June 1, 2026 • 47 mins
Sibling fights can start over anything - a toy, a look, a birthday, or someone breathing too loudly in the back seat. Returning Wiggle Talk favourite Gen Muir, parenting educator and mum of four boys, joins Simon and Lachy to unpack why kids so often fight to pull parents in, the moments that do need a firm boundary, and why “go and check on them” can be more powerful than “say sorry.”
HOSTS
Simon Pryce
Lachlan Gillespie
GUEST
Gen Muir
You can find out more about Gen and Connected Parenting here.
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PRODUCERS
Produced by The Wiggles and Mylk Media
Madeline Joannou
Nick Webb
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About The Wiggles' Podcast - Wiggle Talk
Welcome to Wiggle Talk, the ultimate parenting podcast brought to you by The Wiggles! With over 30 years of experience in early childhood education and a global legacy of entertaining and educating millions of children, The Wiggles are now stepping into the world of parenting to share their journey as parents themselves. This podcast is designed for parents seeking expert advice, relatable stories, and practical tips on raising toddlers.
In Wiggle Talk, you'll join Simon and Lachy, beloved members of The Wiggles, as they explore the real-life challenges and joys of parenting. From handling toddler tantrums to nurturing your child’s early development, Simon and Lachy invite guests to share compelling conversations that will provide valuable insights that every parent can relate to. Whether you're struggling with sleep routines, picky eating, or simply looking for fun and educational activities to do with your little ones, this podcast has got you covered.
Every episode also features founding Wiggle and early childhood expert Anthony Field, who will answer listener questions on topics ranging from child behaviour to effective parenting strategies. With decades of experience and a passion for helping children thrive – as well as being a father of three - Anthony offers trustworthy advice to help you navigate the complexities of raising a toddler.
As parents, we know that the journey can be both rewarding and challenging. That's why Wiggle Talk is here to support you every step of the way. Whether you're a new parent or have been on this journey for a while, you'll find a wealth of information and inspiration in each episode. Plus, you’ll hear from famous friends of The Wiggles who share their own parenting experiences and tips.
So, tune in to Wiggle Talk and join The Wiggles as they swap their skivvies for candid conversations about parenthood. Let's work out this parenting thing together, with a little help from the experts in early childhood education!
About The Wiggles
For over three decades, The Wiggles have been a beloved cornerstone of children's entertainment, captivating and educating millions of preschoolers—and their parents—around the world. Known for their high-energy performances, catchy songs, and colourful characters, The Wiggles have built a global legacy rooted in the power of music and movement to inspire early childhood learning.
With a mission to make education fun, The Wiggles create content specifically designed for pre-K, preschool, kindergarten, and nursery school age groups. Their unique blend of music, dance, and educational content not only entertains but also helps children understand the world around them. Generations of fans who grew up watching The Wiggles are now sharing that same joy with their own children.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Wiggles acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia
and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay
our respects to elders, past, present and emerging.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to Wiggle Talk. It's a podcast for parents. I
am Lucky Gillespie the Wiggle.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Hello Lucky, I'm Simon Price, I'm the Red Wiggle. And
today Jen Muir is back with us. Yes, she's a
friend of the pod, parent educator, mum of four boys
and the perfect person to talk about sibling rivalry because
sibling fights can start over absolutely nothing and somehow end
up with everyone crying. Yes, including ourselves. Yes, but before
(00:46):
we go to gen Ashra and I are playing have
you played kids Monopoly?
Speaker 4 (00:50):
No?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
It's great? Is that?
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Like?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Yeah, it's just Monopoly street signs or different? No, different,
but it's a smaller board. I haven't really read a
lot of the rules, but it's basically Monopoly for kids.
And Asher and I are playing the other day and
I read out of money, which basically when he won. Yes,
he won, so Asher then said, don't worry, Dad, I'll
(01:15):
just lend you some from the bank. So he just
starts giving me extra money so we can keep basically,
so we can keep playing. So fast forward. Then that afternoon,
his cousin comes around and they decide to play kids Monopoly.
Asher during their game runs out of money, so he goes, well,
(01:40):
I'll just take more because that's what I did for Dad,
so I expect the same yes from my cousin. Yes
to give me, but no, because they are not the rules.
And that got me thinking bending the rules like we did,
and that was actually very generous of Asher to keep
playing makes logical sense to keep playing Dad needs more money, yes,
(02:01):
but in the actual rules when you're playing, they are
not the rules. So that was quite upsetting for his party.
They worked through it, okay, cousin a bit older, only
a year older, but came to me and blame me,
and I took the blame. I said, yeah, to my fault.
I wanted to keep playing, so I took the money.
(02:21):
But that is not actually the rules of the game
of the game once you run out, and they worked
through it that way.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
But can't just walk into a bank and excuse me,
excuse me, Can I have the big five hundred? Is
it there? Five hundred?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
No, you get sixteen dollars each Oh, okay, and and
the bank there, and you got your question cards and
it's actually a really good game.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
How did you run out of money? Did you just
not buy any property?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I bought? Some bought Mine are quite expensive if I
actually know the rules correctly, and I don't know if
I do actually, but you land on a property, you
have to buy it.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Oh? Is that the right?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Is that normalals? I don't know. Oh? And then so
but I landed a five.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Dollar a couple of when you only got sixteen.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
And then Ash had quite a few, and so I'm
having to pay him rent when I land on his Yes,
and I bought a couple of I've only got six
of eight bucks and I've spent ten on two properties.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
You didn't manage your money?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, yeah, so that's why I came it out pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Do you get a dollar for passing go?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah? You get two dollars a pass and go, and
you get chance cards which say a lot of the
time there if nobody owns a blue or an orange property,
you can go and you can own that for free,
you know. And then but Asher had a lead at
a lot of investments. I need it very well. But anyway,
(03:38):
so I don't know what the right thing is to
do in that situation, except I guess ash you should
probably know the real rules, and then we can have
our own version of it given any circumstance. Anyway, that's
enough for that. You we get into it.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Let's get started now. Jen Muer is the founder of
Connected Parenting, a perinatal social worker, parent educator, and mum
of four boys. She's been on Wiggle Talk lots of
times before. We love talking to her. We talked about
big feelings, toddler emotions, and discipline, and today we are
getting her take on sibling rivalry. We are not just
(04:10):
talking about how to stop every fight, because when siblings
are arguing over a cup or a toy, or the seat,
or who looked at who the wrong way, it's not
always about the thing that's right in front of them.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
No, Sometimes it's about fairness. Sometimes it's jealousy, sometimes it's attention.
Sometimes it's a child trying to work out where they
fit in the family. So today we'll talk about what
sibling fights might actually be, telling us when to step in,
when to hang back, how to avoid becoming the full
time referee, and how to support the sibling relationship, not
(04:42):
just shut down the noise.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Jen, welcome back to Wei will talk again.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
You thank you for having me. I am always always
excited to come back.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Well, we love having you here, we do. We love it.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
We're talking about sibling rivalry today. But can we just start.
You've got four boys, I should do. What is the
most recent rediction kill as sibling? Little fight that you
had to, oh God, to deal with so many?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
That is such a good question. Okay, you don't think.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Or the one before that. As they get older, they
start to listen to people.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Look, my kids tend to fight over injustices. So there
was a recent fight where one of my kids is
really good at disappearing for what we sort of call it,
you know, a well timed convenient pooh. So right when
we're all washing up, suddenly he's got to go and
he is notorious for it. Right, and this one night,
(05:36):
did you.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Just hold on? Do you think until this moment or
just wonder?
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Don't you like? How many times a day does a
personal need to pooh? Like it's anyway, so always the
urge will strike just as the washing up has to happen.
And on this particular night, this child was in the
kitchen and another one of my four boys disappeared for
a shower.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Right.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
It was just I just need to have a shower
right while we're cleaning up. And the child that always
disappears for the well timed pooh absolutely lost it and
he was pacing around, you know, the indu justice of this.
Oh like rahrahrah, And you're just like, this is so
funny because you're the one that always disappears and the
(06:17):
one time and the kid that disappeared for the shower,
he's always the last one staying around to do the
washing up. So I didn't mind as a parent. But
the child that is very good at escaping had the
big rant. So that's probably the funniest one that we've
had recently. That seems so ridiculous, but it is ongoing.
We go on road trips and someone will be upset
(06:40):
with someone else for breathing too loudly, for looking at me,
for you know, all of that stuff you're using my
favorite glass, you know, all of those things that siblings
will fight over. That's so sort of silly, but mostly
it's really benign things, you know, just annoying each other.
Siblings know how to dig until on snaps. That's kind
(07:01):
of their job. So I find it quite funny these days.
But yeah, it's definitely a feature of having four boys,
must be.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
If it's about the little things as it run deeper than.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
That is that, you know, like, sure does that is
a good question?
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Probably jumped in a bit too early, No scroll through.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
You know it really does?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
You know.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
I often talk to parents about siblings. They're almost like
birds in a nest. And any time we add another one,
or we add competition to the main source, which is
us for our children, there's going to be sort of competition.
Kids are always sort of vying for different ways to
stand out amongst each other, to feel seen, to get connection.
(07:44):
And the interesting thing about I reckon ninety percent of
sibling fights are not actually about the thing. It's not
about the fact that one of them is actually breathing
too loudly, you know, that's not the core of the issue.
It's actually that our kids are always always doing anything
to draw us in as caregivers. And one of the
(08:05):
best ways to draw a parent in is by thumping
your brother, or by annoying your brother to your brother
thumps you. And so kids form these little passions of
knowing exactly how certain behaviors will pull us in. It
sounds like manipulative, it's not. It's actually a biological thing
where they're just sort of vying for that connection, for
(08:26):
that sense of being seen. And once we sort of
understand that ninety percent of fights are really about our
kids trying to pull us in, then we can kind
of work out, well, how we're going to respond to them,
how we're going to kind of help them with this stuff,
because the goal is not to teach kids not to fight,
just to teach kids to fight.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Well, okay, and I'm assuming that doesn't mean physically.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I don't want to talk about twins too much, but no,
let's talk about it. I did want to ask you
because this is happening a lot at the moment. But
the other day had the best like gen moment ever.
I found myself first one of the girls. Just the
end of the story is Danna said to me, you know,
all these things happened prior for one of the girls
to finally snap, And at the moment it's working in
(09:11):
the way that one girl is so much more confident
than the other. But then there are all these things
that happened to the not so confident one prior to
then she just snapped and had a big goal at
the other one, And my first reaction was to kind
of get a bit upset at the less confident one
who just had the moment. And Diana then said after
(09:31):
I didn't not a bad snap. It was just I
took her to a room.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
And I talked.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Then Dina said, afterwards, there was all these steps prior
that happened to her from her sister that I didn't
even see.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Yeah, but that was then.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
The final moment was just losing it at something that
had nothing to do with the moments before, which is.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
All of us, right, Like don't you think, you know,
you have a really bad day, You've got a lot
of stress at work, and then you come home and
your partner's forgotten to buy the milk, and you're just like,
oh my goodness, you just had one job. But it's
not about the milk. It's about everything underneath that. And
our kids are no different. I think what's so interesting
(10:14):
about what's happening, you know, in that story, is that
kids go well when they can in that our kids
are all different, especially with twins, we sort of see that, right,
They've got different things, they're succeeding at different struggles. But
a kid that is struggling, like you said that, there's
moments of feeling less confident, especially by comparison when you've
(10:35):
got a twin is really tough. So when you're going
through a harder time, so you know, just say school
days are tougher, maybe you're a little bit less successful
than a sibling or a twin making friends. Maybe you're
a little bit less successful academically. Maybe you find just
concentrating and listening to the teachers instructions and doing all
that stuff harder. So kids will have lots of things
(10:55):
that developmentally, at different stages they're finding harder. And all
of that, if we can imagine, moves them up in
the climb into dysregulation or into the body kind of
having less capacity. And what happens is we're talking about
high emotion. The emotions are building, but the skills are
almost dropping because our capacity to kind of be kind
(11:16):
and calm and consider it and use our words and
all of that great stuff is sort of dropping as
kids get more dysregulated. Because cortisole is rising. The biggest
thing that's happening through all of that day. When a
kid is struggling is that it feels big because it
is big, and so they're working really hard. They're kind
of building stress or cortisol in order to cope, and
then that kid is going to be the kid that
(11:38):
will snap or flip out or throw something or kind
of really struggle. And it's not that they don't need
a boundary, like I think, you know, going to have
a chat in the room about a nice way to
talk is definitely a good thing to do, but we're
also trying to really help them name bring from the
back of the brain to the front. It must be
really hard sometimes being a twin, it must be really
(12:01):
hard sometimes having to navigate some tough stuff at school
or through your day. One of the most powerful things
I can say to my four boys is it must
be really hard sometimes being the eldest, the youngest, the
middle child. And they will just go yeah, And you've
got this instant in and the power of naming that stuff,
(12:24):
like when we can name the kind of issue, now
we're on their team. Now we've got the capacity to go, well,
you know, it didn't work so well for you to scream,
right it made me upset, it made your sister upset. Whatever,
what could we do next time that those emotions are building,
because we do want to build skills in our kids,
but we want to come from that compassionate lens.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, and then also acknowledging that their emotions have built
up actually tell them that too.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yeah, they wouldn't. Yeah. I would never have thought of
like saying it must be really hard being a twin,
or it must be really hard being the younger brother
or the younger sister or that or the old like
I've never actually thought of actually labeling it.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
And one of the He's one of the most profound
things I think we can do. So my eldest I joke,
he's almost seventeen. I think he's only just adjusted to
the second child being born, like he's you know, he's
just finally got there. It's been a long adjustment and
for a very long time. You know, if my second
(13:25):
child would say the sky is blue, my oldest child
would say, no, it's red, like just anything, but you're wrong,
you know, And it kind of they built this little
passion where the second child knew exactly how to poke
and poke and poke, and then the first child would snap,
and you know, we got into this pattern, and you
can lecture and say do it different, find better ways,
(13:45):
don't talk to your brother like that. Whatever. The best
way through every single time. The times where we've seen
the most progress in building and fostering that sibling relationship
has been when I've gone into that oldest child and
gone it must be so hard sometimes to be the
eldest of four boys. And sometimes I can see how
frustrating your younger brother is so for a four year
(14:07):
old when they were two and four and you're mastering
you know whatever, building your lego structures or whatever, and
you've got this two year old just ruining it. Or
you might have different personality styles, and that is really frustrating.
I think for some siblings it might be that just
have We've got a really organized eldest that always has
(14:27):
their stuff together, and then a second child who struggles
with executive function or planning or kind of just having
it all together in the mornings, and that second child
might cause everybody to lose it. And then you've got
this child that is getting it right that winds up henpecking.
That's other childs they're like, come on, pull it together.
You're the reason we're running late. We want to sort
(14:49):
of correct that child that's picking on the other child, right,
But if we go in with empathy first, sometimes you
must feel like you've got all your stuff together, you're
so ug eyes, and then you've got this sibling drag
in the chain, never got their shoes on. Gosh, it
must feel frustrating. Once we've named that, they're going to
be like, yes, you see me, you know, And then
(15:10):
you can be like it's not working so well, like
when you kind of mother them instead of me, it
all ends in tears. What can I do to help
you in that situation? And what can we do to
do it a bit differently so that we're not you know,
but talking to them outside the moment is the way forward.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I was just about to ask that is that the
point too? And just get another really quick story but
that I took last year. I took one girl each
way with me. Yeah, And almost instantaneously after that, when
one of them got home after Christmas, the behavior shifted,
like I've finally realized what it's like to be by myself,
have my own time with my person, and it's kind
(15:47):
of hasn't been the same since just the dynamic, which
is so interesting.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
So it made things worse, not better.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, more competitive, more like, oh my gosh, the realization
of not having competition and which is really interesting. But
with four boys with a full house, you're having to
wait for that moment afterwards. You're not going to obviously
say that in front of the one that's been annoying
to your brother. You know, I get you, But that
(16:12):
must be tricky to find individuals.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
Yeah, and I don't think. I think for most parents,
you know, we're not realisticly like, there might be an
opportunity every now and then to get away one on
one with one of our kids, but often that's not happening.
But we might be just ducking into their room. Or
I love the idea of just side by side in
the car and asking different questions, Like sometimes it might
(16:36):
be like you're in the car and you might ask
something like if there was one rule in this family
you'd like to change, you know, what would it be?
Or what do you wish that adults knew about kids,
about what it's like to be a kid, about what
it's like to be a twin, you know, So we
can sort of ask these questions that sort of a
(16:57):
low pressure that sort of ignite a bit of conversation,
and you know, what kids really want is sort of
just to be seen. And I think that we can acknowledge,
Like even after the holiday, I'd be sort of saying,
you know, I've noticed that we had that awesome time
and there are times now where you're now wanting that
one on one and that's really hard having a twin
(17:18):
and kind of wishing that you got that one on
one some of the time. And here's how we can
have a small moment of that. Like, I think we
can kind of create micro moments of that.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
So the early year, start this type of dialogue and
communication with your children, and the better it will be
as they grow or is it continually a navigation because
they're going to grow up having different experiences.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Yeah, I mean one of the biggest things we can
do to raise kids that have really good emotional intelligence
is to talk about this stuff just some of the time,
though not all of the time. But for me, what
motivates me, it works like it just it works. So
I've you know, obviously I'm a parent educator, but I
make lots of mistakes and then I apply this stuff.
I find when I apply the stuff, it works, and
(18:02):
I'm like, Okay, that's really helpful. I think having the
overall sense that kids go well when they can, so
when they're struggling, when we're seeing repeated behaviors, particularly around
sibling dynamics, that isn't working for us, Particularly when it's
one kid always causing the problems, for example, which can
commonly happen in families. My first instinct with that one
(18:26):
kid is always to start with connection. So even if
not a day together or a holiday together, ten minutes
of one on one time with that kid, And sometimes
parents will think, well, isn't that just rewarding the bad
behavior if you've got you know, for people with young children,
it might be one child that constantly picks on a sibling.
For older children, it might be just a child being
(18:47):
difficult or undermining constantly to another kid, and you just
want to go, why you're being mean? What is wrong
with you? All that stuff. But if we start with
let's start with getting it in there and kind of
just filling that emotional cup, and from that place of connection,
we can then I think have a chat about I'm
noticing that this morning's are not going well or getting
(19:07):
on with your sibling. It's really tricky at times, and
I'm wondering, you know, what we could do to make
that easier, Morning's easier, or you know, but really sometimes
just the connection alone will do it.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
I can understand the odd comparisons, like we're twins, there's
a direct comparison, but a sibling's doing that all the time,
even though there's younger and older. As a younger always
trying to compare themselves to the older.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Or Okay, I have a bit of a funny story
that just happened when we were away. So I've got
this youngest child and he's he's quite a firecracker. And
I've got this third child who's quiet, you know, he's
a quiet, slow to warm up kind of kid. We're
all swimming in these rocks in wa and my third
child is standing there desperately trying to get up the
(19:52):
courage to get in, and he's getting a bit of
attention because you know, we're all trying to encourage him
to get in, and the fourth child's just watching, see that, right,
And then next in this big wave comes and it
almost sweeps my third child off a rock and it
was a bit scary and he got a bit of
a scrape. Luckily a friend of mine grabbed him, pulled
him out, and I leapt out immediately to check on him,
(20:12):
as you know, I'm his mum, and I said, oh, no, Tom,
are you okay? And my youngest went right here. I
am just trying to get along as the youngest of
this family. He gets one tiny scratch and everyone's acting
like he's dying of cancer, and I just thought, what
a crack up. But this is what siblings will do
(20:35):
that you know, that small moment of another child getting
attention will feel painful to kids. And I think once
we realize that it is so normal to sort of
compete for that attention and that connection, and that, you know,
his way of showing it. It's lovely and verbal now
at nine, but there would have been times where he
wouldn't have shown that in that way. And obviously with
(20:57):
time he'll get a little bit better at articulating that.
But I think all kids will feel at times like
my sibling gets more whatever than me our time. Sometimes
it's blueberries or ice cream, or you know, things can
feel unfair. And I think one of the biggest things
we can do as parents. So in that scenario, what
I said to my son was, I get it, that
(21:18):
feels tough. I actually don't need to correct, even though
that's not technically the most pro social, long term way
to view his brother, and he can find a kind
of response in the moment, I still tended to the
son that was hurt, and then I was like, I
get it. It's tough being the youngest, you know. I
get that sometimes you're feeling like you've brother got more
attention than you, and that is hard. We don't need
(21:39):
to do much more. I think then acknowledge that in
the moment, and then maybe later we can just talk
to them about what it might have been like, you know,
that ability to perspective, take and see what it might
have been like to be your sibling. But the reality
is kids will feel like things are a bit unfair.
I think if we can just acknowledge that and say, yeah,
it is hard sometimes I see you, we don't, I
(22:00):
don't then need to fix it. So the example in
that scenario, I don't then need to do anything to
give him attention. I'm just letting him know that he's
allowed to have his feelings about it, and same with
just say one of my kids comes home and they
got a party bag and they are invited to a party,
and the other kid didn't get that. I don't need
to rush out and buy a party bag for the
other kid. But what I think is kind is to say, yeah, like,
(22:24):
that's hard. Your sibling got to have this great experience.
You're feeling a bit like you didn't get it. You'd
love a party bag. We can encourage the kid with
the party bag to share, you know. But I think
the biggest thing we can do, rather than rush to
fix it or solve it, is allow the frustration that
having a sibling causes. And I think for parents feeling
like it's hard to give enough to everybody, the upside
(22:46):
of kids feeling that frustration is that every time you
feel that jealousy or that frustration of not getting everything
you want, and particularly when that gets named or we
can make sense of that, kids are building frustration tolerance.
They're building the sense like I can tolerate the fact
my brother was getting attention and that felt hard within me.
I got to express that. But that flexes the muscle
(23:10):
so that we can cope when not everything goes our
way and I guess.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
In turn that lends into accolades, like if a sibling
has won something or that, as a parent, you want
to be able to empower that child and give all
the congratulations and celebration, But then you don't want to
have that effect of making the other sibling feel bad
that they haven't achieved that or they totally How as
a parent, how do you kind of balance that.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
We know our kids, and sometimes we know for some
kids it's going to be harder agetting my youngest so
if I knew that one of his older brothers was
going to get an award, or if I know, for example,
they're all born in July, so I know that he
will struggle on in July. Yeah, I know. It's weird anyway,
a ugily as well.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
You get to get it all out of the way
in a month.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Anyway. It is a in fact about.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Me, I'm trying to count nine months. It's spring anyway,
Spring is sprunk.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
So I know that some kids particularly will struggle on
their siblings' birthday. They will just from the get go,
not your kids they share a birthday, but from the
get go, they will just from the minute they wake up,
they're like oh God, this kid is going to get
attention all day long and it can be really hard.
So we can actually get in and do a little
bit of pre game emotion coaching with this stuff. So
(24:36):
you might say to your child that you know is
going to struggle tomorrow through the birthday. Tomorrow it's your
sister's birthday or your brother's birthday, and it's going to
be tough watching them get all those presents and everyone's
going to sing to them. And I would totally get
if you felt a bit jealous, And if you did
feel jealous, feel free to come give me a cuddle.
I get it. And just the process of naming that
(24:57):
out loud in advance is probably going to have that
kid go that a little bit better the next day.
And then we don't have to even everything up and
kind of work really hard to make everyone happy. We
can just acknowledge that that is going to be a
hard day for you, and your birthday will come and
then it will be your turn.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
As they get older, when do you step in like
leave home? Are there ones you just kind of sit
back and go, I'm just going to let let them
have this out.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Or I think our goal is not to stop sibling
fighting is to teach kids to fight well. And by
that I did not mean before to work through it.
But here's the thing. One of the key ways our
kids learn about conflict, negotiation, building, frustration, tolerance, perspective taking
is through fighting with siblings, and if we're only children,
(25:52):
it's through neighborhood groups or cousins. Like, we can still
build the same thing in social situations with kids that
we get familiar with that we almost treat like a sibling.
So that's kind of how we're building those skills. So
the goal isn't that we don't fight, it's that we
learn to fight in pro social ways. So when kids
are really little, like I work with a lot of
(26:13):
parents that have a two year old and a four
year old, and every time the two year old touches
the four year olds whatever, they're going to get whacked.
So at first, the way kids are going to deal
with conflict is usually very physical because that's the only
skill they've got under pressure of emotion, because kids have
high emotion, dealing with a sibling, sharing, perspective taking, all
(26:34):
that stuff is a lot of skill that they they're
sort of building, but high emotions around that stuff and
low skills. So our job is to build the skills,
but we can't build the skills in the moment. So initially,
when kids are fighting, we're stepping in and we are
physically stopping them when they're making a mistake that breaks
the rules. So you know, in my house, I have
(26:55):
four core rules for my boys when it comes to
how we get along with each other. That guide everything.
No hitting or hurting each other, yourself the dog like,
no hurting each other.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
Right.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Number two is we respect or we don't damage our
stuff our world kind of thing, so that's no throwing
our property or jumping on our table or you know
that kind of thing. The third thing is that we
don't call each other names, because name calling long term
can have significant impacts on kids if parents don't step in.
(27:28):
And then the fourth thing is when someone says stop
or they're crying, we stop and we check on them.
And they're the four rules. So I don't make them
say sorry, but I do make them check on each
other if someone's cried or said stop, So they're the
four core rules. If a core rule is being broken,
and with little kids, those four rules get broken a lot.
(27:49):
We are stepping in every time, very swiftly, very quickly,
and going whoa cartly hit each other, cartly, snatch off
your brother, not going to let you call each other names.
I can see your brother's crying. Looks like he's not
enjoying this anymore. I am here, but I'm physically in
their helping. So at what age or at what stage
(28:10):
do we let them work it out? Well, I think
we can start to step back from the beginning. So
once we've got those core rules and we know when
we are stepping in, well, now we can start to
step out more often. And so if kids are bickering
and fighting over a toy, for example, and I hear
it building, but they're not breaking a core rule, I
(28:31):
can either just listen and kind of just observe and
stay out of the way a little bit and think
to myself, what a wonderful opportunity to learn about conflict
and negotiation. Or I can step in and say, I
see two kids and you're both wanting the same toy.
I wonder how you guys are going to work this out.
I reckon you can do it in a way that's fair.
(28:53):
So we're coaching that. Yeah, there's a struggle I can
feel it building and I'm sort of nearby and I'm
wondering how you guys are going to work this out.
It helps kids hugely, but we're sort of just coaching
without saying, hey, I'm going to set a timer. You
get two minutes, and you get two minutes, and that
keeps us in the middle, whereas I'm always trying to
(29:13):
however possible, I want to build skills. I want to
step back. Another way that we can coach siblings to
fight well is to start to pick up nonverbal cues.
So that can be a really, really slow burden for
some kids, especially I'm a'm mom a full boy, so
I can say this especially for boys. Something that I've
gotten very good at over the years is I hear
the noise buildings, say on the trampoline, and I know
(29:35):
any minute someone is going to be crying. And I
will come out and say, I'm looking at two kids,
and you are looking like you're having a lot of fun,
but I'm looking at your brother's face. He is not
liking this game. Can you hear him crying and saying stop?
I can? Should we check on him and see if
he wants to play something else? We can do that
(29:55):
even with friends. So we've got friends over, you know,
and we narrate for our kids. I can see you're
so excited you've set up this awesome obstacle course. And
your friend, I'm looking at his face. I think he's
more interested in playing monopoly. Should we see what he
wants to do and will work out whether we can
work something out. But we're letting the kids guide that
(30:18):
a little bit, and we're only stepping in when our
kid is you know, snatching or hitting or making one
of those social mistakes where we're like, well, that's the line.
That's one of our core rules. We don't snatch off people,
we don't hit, we don't stand on the table, all
that stuff you.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Mentioned about saying sorry, and the biggest parents are a
lot our first instinct to say sorry, Yeah, if you
took something, if you you know, whatever you did. Is
there reason not to say sorry?
Speaker 4 (30:47):
It won't do any damage. It just isn't very effective.
So kids, when we say sorry, they feel really backed
into a corner. They go into kind of defense mode
and they might say it, but they don't really understand
it's not really helping them what we're trying to do
by getting a kid to say sorry is actually kind
(31:08):
of reflect on something that didn't work and maybe learn
how to do it differently. I love the idea instead
of getting kids to check on someone. And the reason
this doesn't flare up those defense mechanisms in kids as
much is that when we check on someone, we can
check on someone whether we're at fault or not, because
often kids are feeling like, but I didn't do it.
(31:29):
It wasn't my fault. Yeah, I get it. But if
someone's crying, we always check on them. So we just
check in on our friend. Often, if you build the
strategy from young of checking on each other, kids will
add the sorry. I've found in time, I've never taught
my kids to say sorry. They're now adding the sorry.
It's just working. So the compassion, the genuine apology actually
(31:54):
comes in time when they're capable of that. But we've
got to start the process with In this family, when
someone is hurting or crying, you know, we stop and
we check on them.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Can I just slight admission, but that the name calling
we do we do right around and play fight a lot.
But there is a there's a few like pooheads and stuff.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
Oh yeah, that's fine. Yeah, yeah, so the stuff. It
was actually Brene Brown that I heard the research from
years ago, and I added I used to only have
three care rules, and I added name calling because I
heard this research on it. But it's more when kids
are allowed to call each other, you know, weirdo or
stupid that stuff. Who heads. Yeah, well, my child that
(32:45):
likes to sneak off for the well timed poos, he
gets called, he gets called pooh boys, So we can
we can sort of definitely do that. But it's more
that stuff because kids go from you know, we were
talking about how do kids show that they're fighting. They
start with really physical stuff and then as their cognitive
skills come online, they do learn to say things that
(33:05):
can be hurtful and hurtful words. Again, we're going to
kind of have kids that say unkind things and we
might be coaching or that didn't sound kind. I'm looking
at sister Space, she's not liking that. But if one
of my kids calls a name like you know, you're
a fatso, you're a weirdo, something like that, I will
be over there going, yeah, it's not okay, you need
to check on him. And if you can't kind of
(33:27):
pull up from that spiral. We might take a moment
and go and have a chat because we're just not
going to call names in this family.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Okay, yeah, carry on. Looky with four boys is a
wider age differences between the eldest to youngest. But do
you find that the jealousy, the competition happens with the
more immediate, like the closer ages, like between the eldest
and the youngest, their relationship is that very different to
the ones?
Speaker 4 (33:53):
And now I think that always it's that sibling that's
quite close to you that you will compete with the
most for that red and we're trying to compete and
get that connection or attention of parents. Sometimes I remember
once because my youngest child threw a fork at my eldest,
and the context was my eldest because he's you know,
(34:14):
he's a teenager. He's really good at jokes that go, go.
Speaker 6 (34:19):
Go, And then you watch the tolerance of the youngest
child start to slip, slip, slip, And I have this line,
I say where to my eldest, I say, I'm seeing
the line, and it's we're.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Really close to it. So I give him that warning.
And then sometimes just as I say that, oh the
old one step too far, goes over, and then my
youngest child will snap. And this night he threw a fork,
which was not great behavior, and I tore around the
table and I first of all, I grabbed my son's
arms and I said, I can't let you throw forks, because,
(34:51):
like you know, that's our corporal. We don't throw forks.
But I said, it's really hard being the youngest. I
can see that that really got to you, because I
could see immediately how it had built. We can talk
about other ways to regulate ourselves without throwing forks later,
but I was like, you know, so I was being
really nice to him, and my eldest just goes, oh
my god, is that all you're.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Going to do?
Speaker 4 (35:13):
So I think sometimes as well, there is that comparison
when you are sixteen and people are expecting more of
you by this point, and you've got a brother who's seven,
and you know he's getting different rules because he's younger.
That can feel hard, But you know, I think, yeah,
I think that's all pretty normal.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Yeah, when there is something that's tipped into something a
lot more full on and intense, probably more with older kids.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
But what happens after the fork, Yeah, the acts comes out.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
What do we do from there?
Speaker 4 (35:43):
If we were seeing a pattern where maybe it's one
kid always going after another, or two kids that are
finding themselves in that state of breaking the rules, like
just consistently, there's a few things I would do to reset.
But first of all, I would step back as a
parent a look for the pattern. So what is going
on here and what could be underneath this behavior. We're
(36:07):
always going to find there is something going on, particularly
for our kid, that's the protagonist that is causing them
to act up and they're taking it out on a sibling.
And I want to really invite parents to think about
the idea that the best way to draw a parent
in is to pick on a sibling because it threatens
something that we as parents hold so dear, and that
(36:30):
is that one day our kids will get along. It
really brings us in. Every day of the week, they
actually get us. It's not great connection, but they get us,
and kids need us to regulate, right, so they will
pull us in any way. If you don't have siblings,
So one of the biggest cause for parental stress is
sibling rivalry. If you don't have a sibling. The way
(36:50):
that kids will draw you in. It'll be that other
thing you care deeply about. So it will be kids
will go after the dog, they will get really fussy
around eating, it might be bedtime. It'll be something else
that kids will pull us in in that thing that
we feel kind of strongly about. So first of all,
knowing that the sibling is less the issue, even when
(37:11):
it's really serious and ongoing, and something underneath is we've
got to meet that always with connection. And then we've
got to establish some boundaries. And I would sit down
and have a family meeting and say, okay, here are
our care rules. These are when we'll always be stepping in.
This is what we're expecting of you, and then getting
really good at predicting the times that behavior is going
to escalate to that point of hitting, hurting, name calling,
(37:34):
and getting really good even for two weeks solid of
stepping in. I'm here. The biggest advice I can give you,
even when things are serious, even when it feels like
there is something really wrong, and never be afraid to
get help. But the biggest thing we can do is
try to be really, really neutral. No kid is ever
waking up thinking I know what I want to do today.
I just want to pick on my sibling until they cry,
(37:55):
something is happening underneath. So if we can come in
in those moments and be really neutral in the way
we're like, I'm not going to tolerate the behavior that
is not working for our family. But you're a good
kid and something has you really going after your sister,
and I want to work with you and ask questions
to get to the bottom of why that is and
(38:15):
how we can do it different in the moment. For
parents of younger children, where it can get really serious
when we have a new baby, and a lot of
people might be relating to this right now, but you
have a baby in the house, and you have an
older child, and this can be any age two, three, four, five, six,
and it will feel like it's not about the baby.
But if the baby is somewhere between nine and twelve
(38:38):
months of age, what your child is actually dealing with
is the baby. And I want to kind of quickly
explain why when a baby hits about nine months of age,
our older child, who assessed the sibling coming along at
birth as not much of a risk, is suddenly going Okay,
this is serious. This person is good garring, sitting up
(39:01):
in a high chair, eating food, crawling, cruising, and now
they've crawled over and touched my favorite toy and that
is a last straw. So that sense of this is
now a threat to my relationship with my parents. So
if we can always view it through that lens of
even when we do have that older child and they're
attacking a baby and it feels so terrible and serious,
(39:21):
I would start with, what's the underlying question that child
is asking? Do you have enough love for me in
this baby? And we absolutely do, and we need to
show them through physical connection, little moments of connection that
make all the difference, but also through going I love
you so much. I'm not letting you hit the baby.
I can see, you know, even a child that's going
(39:43):
in for a hug that's turning into something a little
bit more, I will go, WHOA, I'm going to remove
the baby that doesn't look like, yeah, having the best
time there. So stepping in with the boundaries really firmly,
but equally kind of letting them know that it makes
sense to struggle and that the love is.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
There that is a big moment for it. A child
with vast asher would you like a brother or sister,
and he goes.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
Nope, I work in a magenity in it. And the
other day this mum she had her second baby, and
it was a five year gap between the oldest one
and the next one. The child had been really pumped,
he was really excited about becoming a big brother or sister.
But he came in, he met the baby, and then
he watched mum feed the baby, and then he just
(40:23):
turned to his parents and went, I have an announcement.
I've changed my mind. And they go about what he
goes about the baby. I don't reckon we should bring
it home, like I've had a look.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
It's not going to work out.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
It's not going to work out, guys.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
But that is a massive change, isn't it, Because you
asher would be the same being five and having all
that attention his whole life. Having that drastic change.
Speaker 4 (40:46):
Yeah, it's a sure, as.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Much as you like, but until you're in that situation
like like one.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
I had a mum in my class once. I always
go around the room and ask how old is your
older child? But I'm helping people with the sibling adjustment,
and this mum said, my son is twenty seven, and
I laughed and I went, I'm pretty sure he's gonna
be all right. You can go have an app like
he's got this, and she goes, well, no, actually I'm
here because the night before I came into hospital, I
went to dinner with my adult son and he said, verbally, Mum,
(41:14):
what's going to like? What will this mean for us?
Will you have enough love for me in this baby?
I've had you for twenty seven years? And I thought
that was so interesting because I think that's what our
kids would verbalize if they could. I think our kids,
whether they're two or five or seven, when we bring
home a new baby, they can love the baby but
still be wondering what does this mean for us? And
(41:34):
how could they not ask that question? And yet by
twenty seven we can verbalize it.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
So wait till the child's twenty seven before we have
your second, and then you can understand exactly what's going on.
So interesting, like I was saying, well, you know, we've
asking the Ashu about it, and he'd prefer a sausage
dog named sausage. Yeah, a child. But you do realize
that that's a huge adjustment. Yeah, it's a massive change
(42:00):
to Yeah, will you still have enough love for me.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
Yeah, And I think if our kids could ask us,
they would, but they don't. They show it through behavior,
and I think our siblings continue to show that kind
of sense of you know, who's the favorite child, like what,
you know, who's the most loved, Who's getting the most
of this sort of attention source that we're all actually
(42:23):
dependent on for survival. The reality of human development, as
opposed to most animals, is that we don't just need
food and shelter. We need connection with one to two
primary caregivers and our survival depends on it. So we
will do anything to bring those caregivers in, including you know,
show feelings through behavior. So it's really looking. I think
(42:44):
through that lens of dysregulation, is it that my kid
is at capacity? And through that lens of attachment is
it that my kid is seeking in us? And if
we can get in and provide that connection, even through
small moments in other ways, I think that ninety percent
of that need to pick on siblings goes. And then
the sibling dynamic and rivalry that does have is that
(43:04):
healthy stuff that builds you know, it builds all of
those wonderful skills for our kids. The final thing that
I have done that has changed sibling dynamics in my
house is create a building. I put a wall between
all car seats in the car so no I know.
I would love to sort of share this because it
(43:25):
has made such a big difference in our house. We've
created a connection ritual at night called high Low Buffalo
where everybody shares the high of the day, they're low
of their day, and something they want everybody to know,
and you go around the table. And actually, my husband
got this idea at a corporate event and came home
and said, let's write with the kids. And it made
such a difference. Everybody enjoyed it and started sharing, and
(43:49):
the sibling dynamics, the sibling relationships genuinely started to really shift.
So not only do the kids have to share the high,
the low and something you want everybody to know or
the buffalo, but the parents share. And what happened was
our kid that's that little bit quiet that gets talked over, well,
he got a moment to actually share. And our louder kids,
(44:11):
who constantly pick on each other, got to hear what
was happening in their brother's days that they might not
know about, and then when they shared a low like oh,
no one would play with me today, then they would
start to give each other advice and sort of jump
in and sort of help each other out. So we
do that every night and it has made such a
significant difference at our dining table.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
Thank you, Jen, you've done it again.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
That's again.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Thank you for coming intill we talk pleasure good, Thank you.
So I always so great having Jenny.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Yeah, I know, so good. And she just speaks so
clearly in a language that you understand as a parent,
as a human being, you know, manages to get all
that sort of textbook information, but in words that you
can really understand and break down as a parent.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Yeah, and I mean she does say herself. But you
feel more pressure in the fact that these are such
important years, but then less pressure because of the tips
that she has and conversation starters that can just help
so much. But more importantly than anything is just that
acknowledging at first that's right for anything else, which then
(45:36):
it does just I go away from these always going
there as such simple little things that I can go
home and try.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Yes, and then continually putting them into practice, because that's
where then it starts to become second nature and the
way you manage situations, the way you deal with it,
and that you over time you'll make the right first step.
We'll miss a lot of times because we're all learning.
But you know, if you just continue, you think, and
continue to put these into the practice, that the right
(46:04):
words will come out at the right time and help
that any given situation.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
And what I really loved was, and I said it
during the chat, was those you know, the four you've
got to have the having those kind of sets.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Then, yeah, the four calling the rules of the rules.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
They have four absolute musts yea, they must don't get broken.
And then that kind of sets the whole picture up perfectly.
So thank you, Jen.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Yeah, what did our parents do?
Speaker 2 (46:31):
How do you think about that?
Speaker 3 (46:32):
A lot has it have changed? But that is it
for today. It is and thanks for listening. You can
find more about Jen and her work at Connected Parenting
dot com dot a you or follow her on Instagram
at Connected Parenting AU.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Yes, now, these high low Buffalo cards are available and
you can find them online just by typing high low
Buffalo in. They are wonderful. We're going to use them too,
So if you love the show. Please make sure you
follow wiggle Talk wherever you are listening so you don't
miss an episode.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
Yeah you don't want to do that. Nope, No, Thanks
for listening and we'll see you next time. Bye bye,
bye bye
Speaker 4 (47:08):
Mhm hm
The Wiggles acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia
and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay
our respects to elders, past, present and emerging.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to Wiggle Talk. It's a podcast for parents. I
am Lucky Gillespie the Wiggle.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Hello Lucky, I'm Simon Price, I'm the Red Wiggle. And
today Jen Muir is back with us. Yes, she's a
friend of the pod, parent educator, mum of four boys
and the perfect person to talk about sibling rivalry because
sibling fights can start over absolutely nothing and somehow end
up with everyone crying. Yes, including ourselves. Yes, but before
(00:46):
we go to gen Ashra and I are playing have
you played kids Monopoly?
Speaker 4 (00:50):
No?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
It's great? Is that?
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Like?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Yeah, it's just Monopoly street signs or different? No, different,
but it's a smaller board. I haven't really read a
lot of the rules, but it's basically Monopoly for kids.
And Asher and I are playing the other day and
I read out of money, which basically when he won. Yes,
he won, so Asher then said, don't worry, Dad, I'll
(01:15):
just lend you some from the bank. So he just
starts giving me extra money so we can keep basically,
so we can keep playing. So fast forward. Then that afternoon,
his cousin comes around and they decide to play kids Monopoly.
Asher during their game runs out of money, so he goes, well,
(01:40):
I'll just take more because that's what I did for Dad,
so I expect the same yes from my cousin. Yes
to give me, but no, because they are not the rules.
And that got me thinking bending the rules like we did,
and that was actually very generous of Asher to keep
playing makes logical sense to keep playing Dad needs more money, yes,
(02:01):
but in the actual rules when you're playing, they are
not the rules. So that was quite upsetting for his party.
They worked through it, okay, cousin a bit older, only
a year older, but came to me and blame me,
and I took the blame. I said, yeah, to my fault.
I wanted to keep playing, so I took the money.
(02:21):
But that is not actually the rules of the game
of the game once you run out, and they worked
through it that way.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
But can't just walk into a bank and excuse me,
excuse me, Can I have the big five hundred? Is
it there? Five hundred?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
No, you get sixteen dollars each Oh, okay, and and
the bank there, and you got your question cards and
it's actually a really good game.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
How did you run out of money? Did you just
not buy any property?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I bought? Some bought Mine are quite expensive if I
actually know the rules correctly, and I don't know if
I do actually, but you land on a property, you
have to buy it.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Oh? Is that the right?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Is that normalals? I don't know. Oh? And then so
but I landed a five.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Dollar a couple of when you only got sixteen.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
And then Ash had quite a few, and so I'm
having to pay him rent when I land on his Yes,
and I bought a couple of I've only got six
of eight bucks and I've spent ten on two properties.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
You didn't manage your money?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, yeah, so that's why I came it out pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Do you get a dollar for passing go?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah? You get two dollars a pass and go, and
you get chance cards which say a lot of the
time there if nobody owns a blue or an orange property,
you can go and you can own that for free,
you know. And then but Asher had a lead at
a lot of investments. I need it very well. But anyway,
(03:38):
so I don't know what the right thing is to
do in that situation, except I guess ash you should
probably know the real rules, and then we can have
our own version of it given any circumstance. Anyway, that's
enough for that. You we get into it.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Let's get started now. Jen Muer is the founder of
Connected Parenting, a perinatal social worker, parent educator, and mum
of four boys. She's been on Wiggle Talk lots of
times before. We love talking to her. We talked about
big feelings, toddler emotions, and discipline, and today we are
getting her take on sibling rivalry. We are not just
(04:10):
talking about how to stop every fight, because when siblings
are arguing over a cup or a toy, or the seat,
or who looked at who the wrong way, it's not
always about the thing that's right in front of them.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
No, Sometimes it's about fairness. Sometimes it's jealousy, sometimes it's attention.
Sometimes it's a child trying to work out where they
fit in the family. So today we'll talk about what
sibling fights might actually be, telling us when to step in,
when to hang back, how to avoid becoming the full
time referee, and how to support the sibling relationship, not
(04:42):
just shut down the noise.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Jen, welcome back to Wei will talk again.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
You thank you for having me. I am always always
excited to come back.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Well, we love having you here, we do. We love it.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
We're talking about sibling rivalry today. But can we just start.
You've got four boys, I should do. What is the
most recent rediction kill as sibling? Little fight that you
had to, oh God, to deal with so many?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
That is such a good question. Okay, you don't think.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Or the one before that. As they get older, they
start to listen to people.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Look, my kids tend to fight over injustices. So there
was a recent fight where one of my kids is
really good at disappearing for what we sort of call it,
you know, a well timed convenient pooh. So right when
we're all washing up, suddenly he's got to go and
he is notorious for it. Right, and this one night,
(05:36):
did you.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Just hold on? Do you think until this moment or
just wonder?
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Don't you like? How many times a day does a
personal need to pooh? Like it's anyway, so always the
urge will strike just as the washing up has to happen.
And on this particular night, this child was in the
kitchen and another one of my four boys disappeared for
a shower.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Right.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
It was just I just need to have a shower
right while we're cleaning up. And the child that always
disappears for the well timed pooh absolutely lost it and
he was pacing around, you know, the indu justice of this.
Oh like rahrahrah, And you're just like, this is so
funny because you're the one that always disappears and the
(06:17):
one time and the kid that disappeared for the shower,
he's always the last one staying around to do the
washing up. So I didn't mind as a parent. But
the child that is very good at escaping had the
big rant. So that's probably the funniest one that we've
had recently. That seems so ridiculous, but it is ongoing.
We go on road trips and someone will be upset
(06:40):
with someone else for breathing too loudly, for looking at me,
for you know, all of that stuff you're using my
favorite glass, you know, all of those things that siblings
will fight over. That's so sort of silly, but mostly
it's really benign things, you know, just annoying each other.
Siblings know how to dig until on snaps. That's kind
(07:01):
of their job. So I find it quite funny these days.
But yeah, it's definitely a feature of having four boys,
must be.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
If it's about the little things as it run deeper than.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
That is that, you know, like, sure does that is
a good question?
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Probably jumped in a bit too early, No scroll through.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
You know it really does?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
You know.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
I often talk to parents about siblings. They're almost like
birds in a nest. And any time we add another one,
or we add competition to the main source, which is
us for our children, there's going to be sort of competition.
Kids are always sort of vying for different ways to
stand out amongst each other, to feel seen, to get connection.
(07:44):
And the interesting thing about I reckon ninety percent of
sibling fights are not actually about the thing. It's not
about the fact that one of them is actually breathing
too loudly, you know, that's not the core of the issue.
It's actually that our kids are always always doing anything
to draw us in as caregivers. And one of the
(08:05):
best ways to draw a parent in is by thumping
your brother, or by annoying your brother to your brother
thumps you. And so kids form these little passions of
knowing exactly how certain behaviors will pull us in. It
sounds like manipulative, it's not. It's actually a biological thing
where they're just sort of vying for that connection, for
(08:26):
that sense of being seen. And once we sort of
understand that ninety percent of fights are really about our
kids trying to pull us in, then we can kind
of work out, well, how we're going to respond to them,
how we're going to kind of help them with this stuff,
because the goal is not to teach kids not to fight,
just to teach kids to fight.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Well, okay, and I'm assuming that doesn't mean physically.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I don't want to talk about twins too much, but no,
let's talk about it. I did want to ask you
because this is happening a lot at the moment. But
the other day had the best like gen moment ever.
I found myself first one of the girls. Just the
end of the story is Danna said to me, you know,
all these things happened prior for one of the girls
to finally snap, And at the moment it's working in
(09:11):
the way that one girl is so much more confident
than the other. But then there are all these things
that happened to the not so confident one prior to
then she just snapped and had a big goal at
the other one, And my first reaction was to kind
of get a bit upset at the less confident one
who just had the moment. And Diana then said after
(09:31):
I didn't not a bad snap. It was just I
took her to a room.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
And I talked.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Then Dina said, afterwards, there was all these steps prior
that happened to her from her sister that I didn't
even see.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Yeah, but that was then.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
The final moment was just losing it at something that
had nothing to do with the moments before, which is.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
All of us, right, Like don't you think, you know,
you have a really bad day, You've got a lot
of stress at work, and then you come home and
your partner's forgotten to buy the milk, and you're just like,
oh my goodness, you just had one job. But it's
not about the milk. It's about everything underneath that. And
our kids are no different. I think what's so interesting
(10:14):
about what's happening, you know, in that story, is that
kids go well when they can in that our kids
are all different, especially with twins, we sort of see that, right,
They've got different things, they're succeeding at different struggles. But
a kid that is struggling, like you said that, there's
moments of feeling less confident, especially by comparison when you've
(10:35):
got a twin is really tough. So when you're going
through a harder time, so you know, just say school
days are tougher, maybe you're a little bit less successful
than a sibling or a twin making friends. Maybe you're
a little bit less successful academically. Maybe you find just
concentrating and listening to the teachers instructions and doing all
that stuff harder. So kids will have lots of things
(10:55):
that developmentally, at different stages they're finding harder. And all
of that, if we can imagine, moves them up in
the climb into dysregulation or into the body kind of
having less capacity. And what happens is we're talking about
high emotion. The emotions are building, but the skills are
almost dropping because our capacity to kind of be kind
(11:16):
and calm and consider it and use our words and
all of that great stuff is sort of dropping as
kids get more dysregulated. Because cortisole is rising. The biggest
thing that's happening through all of that day. When a
kid is struggling is that it feels big because it
is big, and so they're working really hard. They're kind
of building stress or cortisol in order to cope, and
then that kid is going to be the kid that
(11:38):
will snap or flip out or throw something or kind
of really struggle. And it's not that they don't need
a boundary, like I think, you know, going to have
a chat in the room about a nice way to
talk is definitely a good thing to do, but we're
also trying to really help them name bring from the
back of the brain to the front. It must be
really hard sometimes being a twin, it must be really
(12:01):
hard sometimes having to navigate some tough stuff at school
or through your day. One of the most powerful things
I can say to my four boys is it must
be really hard sometimes being the eldest, the youngest, the
middle child. And they will just go yeah, And you've
got this instant in and the power of naming that stuff,
(12:24):
like when we can name the kind of issue, now
we're on their team. Now we've got the capacity to go, well,
you know, it didn't work so well for you to scream,
right it made me upset, it made your sister upset. Whatever,
what could we do next time that those emotions are building,
because we do want to build skills in our kids,
but we want to come from that compassionate lens.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, and then also acknowledging that their emotions have built
up actually tell them that too.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yeah, they wouldn't. Yeah. I would never have thought of
like saying it must be really hard being a twin,
or it must be really hard being the younger brother
or the younger sister or that or the old like
I've never actually thought of actually labeling it.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
And one of the He's one of the most profound
things I think we can do. So my eldest I joke,
he's almost seventeen. I think he's only just adjusted to
the second child being born, like he's you know, he's
just finally got there. It's been a long adjustment and
for a very long time. You know, if my second
(13:25):
child would say the sky is blue, my oldest child
would say, no, it's red, like just anything, but you're wrong,
you know, And it kind of they built this little
passion where the second child knew exactly how to poke
and poke and poke, and then the first child would snap,
and you know, we got into this pattern, and you
can lecture and say do it different, find better ways,
(13:45):
don't talk to your brother like that. Whatever. The best
way through every single time. The times where we've seen
the most progress in building and fostering that sibling relationship
has been when I've gone into that oldest child and
gone it must be so hard sometimes to be the
eldest of four boys. And sometimes I can see how
frustrating your younger brother is so for a four year
(14:07):
old when they were two and four and you're mastering
you know whatever, building your lego structures or whatever, and
you've got this two year old just ruining it. Or
you might have different personality styles, and that is really frustrating.
I think for some siblings it might be that just
have We've got a really organized eldest that always has
(14:27):
their stuff together, and then a second child who struggles
with executive function or planning or kind of just having
it all together in the mornings, and that second child
might cause everybody to lose it. And then you've got
this child that is getting it right that winds up henpecking.
That's other childs they're like, come on, pull it together.
You're the reason we're running late. We want to sort
(14:49):
of correct that child that's picking on the other child, right,
But if we go in with empathy first, sometimes you
must feel like you've got all your stuff together, you're
so ug eyes, and then you've got this sibling drag
in the chain, never got their shoes on. Gosh, it
must feel frustrating. Once we've named that, they're going to
be like, yes, you see me, you know, And then
(15:10):
you can be like it's not working so well, like
when you kind of mother them instead of me, it
all ends in tears. What can I do to help
you in that situation? And what can we do to
do it a bit differently so that we're not you know,
but talking to them outside the moment is the way forward.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I was just about to ask that is that the
point too? And just get another really quick story but
that I took last year. I took one girl each
way with me. Yeah, And almost instantaneously after that, when
one of them got home after Christmas, the behavior shifted,
like I've finally realized what it's like to be by myself,
have my own time with my person, and it's kind
(15:47):
of hasn't been the same since just the dynamic, which
is so interesting.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
So it made things worse, not better.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, more competitive, more like, oh my gosh, the realization
of not having competition and which is really interesting. But
with four boys with a full house, you're having to
wait for that moment afterwards. You're not going to obviously
say that in front of the one that's been annoying
to your brother. You know, I get you, But that
(16:12):
must be tricky to find individuals.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
Yeah, and I don't think. I think for most parents,
you know, we're not realisticly like, there might be an
opportunity every now and then to get away one on
one with one of our kids, but often that's not happening.
But we might be just ducking into their room. Or
I love the idea of just side by side in
the car and asking different questions, Like sometimes it might
(16:36):
be like you're in the car and you might ask
something like if there was one rule in this family
you'd like to change, you know, what would it be?
Or what do you wish that adults knew about kids,
about what it's like to be a kid, about what
it's like to be a twin, you know, So we
can sort of ask these questions that sort of a
(16:57):
low pressure that sort of ignite a bit of conversation,
and you know, what kids really want is sort of
just to be seen. And I think that we can acknowledge,
Like even after the holiday, I'd be sort of saying,
you know, I've noticed that we had that awesome time
and there are times now where you're now wanting that
one on one and that's really hard having a twin
(17:18):
and kind of wishing that you got that one on
one some of the time. And here's how we can
have a small moment of that. Like, I think we
can kind of create micro moments of that.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
So the early year, start this type of dialogue and
communication with your children, and the better it will be
as they grow or is it continually a navigation because
they're going to grow up having different experiences.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Yeah, I mean one of the biggest things we can
do to raise kids that have really good emotional intelligence
is to talk about this stuff just some of the time,
though not all of the time. But for me, what
motivates me, it works like it just it works. So
I've you know, obviously I'm a parent educator, but I
make lots of mistakes and then I apply this stuff.
I find when I apply the stuff, it works, and
(18:02):
I'm like, Okay, that's really helpful. I think having the
overall sense that kids go well when they can, so
when they're struggling, when we're seeing repeated behaviors, particularly around
sibling dynamics, that isn't working for us, Particularly when it's
one kid always causing the problems, for example, which can
commonly happen in families. My first instinct with that one
(18:26):
kid is always to start with connection. So even if
not a day together or a holiday together, ten minutes
of one on one time with that kid, And sometimes
parents will think, well, isn't that just rewarding the bad
behavior if you've got you know, for people with young children,
it might be one child that constantly picks on a sibling.
For older children, it might be just a child being
(18:47):
difficult or undermining constantly to another kid, and you just
want to go, why you're being mean? What is wrong
with you? All that stuff. But if we start with
let's start with getting it in there and kind of
just filling that emotional cup, and from that place of connection,
we can then I think have a chat about I'm
noticing that this morning's are not going well or getting
(19:07):
on with your sibling. It's really tricky at times, and
I'm wondering, you know, what we could do to make
that easier, Morning's easier, or you know, but really sometimes
just the connection alone will do it.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
I can understand the odd comparisons, like we're twins, there's
a direct comparison, but a sibling's doing that all the time,
even though there's younger and older. As a younger always
trying to compare themselves to the older.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Or Okay, I have a bit of a funny story
that just happened when we were away. So I've got
this youngest child and he's he's quite a firecracker. And
I've got this third child who's quiet, you know, he's
a quiet, slow to warm up kind of kid. We're
all swimming in these rocks in wa and my third
child is standing there desperately trying to get up the
(19:52):
courage to get in, and he's getting a bit of
attention because you know, we're all trying to encourage him
to get in, and the fourth child's just watching, see that, right,
And then next in this big wave comes and it
almost sweeps my third child off a rock and it
was a bit scary and he got a bit of
a scrape. Luckily a friend of mine grabbed him, pulled
him out, and I leapt out immediately to check on him,
(20:12):
as you know, I'm his mum, and I said, oh, no, Tom,
are you okay? And my youngest went right here. I
am just trying to get along as the youngest of
this family. He gets one tiny scratch and everyone's acting
like he's dying of cancer, and I just thought, what
a crack up. But this is what siblings will do
(20:35):
that you know, that small moment of another child getting
attention will feel painful to kids. And I think once
we realize that it is so normal to sort of
compete for that attention and that connection, and that, you know,
his way of showing it. It's lovely and verbal now
at nine, but there would have been times where he
wouldn't have shown that in that way. And obviously with
(20:57):
time he'll get a little bit better at articulating that.
But I think all kids will feel at times like
my sibling gets more whatever than me our time. Sometimes
it's blueberries or ice cream, or you know, things can
feel unfair. And I think one of the biggest things
we can do as parents. So in that scenario, what
I said to my son was, I get it, that
(21:18):
feels tough. I actually don't need to correct, even though
that's not technically the most pro social, long term way
to view his brother, and he can find a kind
of response in the moment, I still tended to the
son that was hurt, and then I was like, I
get it. It's tough being the youngest, you know. I
get that sometimes you're feeling like you've brother got more
attention than you, and that is hard. We don't need
(21:39):
to do much more. I think then acknowledge that in
the moment, and then maybe later we can just talk
to them about what it might have been like, you know,
that ability to perspective, take and see what it might
have been like to be your sibling. But the reality
is kids will feel like things are a bit unfair.
I think if we can just acknowledge that and say, yeah,
it is hard sometimes I see you, we don't, I
(22:00):
don't then need to fix it. So the example in
that scenario, I don't then need to do anything to
give him attention. I'm just letting him know that he's
allowed to have his feelings about it, and same with
just say one of my kids comes home and they
got a party bag and they are invited to a party,
and the other kid didn't get that. I don't need
to rush out and buy a party bag for the
other kid. But what I think is kind is to say, yeah, like,
(22:24):
that's hard. Your sibling got to have this great experience.
You're feeling a bit like you didn't get it. You'd
love a party bag. We can encourage the kid with
the party bag to share, you know. But I think
the biggest thing we can do, rather than rush to
fix it or solve it, is allow the frustration that
having a sibling causes. And I think for parents feeling
like it's hard to give enough to everybody, the upside
(22:46):
of kids feeling that frustration is that every time you
feel that jealousy or that frustration of not getting everything
you want, and particularly when that gets named or we
can make sense of that, kids are building frustration tolerance.
They're building the sense like I can tolerate the fact
my brother was getting attention and that felt hard within me.
I got to express that. But that flexes the muscle
(23:10):
so that we can cope when not everything goes our
way and I guess.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
In turn that lends into accolades, like if a sibling
has won something or that, as a parent, you want
to be able to empower that child and give all
the congratulations and celebration, But then you don't want to
have that effect of making the other sibling feel bad
that they haven't achieved that or they totally How as
a parent, how do you kind of balance that.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
We know our kids, and sometimes we know for some
kids it's going to be harder agetting my youngest so
if I knew that one of his older brothers was
going to get an award, or if I know, for example,
they're all born in July, so I know that he
will struggle on in July. Yeah, I know. It's weird anyway,
a ugily as well.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
You get to get it all out of the way
in a month.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Anyway. It is a in fact about.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Me, I'm trying to count nine months. It's spring anyway,
Spring is sprunk.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
So I know that some kids particularly will struggle on
their siblings' birthday. They will just from the get go,
not your kids they share a birthday, but from the
get go, they will just from the minute they wake up,
they're like oh God, this kid is going to get
attention all day long and it can be really hard.
So we can actually get in and do a little
bit of pre game emotion coaching with this stuff. So
(24:36):
you might say to your child that you know is
going to struggle tomorrow through the birthday. Tomorrow it's your
sister's birthday or your brother's birthday, and it's going to
be tough watching them get all those presents and everyone's
going to sing to them. And I would totally get
if you felt a bit jealous, And if you did
feel jealous, feel free to come give me a cuddle.
I get it. And just the process of naming that
(24:57):
out loud in advance is probably going to have that
kid go that a little bit better the next day.
And then we don't have to even everything up and
kind of work really hard to make everyone happy. We
can just acknowledge that that is going to be a
hard day for you, and your birthday will come and
then it will be your turn.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
As they get older, when do you step in like
leave home? Are there ones you just kind of sit
back and go, I'm just going to let let them
have this out.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Or I think our goal is not to stop sibling
fighting is to teach kids to fight well. And by
that I did not mean before to work through it.
But here's the thing. One of the key ways our
kids learn about conflict, negotiation, building, frustration, tolerance, perspective taking
is through fighting with siblings, and if we're only children,
(25:52):
it's through neighborhood groups or cousins. Like, we can still
build the same thing in social situations with kids that
we get familiar with that we almost treat like a sibling.
So that's kind of how we're building those skills. So
the goal isn't that we don't fight, it's that we
learn to fight in pro social ways. So when kids
are really little, like I work with a lot of
(26:13):
parents that have a two year old and a four
year old, and every time the two year old touches
the four year olds whatever, they're going to get whacked.
So at first, the way kids are going to deal
with conflict is usually very physical because that's the only
skill they've got under pressure of emotion, because kids have
high emotion, dealing with a sibling, sharing, perspective taking, all
(26:34):
that stuff is a lot of skill that they they're
sort of building, but high emotions around that stuff and
low skills. So our job is to build the skills,
but we can't build the skills in the moment. So initially,
when kids are fighting, we're stepping in and we are
physically stopping them when they're making a mistake that breaks
the rules. So you know, in my house, I have
(26:55):
four core rules for my boys when it comes to
how we get along with each other. That guide everything.
No hitting or hurting each other, yourself the dog like,
no hurting each other.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
Right.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Number two is we respect or we don't damage our
stuff our world kind of thing, so that's no throwing
our property or jumping on our table or you know
that kind of thing. The third thing is that we
don't call each other names, because name calling long term
can have significant impacts on kids if parents don't step in.
(27:28):
And then the fourth thing is when someone says stop
or they're crying, we stop and we check on them.
And they're the four rules. So I don't make them
say sorry, but I do make them check on each
other if someone's cried or said stop, So they're the
four core rules. If a core rule is being broken,
and with little kids, those four rules get broken a lot.
(27:49):
We are stepping in every time, very swiftly, very quickly,
and going whoa cartly hit each other, cartly, snatch off
your brother, not going to let you call each other names.
I can see your brother's crying. Looks like he's not
enjoying this anymore. I am here, but I'm physically in
their helping. So at what age or at what stage
(28:10):
do we let them work it out? Well, I think
we can start to step back from the beginning. So
once we've got those core rules and we know when
we are stepping in, well, now we can start to
step out more often. And so if kids are bickering
and fighting over a toy, for example, and I hear
it building, but they're not breaking a core rule, I
(28:31):
can either just listen and kind of just observe and
stay out of the way a little bit and think
to myself, what a wonderful opportunity to learn about conflict
and negotiation. Or I can step in and say, I
see two kids and you're both wanting the same toy.
I wonder how you guys are going to work this out.
I reckon you can do it in a way that's fair.
(28:53):
So we're coaching that. Yeah, there's a struggle I can
feel it building and I'm sort of nearby and I'm
wondering how you guys are going to work this out.
It helps kids hugely, but we're sort of just coaching
without saying, hey, I'm going to set a timer. You
get two minutes, and you get two minutes, and that
keeps us in the middle, whereas I'm always trying to
(29:13):
however possible, I want to build skills. I want to
step back. Another way that we can coach siblings to
fight well is to start to pick up nonverbal cues.
So that can be a really, really slow burden for
some kids, especially I'm a'm mom a full boy, so
I can say this especially for boys. Something that I've
gotten very good at over the years is I hear
the noise buildings, say on the trampoline, and I know
(29:35):
any minute someone is going to be crying. And I
will come out and say, I'm looking at two kids,
and you are looking like you're having a lot of fun,
but I'm looking at your brother's face. He is not
liking this game. Can you hear him crying and saying stop?
I can? Should we check on him and see if
he wants to play something else? We can do that
(29:55):
even with friends. So we've got friends over, you know,
and we narrate for our kids. I can see you're
so excited you've set up this awesome obstacle course. And
your friend, I'm looking at his face. I think he's
more interested in playing monopoly. Should we see what he
wants to do and will work out whether we can
work something out. But we're letting the kids guide that
(30:18):
a little bit, and we're only stepping in when our
kid is you know, snatching or hitting or making one
of those social mistakes where we're like, well, that's the line.
That's one of our core rules. We don't snatch off people,
we don't hit, we don't stand on the table, all
that stuff you.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Mentioned about saying sorry, and the biggest parents are a
lot our first instinct to say sorry, Yeah, if you
took something, if you you know, whatever you did. Is
there reason not to say sorry?
Speaker 4 (30:47):
It won't do any damage. It just isn't very effective.
So kids, when we say sorry, they feel really backed
into a corner. They go into kind of defense mode
and they might say it, but they don't really understand
it's not really helping them what we're trying to do
by getting a kid to say sorry is actually kind
(31:08):
of reflect on something that didn't work and maybe learn
how to do it differently. I love the idea instead
of getting kids to check on someone. And the reason
this doesn't flare up those defense mechanisms in kids as
much is that when we check on someone, we can
check on someone whether we're at fault or not, because
often kids are feeling like, but I didn't do it.
(31:29):
It wasn't my fault. Yeah, I get it. But if
someone's crying, we always check on them. So we just
check in on our friend. Often, if you build the
strategy from young of checking on each other, kids will
add the sorry. I've found in time, I've never taught
my kids to say sorry. They're now adding the sorry.
It's just working. So the compassion, the genuine apology actually
(31:54):
comes in time when they're capable of that. But we've
got to start the process with In this family, when
someone is hurting or crying, you know, we stop and
we check on them.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Can I just slight admission, but that the name calling
we do we do right around and play fight a lot.
But there is a there's a few like pooheads and stuff.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
Oh yeah, that's fine. Yeah, yeah, so the stuff. It
was actually Brene Brown that I heard the research from
years ago, and I added I used to only have
three care rules, and I added name calling because I
heard this research on it. But it's more when kids
are allowed to call each other, you know, weirdo or
stupid that stuff. Who heads. Yeah, well, my child that
(32:45):
likes to sneak off for the well timed poos, he
gets called, he gets called pooh boys, So we can
we can sort of definitely do that. But it's more
that stuff because kids go from you know, we were
talking about how do kids show that they're fighting. They
start with really physical stuff and then as their cognitive
skills come online, they do learn to say things that
(33:05):
can be hurtful and hurtful words. Again, we're going to
kind of have kids that say unkind things and we
might be coaching or that didn't sound kind. I'm looking
at sister Space, she's not liking that. But if one
of my kids calls a name like you know, you're
a fatso, you're a weirdo, something like that, I will
be over there going, yeah, it's not okay, you need
to check on him. And if you can't kind of
(33:27):
pull up from that spiral. We might take a moment
and go and have a chat because we're just not
going to call names in this family.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Okay, yeah, carry on. Looky with four boys is a
wider age differences between the eldest to youngest. But do
you find that the jealousy, the competition happens with the
more immediate, like the closer ages, like between the eldest
and the youngest, their relationship is that very different to
the ones?
Speaker 4 (33:53):
And now I think that always it's that sibling that's
quite close to you that you will compete with the
most for that red and we're trying to compete and
get that connection or attention of parents. Sometimes I remember
once because my youngest child threw a fork at my eldest,
and the context was my eldest because he's you know,
(34:14):
he's a teenager. He's really good at jokes that go, go.
Speaker 6 (34:19):
Go, And then you watch the tolerance of the youngest
child start to slip, slip, slip, And I have this line,
I say where to my eldest, I say, I'm seeing
the line, and it's we're.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Really close to it. So I give him that warning.
And then sometimes just as I say that, oh the
old one step too far, goes over, and then my
youngest child will snap. And this night he threw a fork,
which was not great behavior, and I tore around the
table and I first of all, I grabbed my son's
arms and I said, I can't let you throw forks, because,
(34:51):
like you know, that's our corporal. We don't throw forks.
But I said, it's really hard being the youngest. I
can see that that really got to you, because I
could see immediately how it had built. We can talk
about other ways to regulate ourselves without throwing forks later,
but I was like, you know, so I was being
really nice to him, and my eldest just goes, oh
my god, is that all you're.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Going to do?
Speaker 4 (35:13):
So I think sometimes as well, there is that comparison
when you are sixteen and people are expecting more of
you by this point, and you've got a brother who's seven,
and you know he's getting different rules because he's younger.
That can feel hard, But you know, I think, yeah,
I think that's all pretty normal.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Yeah, when there is something that's tipped into something a
lot more full on and intense, probably more with older kids.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
But what happens after the fork, Yeah, the acts comes out.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
What do we do from there?
Speaker 4 (35:43):
If we were seeing a pattern where maybe it's one
kid always going after another, or two kids that are
finding themselves in that state of breaking the rules, like
just consistently, there's a few things I would do to reset.
But first of all, I would step back as a
parent a look for the pattern. So what is going
on here and what could be underneath this behavior. We're
(36:07):
always going to find there is something going on, particularly
for our kid, that's the protagonist that is causing them
to act up and they're taking it out on a sibling.
And I want to really invite parents to think about
the idea that the best way to draw a parent
in is to pick on a sibling because it threatens
something that we as parents hold so dear, and that
(36:30):
is that one day our kids will get along. It
really brings us in. Every day of the week, they
actually get us. It's not great connection, but they get us,
and kids need us to regulate, right, so they will
pull us in any way. If you don't have siblings,
So one of the biggest cause for parental stress is
sibling rivalry. If you don't have a sibling. The way
(36:50):
that kids will draw you in. It'll be that other
thing you care deeply about. So it will be kids
will go after the dog, they will get really fussy
around eating, it might be bedtime. It'll be something else
that kids will pull us in in that thing that
we feel kind of strongly about. So first of all,
knowing that the sibling is less the issue, even when
(37:11):
it's really serious and ongoing, and something underneath is we've
got to meet that always with connection. And then we've
got to establish some boundaries. And I would sit down
and have a family meeting and say, okay, here are
our care rules. These are when we'll always be stepping in.
This is what we're expecting of you, and then getting
really good at predicting the times that behavior is going
to escalate to that point of hitting, hurting, name calling,
(37:34):
and getting really good even for two weeks solid of
stepping in. I'm here. The biggest advice I can give you,
even when things are serious, even when it feels like
there is something really wrong, and never be afraid to
get help. But the biggest thing we can do is
try to be really, really neutral. No kid is ever
waking up thinking I know what I want to do today.
I just want to pick on my sibling until they cry,
(37:55):
something is happening underneath. So if we can come in
in those moments and be really neutral in the way
we're like, I'm not going to tolerate the behavior that
is not working for our family. But you're a good
kid and something has you really going after your sister,
and I want to work with you and ask questions
to get to the bottom of why that is and
(38:15):
how we can do it different in the moment. For
parents of younger children, where it can get really serious
when we have a new baby, and a lot of
people might be relating to this right now, but you
have a baby in the house, and you have an
older child, and this can be any age two, three, four, five, six,
and it will feel like it's not about the baby.
But if the baby is somewhere between nine and twelve
(38:38):
months of age, what your child is actually dealing with
is the baby. And I want to kind of quickly
explain why when a baby hits about nine months of age,
our older child, who assessed the sibling coming along at
birth as not much of a risk, is suddenly going Okay,
this is serious. This person is good garring, sitting up
(39:01):
in a high chair, eating food, crawling, cruising, and now
they've crawled over and touched my favorite toy and that
is a last straw. So that sense of this is
now a threat to my relationship with my parents. So
if we can always view it through that lens of
even when we do have that older child and they're
attacking a baby and it feels so terrible and serious,
(39:21):
I would start with, what's the underlying question that child
is asking? Do you have enough love for me in
this baby? And we absolutely do, and we need to
show them through physical connection, little moments of connection that
make all the difference, but also through going I love
you so much. I'm not letting you hit the baby.
I can see, you know, even a child that's going
(39:43):
in for a hug that's turning into something a little
bit more, I will go, WHOA, I'm going to remove
the baby that doesn't look like, yeah, having the best
time there. So stepping in with the boundaries really firmly,
but equally kind of letting them know that it makes
sense to struggle and that the love is.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
There that is a big moment for it. A child
with vast asher would you like a brother or sister,
and he goes.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
Nope, I work in a magenity in it. And the
other day this mum she had her second baby, and
it was a five year gap between the oldest one
and the next one. The child had been really pumped,
he was really excited about becoming a big brother or sister.
But he came in, he met the baby, and then
he watched mum feed the baby, and then he just
(40:23):
turned to his parents and went, I have an announcement.
I've changed my mind. And they go about what he
goes about the baby. I don't reckon we should bring
it home, like I've had a look.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
It's not going to work out.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
It's not going to work out, guys.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
But that is a massive change, isn't it, Because you
asher would be the same being five and having all
that attention his whole life. Having that drastic change.
Speaker 4 (40:46):
Yeah, it's a sure, as.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Much as you like, but until you're in that situation
like like one.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
I had a mum in my class once. I always
go around the room and ask how old is your
older child? But I'm helping people with the sibling adjustment,
and this mum said, my son is twenty seven, and
I laughed and I went, I'm pretty sure he's gonna
be all right. You can go have an app like
he's got this, and she goes, well, no, actually I'm
here because the night before I came into hospital, I
went to dinner with my adult son and he said, verbally, Mum,
(41:14):
what's going to like? What will this mean for us?
Will you have enough love for me in this baby?
I've had you for twenty seven years? And I thought
that was so interesting because I think that's what our
kids would verbalize if they could. I think our kids,
whether they're two or five or seven, when we bring
home a new baby, they can love the baby but
still be wondering what does this mean for us? And
(41:34):
how could they not ask that question? And yet by
twenty seven we can verbalize it.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
So wait till the child's twenty seven before we have
your second, and then you can understand exactly what's going on.
So interesting, like I was saying, well, you know, we've
asking the Ashu about it, and he'd prefer a sausage
dog named sausage. Yeah, a child. But you do realize
that that's a huge adjustment. Yeah, it's a massive change
(42:00):
to Yeah, will you still have enough love for me.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
Yeah, And I think if our kids could ask us,
they would, but they don't. They show it through behavior,
and I think our siblings continue to show that kind
of sense of you know, who's the favorite child, like what,
you know, who's the most loved, Who's getting the most
of this sort of attention source that we're all actually
(42:23):
dependent on for survival. The reality of human development, as
opposed to most animals, is that we don't just need
food and shelter. We need connection with one to two
primary caregivers and our survival depends on it. So we
will do anything to bring those caregivers in, including you know,
show feelings through behavior. So it's really looking. I think
(42:44):
through that lens of dysregulation, is it that my kid
is at capacity? And through that lens of attachment is
it that my kid is seeking in us? And if
we can get in and provide that connection, even through
small moments in other ways, I think that ninety percent
of that need to pick on siblings goes. And then
the sibling dynamic and rivalry that does have is that
(43:04):
healthy stuff that builds you know, it builds all of
those wonderful skills for our kids. The final thing that
I have done that has changed sibling dynamics in my
house is create a building. I put a wall between
all car seats in the car so no I know.
I would love to sort of share this because it
(43:25):
has made such a big difference in our house. We've
created a connection ritual at night called high Low Buffalo
where everybody shares the high of the day, they're low
of their day, and something they want everybody to know,
and you go around the table. And actually, my husband
got this idea at a corporate event and came home
and said, let's write with the kids. And it made
such a difference. Everybody enjoyed it and started sharing, and
(43:49):
the sibling dynamics, the sibling relationships genuinely started to really shift.
So not only do the kids have to share the high,
the low and something you want everybody to know or
the buffalo, but the parents share. And what happened was
our kid that's that little bit quiet that gets talked over, well,
he got a moment to actually share. And our louder kids,
(44:11):
who constantly pick on each other, got to hear what
was happening in their brother's days that they might not
know about, and then when they shared a low like oh,
no one would play with me today, then they would
start to give each other advice and sort of jump
in and sort of help each other out. So we
do that every night and it has made such a
significant difference at our dining table.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
Thank you, Jen, you've done it again.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
That's again.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Thank you for coming intill we talk pleasure good, Thank you.
So I always so great having Jenny.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Yeah, I know, so good. And she just speaks so
clearly in a language that you understand as a parent,
as a human being, you know, manages to get all
that sort of textbook information, but in words that you
can really understand and break down as a parent.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Yeah, and I mean she does say herself. But you
feel more pressure in the fact that these are such
important years, but then less pressure because of the tips
that she has and conversation starters that can just help
so much. But more importantly than anything is just that
acknowledging at first that's right for anything else, which then
(45:36):
it does just I go away from these always going
there as such simple little things that I can go
home and try.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Yes, and then continually putting them into practice, because that's
where then it starts to become second nature and the
way you manage situations, the way you deal with it,
and that you over time you'll make the right first step.
We'll miss a lot of times because we're all learning.
But you know, if you just continue, you think, and
continue to put these into the practice, that the right
(46:04):
words will come out at the right time and help
that any given situation.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
And what I really loved was, and I said it
during the chat, was those you know, the four you've
got to have the having those kind of sets.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Then, yeah, the four calling the rules of the rules.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
They have four absolute musts yea, they must don't get broken.
And then that kind of sets the whole picture up perfectly.
So thank you, Jen.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Yeah, what did our parents do?
Speaker 2 (46:31):
How do you think about that?
Speaker 3 (46:32):
A lot has it have changed? But that is it
for today. It is and thanks for listening. You can
find more about Jen and her work at Connected Parenting
dot com dot a you or follow her on Instagram
at Connected Parenting AU.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Yes, now, these high low Buffalo cards are available and
you can find them online just by typing high low
Buffalo in. They are wonderful. We're going to use them too,
So if you love the show. Please make sure you
follow wiggle Talk wherever you are listening so you don't
miss an episode.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
Yeah you don't want to do that. Nope, No, Thanks
for listening and we'll see you next time. Bye bye,
bye bye
Speaker 4 (47:08):
Mhm hm
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