when you start fighting, it's really uncomfortable for me, but I'm going to deal with my discomfort and let you guys resolve it. If you need my help, I'm here. So one option for the two of you is to say, ‘Mommy, can you help us?’ I'll always jump in if you say, ‘Mommy, can you help us?’ I will listen to the two of you.” I'm going to talk to you about that piece. But we want them to come get you. Now you're not reinforcing that behavior. There's another way for us to do it. 

How does this sound to you? Announce to them that you're going to stop jumping in. And you might even say, “Guess what? You guys might end up fighting louder, harder, and scarier. You may not know why it's getting bigger, but I have a feeling it could get a little…” You've heard the expression, Things get worse before they get better? That's called an extinction burst in behaviorism, where the behavior gets a little bit bigger in order to sustain itself. Like, we get Mom's attention, so maybe we have to make things a little bit more intense right now in order to get Mom's behavior. Again, not necessarily intentional or aware that they're doing this at all. They're just doing: What gets Mom?

23:43  Anna: That makes sense. Yes, that makes sense.

23:46  Leslie: So, they are fighting. We want to acknowledge that this is normal childhood behavior. And there's a big piece that you want to tolerate your own emotions. Teach them that they can handle their own problems when you step back. And when you observe, you could say, “Wow, I noticed that you two are yelling at each other. Is this working for the two of you?” 

So now I'm going to give you my very, very informal sort of idea of doing one-third, one-third, one-third. And if you change the numbers, that's fine. But one-third of the time I don't get involved with my kids fighting. You might even just very naturally say, “I'm going to go get a drink of water.” Just don't say, “I'm leaving because you're fighting.” Just say, “You know what, I need a drink of water. I'm going to go get everybody a drink of water.” So one-third of the time, you're going to let them resolve it on their own, even if it escalates.

Second is, I do some conflict resolution and work it out. And then the third one-third is, I just observe and describe what's going on. If I'm not in the room, I might walk in and say, “Wow, I noticed that you're both having a problem.” The one thing I want to do and the one thing that we need to know about sibling rivalry—not all the time, but there's always a cause—and one of the causes is they are trying to individuate in the family. 

A family is a system of belonging. I belong in this family. Sibling rivalry says, I'm an individual. I'm unique. I'm a really unique person. So when children in families, where everything is about fairness, or everybody has to do everything all together—that's actually something we've already just learned about you and your family. As a homeschooling family, you are together a lot. And so that belonging might be really, really strong in the family. The sense of belonging is like, We are a unit. We homeschool, we do this together. We're a strong family unit. That's a beautiful thing. 

But your children have individual needs, and they want to be seen and understood as an individual. This sibling rivalry could be for that purpose, so we can work both sides of it. We can walk in and acknowledge, “Hey, you're both having a problem here. I don't pick on one or the other. I don't care if I know…like in the instance where Sasha hit Kate, you might go in and say, “Kate, what did you do?” But it didn't start with Kate's hitting, it started somewhere else, even as far back as Kate being even born into the family—it could have started there. But in this moment, I do like to say that you're both having a problem, and we'll talk about how to go further with that. But right now, this idea that they're trying to be seen as individuals. You can—when they're not fighting—you can make sure you see them as individuals. 

[Music: A Walk in the Forest by Olexy]

27:29  Leslie: Let me ask you a question: Do you see them individually, or are you comparing them? Are you labeling them? “We've got one book-smart, one artist, we have one athletic. We have…” Do you do any kind of good/bad division? Do you do any kind of labeling? 

27:47  Anna: Never. I'm trying to be very, very gentle about the division, like, who's being good at what, and stuff like that. I'm trying to always pinpoint where I would . For example, my oldest, she started to like cooking. And I'm not going, “Oh, my god, you cook so well.”  I'm not doing this. I'm not putting attention to what she started to do well, just because I want her to do more of it. No, I'm like, “Oh, you cooked this? That's good. Can you make one for your sister? She would like one, too.” 

So she made a sandwich for her sister. And still, I didn't mention, oh my god, you're such a great cook.” No, no, no, I'm very calm about being over-rewarding, over-stimulating. If they’re both doing something, that's what I'm trying to praise them more. It's like, “Oh, my god, you're such a great team, you're doing this together. You made my day much easier when you did this together.” So this is my strategy.

29:12  Leslie: I get it, it makes sense, and thank you for explaining that. Praise is a whole long conversation. I do want your daughter—I guess it's Sasha, who's trying her hand at cooking—I do want Sasha to feel good about it. And so she might feel like, “I never get any of Mom's praise, only when I'm with Kate, but I never get it when I'm just me.” So I'm not suggesting that you praise her, but I am suggesting that you get excited. I do want her to feel special. So it's like, “Wow. You just made a meal. Did you like cooking? How did that feel?” And if she says, “Yeah, I really like it,” say, “Oh, I'm so excited for you that you found something you like doing. I'm excited I get to eat your food.” 

You know, that's never saying: you're a good girl. Praise is my judgment on the other person. Praise is a judgment of saying: you're good, you're making me happy. I like to get excited when someone else feels good about themselves, so I am going to reinforce. Reinforcement is not the same thing as praise. Reinforcement says, “Wow, I see how excited you are. I even think you feel, probably, a sense of mastery, which is accomplishment. Did you feel a big sense of accomplishment that you made lunch for Mommy and your sister?” So I bring out the sense of accomplishment, the reinforcement of how she feels about it, What if you say, “So are you excited that you did that?” And she says, “No, I don't do it well, I'm never good at it,” Then your praise doesn't matter. 

We've learned something about her. “So you worked hard to make these sandwiches, but you don't think it's good enough. Wow. You've got a judge in your head that's really telling you you're not very good at things, don't you?” Now I'm understanding who she is, and I'm getting back to that idea of, I see my daughter for who she is. Praise is only how I feel about the situation. Reinforcement is: I am focused on the other person. I'm reinforcing their feelings, their thoughts, their actions.

31:50  Anna: I noticed when I did that. But the first time when she was cooking, and I was like, “Oh my god, you just made this sandwich by herself.” But Kate, my middle one, I kind of caught her look. She was kind of almost upset that, in a way, I probably put more attention to my oldest, not for her. And I'm like, How do I go about between both of them, to understand that I equally love them? I equally enjoy whenever each one of them accomplishes, but without them feeling not important at that moment when I'm praising one. 

32:37  Leslie: I do think there's a little bit of taking a deeper internal look at you believing in that yourself. Because this sibling rivalry—again, I have not fully assessed it—but if we're jumping in a little bit from the fact that you spend a lot of time together, from the fact that there's this fighting and it escalates to get Mommy's attention, to the fact that they each feel upset when the other one's getting attention. This is all very normal for children growing up. It is challenging, but I do think that you have to believe in your heart that you're okay if they're fighting with each other. Because the more they fight, the more you jump in, the more you're trying to make them believe, I do love you. I really do. I really love both of you. And I feel like you're desperately—that might be a strong word—but you're really, intensely, trying to convince them that you love them both.

33:46  Anna: I may, I mean, without me thinking much, but I may.

33:49  Leslie: You know deep down that you do love both your children and you will love them differently. And so it's not to keep saying to them over and over again, “I love you the same. I love you the same.” It's, “I'm going to love you each differently.” And I'll share the metaphor that I think works. But you can find your own metaphor or use this one, which is, if we were in the orchestra, we take care of the instruments differently. We play them differently. We take care of them differently. So I can throw my piccolo in my backpack or throw it in my suitcase. But I certainly can't throw my cello in a suitcase. My instruments have different needs. And I can hit my drum, but I wouldn't want to hit my harp. I'm going to treat them differently. Kids want the same. They don't understand that same and equal are slightly different.

34:55  Anna: Thank you so much. Great points.

35:00  Leslie: We're going to want to treat them differently, which says, I respect you as individuals. You're going to need different things. We also want to make sure we don't assume. I heard you say that you let Sasha do a lot of her work on her own; and that Kate, right now, needs more one-on one-time. That may be true, but it may be that actually, Sasha wants more support. We want to be balancing the belonging and the individuality. We want to be balancing the independence and the dependence. I want to keep those questions front and center for me. I don't want to make assumptions. “Hey, Sasha, when I send you to do this work on your own, does that feel like it works for you, or are there times that you feel like you want a little bit more support?” 

35:57  Anna: That makes sense. Great point. 

36:01  Leslie: Can I ask you another question? How do you renew your own sense of energy, if you're with your children all the time? Are they getting a worn out, exhausted mom, or do you have a self-care practice? 

36:18  Anna: I go running. I meditate. I try to teach them to meditate as well.

36:24  Leslie: Okay.

36:26  Anna: Running helps. They're getting older, once we finish their homework, they can do their own thing. I can have a bit more of my time. I'm not stressed out being all the time with them. There are days…there are days that I'm like, Okay, this has been a tough day, but majority of time I'm good.

36:54  Leslie: Beautiful. Glad to hear that you've got some of that self-care, and it sounds like then your husband might jump in as well.

37:04  Anna: They do a lot of sports, too. They only have two days a week that they don't have sports, so afternoon is pretty busy with practices and stuff. 

37:15  Leslie: Great. So they get to be around and see how other adults handle them with their sports and things like that. That's wonderful. Okay, so the one thing I didn't get to, and we'll wrap up after this, is the idea of once in a while, not all the time, most of the time, like I said, I'm really letting the sibling rivalry just go—it's okay. And sometimes it's a lovely opportunity to go back and say, Well, what do we want to do different? Well, there're two reasons to come back together. One is to teach empathy and dialectic perspectives. Like, do I understand why my sister's upset? Does she understand why I'm upset? So empathy is making sure that both parties understand each other. And in conflict resolution, which is so interesting, a lot of people skip that part. They jump right to, “What are you going to do about it?” “You broke my toy and you did this.” That is the number one missing step, whether it's countries that are trying to get along or people trying to get along—we cannot forget the empathy piece. 

38:28  Anna: Let me ask you this question. One of the times, when I was trying to mitigate and I waited for the moment that they both calmed down, it was a peaceful time. And I started to have this conversation. I'm like, “So this situation this morning, when you girls fight, how did you feel about it?” I did know the cause of the situation—we already resolved that. But then I asked them this question, each of them, they were both in the room. I asked Kate, “How would you want Sasha to talk to you or do to you that will make you feel better?” 

And she's like, “Well, I want her to stop taking this book, I want her to stop that.” I'm like, “Well, Sasha, did you hear it? It bothers her when you take her book without her asking. It bothers her, so she doesn't want that. She doesn't like that.” Then Sasha goes, “I don't care. I still need this book.” And okay, book is an example—I don't remember the exact issue. And I know deep down that Sasha, she doesn't want those fights. She usually is the one that would wait the longest until she fights back because she understands her younger sister. But now she started to be more in the defense of like, “Well, I don't care. Nope. I'm not negotiating, nope.” So she's starting to have this very stubborn issue with her.

40:10  Leslie: She has a strong will, and she has an idea of how she wants to see resolution. Okay, there's a difference between conflict resolution and this step of empathy. You were trying to do that piece. You were trying to get them to understand each other's perspective. That's really lovely. I would announce that we are going to do step-by-step. Just as important as learning math skills is learning conflict resolution skills. So step one is: hear and understand the other person. So first, I might sit next to Sasha and say, “Kate, would you explain what the problem was for you?” And then I'm going to get up and sit next to Kate, and I am simply going to let them hear each other. 

They can repeat back. So Kate says, “I don't want you taking my book.” And then you're sitting next to Sasha. I’d say, “Sasha, can you tell Kate what you just heard her say? What's upsetting Kate?” And then Sasha would need to say, “She doesn't like when I take her book.” That's what I'm trying to accomplish, that she can repeat back to Kate. So Kate feels like she has been heard, and so I get her to repeat back. 

Some kids will say, “Well, I don't care if she doesn't want me to take a book.” And go, “You're jumping to step number three. Let's just do step number one.” So you stop it and you teach them: Nope. That's step number three. Back to step number one. Can you, Kate, repeat what you said? I'm going to help you, Sasha.” 

And then you might have to help her. “I heard you say, Kate, that you don't like when Sasha takes your book. Sasha, can you try that?” And that's how I'd walk them through it, and then I'd repeat it and say, “Sasha, we're going to repeat. We want to know why you were fighting. Why did you feel like this was a problem?” And it could be totally different. “Well, I was working with Mom, and you butted in.” 

Okay. So now we understand. Now, Sasha gets a voice. It's just so lovely. And guess what? If you do nothing else but that empathy piece, that is transformative. That's an accomplishment. And so sometimes that's all I want to do and say, “Okay, I just want to make sure you understood each other. Go play. We're done, guys.”

42:36  Anna: I was puzzled on that, because when one of them starts being so, kind of defensive, and I was like, Nope, I don't care. And I'm like, What do I do next? My idea was for them to be heard, as you said, that was my intention. But then as soon as one of them starts being so, kind of defensive. I was like, okay… [Laughter]

43:01  Leslie: So the trick there is, when someone's getting defensive, getting louder, escalating, they are not being heard. So you might need to take a time out and say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, before you answer, Kate, do you want to let me know that you're upset over this?” 

Or she feels she's being blamed, and say, “Wait a minute. We're not agreeing with Kate. We're not telling Kate she's right. All we're doing is hearing Kate's perspective. The resolution comes in step four,” or whatever. 

We could keep going. I want to actually resist the urge to tell you step three, step four and step five. I want you to just practice this one step. Work on the empathy piece, work on getting both perspectives heard. Say, “We don't need to solve this problem, you guys. I have faith that you guys can figure it out right now. I just want to make sure. This was a very, very, very big accomplishment. You both heard each other's side.” And even if it doesn't go well, you're teaching them it's important to understand each other. 

Don't do it all the time. Do it some of the time. That's one thing you're going to work on, and the second thing to work on is your own discomfort, maybe announcing to them that you're not going to jump in. And your own discomfort, it's sitting with them when they're fighting.

44:27  Anna: Once they’ve heard each other, what do I do next? 

44:33  Leslie: Right now, I'm going to resist the urge from telling you the next steps. I want you to say, “Okay, kids, that's really an important step. Go play. Go back to what you're doing. We don't really actually need to resolve this problem right now. I have faith that you guys are going to figure it out. You guys are capable. Go back and figure it out.” So resist the urge. And if they really beg you to help them solve the problem, go ahead. But try to resist that urge if you can. Because then you're working on your own need to fix your child, whereas I really want to reinforce the need to understand, which is what they need to understand. 

45:18  Anna: That's been great, because from my growing up as kids with my brother in Ukraine, we pretty much resolved our own issues. Because my mom, she was working all the time. She was rarely around us when we were fighting, it was mainly when she was absent. And we managed, we learned how to resolve. As I said, there were some days where we fought a lot, really hard, but then we pretty much went on. We kind of learned to let it go. 

45:54  Leslie: Right. It's a valuable lesson. 

45:57  Anna: And even right now, when we're not agreeing on something, we can go back and forth a little bit; and then it's just like, never happened. We don't take it too personal. Some people, it’s like, “Oh, I would never speak to her again,” or something like that. With us, we would just…we had a situation, we heard each other, as you were saying, and then we just let it go, and then we go on.”

46:22  Leslie: I think that's fantastic. And I really think that you either learned that sibling rivalry is really normal. It's a wonderful thing that you were given the room to actually solve their problems on your own, and we don't want to rob our children of that same wonderful experience. Or there's a possibility that you're trying to protect your children, because as a child, it didn't feel good…

46:53  Anna: I guess that's my main issue coming today. Because the reason why I'm jumping in so much is because I know it didn't feel well. I'm feeling their pain, because I went through that too, when one hurts each other, and I'm trying to just kind of to stop that and negotiate. 

47:11  Leslie: That’s right. I think we'll come back to that as well, that sometimes we're trying to do something different with our children because of our own pain. And that makes total sense to me. As you said, you don't want to see them in pain. 

47:27  Anna: I had a feeling that I can do something different about it. I just didn't have tools or understood exactly what I needed to do. But thank you so much, because I got some clarification, it makes sense. Thank you so much. It's been really, really helpful. 

47:43  Leslie: Great. Thank you.

[Music: Acoustic Folk Music Guitar by ArtMusic ] 

47:51  Leslie: Witnessing conflict is hard, especially when it's your own children who we don't want to see in pain. And, as parents, we need to learn to sit with our own discomfort in order to help our children learn that they actually have the skills they need to resolve conflict. It's so important for them to learn to handle the struggles, and it's a safe way—believe it or not—it's safe to learn it at home with your sibling. 

What is also remarkable here is at the end of the session, we heard what I call a doorknob issue, and that's when Anna talked about how painful it was for her to fight it out with her brother. It is very common to have sibling rivalry. But I also want to acknowledge that it can be incredibly painful as well, and Anna might actually be struggling watching her children fight because it was so painful for her. So it's really important for us to find that balance between letting our children have their normal sibling rivalry, letting that exist, and also helping support our children when it hurts.

I want to thank Anna for allowing me to work with her on this situation and being vulnerable, because there is that connection between our own childhood, the pain that we carry, and then bringing that pain into parenting. So thank you, Anna.

[Music: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music] 

And towards that end, I left you on a cliffhanger. I gave Anna only the first step of conflict resolution. I might have frustrated her a little bit, but there's a reason behind my madness. The reason is that empathy is that first step, and empathy is what's often missing and why conflict resolution often falls on its face. When we don't take the time to focus on the empathy piece, we might struggle with conflict resolution. So this week, see if there are places where you can practice empathy in your own conflicts, and maybe see how that's a benefit to you. 

And join us next week for Anna's final session, where we explore her doorknob moment about the sibling rivalry with her brother and also her fears around her children growing up too fast. 

Subscribe to Is My Child A Monster? Wherever you get your podcast and please rate and review to help spread the word. You can also find a full transcript of this episode or sign up for my newsletter at ismychildamonster.com. The Is My Child A Monster? team is Alletta Cooper, Camilla Salazar, and me. Special thanks to Eric Rubury. Our theme music is by L-Ray Music. I'm Leslie Cohen-Rubury. Thanks so much for joining me. 

Transcribed by Eric Rubury