211 Siblings and Their Friends - Connection and Communication

How can we navigate the delicate dance of nurturing family time/sibling relationships alongside the growing need for personal friendships in the lives of our children?

I'm often asked by extended family and friends, how is that my kids get along so well and have close relationships. 
Today we'll be looking at one thing we did in our family that made a big difference to cultivate unbreakable bonds. AND YET, as our kids get older, their need for other FRIENDSHIPS increases. Is it possible to grow and maintain sibling relationships while also growing friendships? It can be tough, but doable!
Let me share practical HELP for navigating your child's growing need for other friends while cultivating sibling relationships as well. 
We will use a LISTENER QUESTION to talk about balancing these facets of family life. I'll provide heartfelt guidance on a listener's dilemma about an older child's yearning for exclusive time with friends. 
This episode is an essential listen for parents who wish to foster deep connections within their family while respecting their children's social development.

Embark with me, Val Harrison, on a heartening journey towards strengthening the family unit.
Also be a part of our "Intentional Mom, Strong Family" Facebook community where wisdom and questions flow freely. 
In this episode, I also share a personal update on how Rich and I are diving deeper into our calling to help struggling marriages.
This is more than a podcast; it's a community of intentional parents, and your enthusiastic participation makes all the difference in creating strong families anchored by love and understanding.
LINKS:
Episode: https://www.practicallyspeakingmom.com/podcast/episode/78020fe0/130-part-2-your-childs-nine-circles-of-influence-on-their-self-perception-from-the-life-giving-words-series
Ebooks: Homeschooling in Real Life https://www.practicallyspeakingmom.com/product-page/7-system-for-homeschool-success-simplifying-schedules-records-and-curriculum
Ebook: The Homeschool High School Roadmap to College https://www.practicallyspeakingmom.com/product-page/the-homeschool-roadmap-to-college

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Episode Transcript

Val Harrison (00:03):
THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS GENERATED AUTOMATICALLY AND
HAS NOT BEEN EDITED FOR ACCURACY.
I'm often asked by my extendedfamily and by friends how is it
that my kids get along so welland have such close
relationships?
Today, we'll be looking at oneof the things that we did in our
family that did seem to make abig difference.
I scheduled very shortone-on-one times with the kids
throughout the week.

(00:23):
My goal was to have at leastone time slot per week where
every combination of siblinggroups would meet together
one-on-one.
We have seven kids, so therewere lots of combinations to
have, but my goal was thisinterpersonal connection with
them.
I had a specific thing for themto do together for just 5-15

(00:47):
minutes at a time, in fact, thescheduling thing that I did with
the kids.
It also helped me to notexperience burnout.
Well, I take that back.
I did experience burnout in myyounger years of parenting.
It had to do with me notrealizing the importance of
taking a break.

(01:07):
So, anyway, I do believe thatthis scheduling practice that I
had was very, very helpful ingrowing relationships, and we're
going to be talking about thattoday.
Let's get going right now.
Welcome to the PracticallySpeaking Mom Podcast.
I'm Val Harrison, thePractically Speaking Mom.

(01:29):
I'm your fellow intentional momfriend, walking this parenting
path with you each week.
Being intentional isn't easy,but it sure is worth it.
Galatians 6-9 says Let us notbecome weary in doing good, for
at the proper time we will reapa harvest if we do not give up.

(01:50):
So, my intentional parentfriend, let's get going with
more intentional right now.
Last time on the podcast I toldyou we'd begin a new series
called Clarity for the Missionof Motherhood, and it's really
the mission of all parents.
So Clarity for the Mission ofParenthood also.

(02:11):
We are going to do that, butI'm postponing that until next
time.
So for this week I'm answering alistener question.
That is why I ended up talkingabout sibling communication.
So this listener sent me thisquestion Recently.
Her oldest daughter had afriend over.

(02:31):
Normally when this friend comesover, they play together really
well with the younger siblings.
This time, however, wentcompletely different.
The older daughter shunned theyounger kids and wanted to keep
her friend all to herself.
This mom wanted to know what Iwould have done.
So first off, we always want toget to the root of why a child

(02:56):
is behaving the way they are.
That's always where we want tostart.
Stop and ask in the four mainroot areas of life, which are
spiritual, physical, mental andsocial in those four areas.
What might be going on?
And my first guess with thatwould be that, because this

(03:18):
older one's getting older,friendships are becoming more of
a priority in her life, and wewant to help our older kids to
navigate these changes.
We want to honor their need formore friendship time while also
helping them to honor theyounger siblings as valuable.

(03:38):
So let's get into this issue andlook at how can this mom handle
this situation from here on out, and so what I would do is talk
to this daughter ahead of timeand be like okay, you want to
have the friend over and that'sgreat.
I love you having friends over.
I want to know your friends andI want them to feel welcome

(04:02):
here.
I want this to be a home awayfrom home for them.
Love that you want to havefriends over.
Some people do not have thecourage to develop friendships
and I love that you have thatcourage and that you want to
invest in that friendship, and Iwant to invest in it too.
So, yes, I want to have themover.
Let's talk about the groundrules of that.

(04:24):
While they're here, let's havesome family time and some just
you and the friend time.
We do want to incorporate thefriends into the family unit
because that strengthens a lotof things.
It allows me to have thisinteraction time with that

(04:47):
friend so that I haverelationship with them, rapport
with them, know a little bitmore of their heart, so that I
know what kind of influencethey're going to have on my
child.
But I also want to bless andinfluence that other child.
So there's just a lot ofreasons why I want that
connection to happen.

(05:07):
Well, let me give you an example.
That was really smart.
My sister-in-law had a rulewhenever you have friends over,
you've got to play one game withthe family and then you're free
to do stuff on your own.
I loved that rule Getting tobond with the child and the
friendship so that that's notsome isolated friendship in
their lives which can then be awild card when that child has

(05:31):
the mindset that friendships area very separate thing from the
family.
And when I haven't been carefulwith that, I've really
regretted that.
I don't think that's what'sbest.
For kids to have the mindsetthat friendships are an island
part of their life, notintegrated into the family unit.
So a rule like the game I thinkis awesome.

(05:54):
The principle behind that needsto be have some family time
together with with us and thefriend, and then you can have
separate friend time.
And then you need to tell thesiblings hey, when the friend
comes over, there will be somefamily first time, and then
we're going to honor their timealone.

(06:14):
Setting up expectations isreally helpful all around.
Communicating that ahead oftime sets the expectations in
the older daughter's mind and inthe younger siblings mind and
in your own mind.
It also allows the daughter toinform the friend, so then the
friend's expectations fall inline with that too.

(06:34):
A lot of conflict comes justfrom a lack of joint
expectations or taking time toclarify everybody's expectations
before we jump in to thesituation.
What I'm really doing isborrowing a principle that I use
in another part of my life, andthat is I got a couple of

(06:56):
online resources that are eBookson homeschooling, and one of
those eBooks is calledhomeschooling in real life, and
in that I talk about how do youhomeschool multiple ages.
One of the things that helpsbond siblings together is to

(07:16):
have scheduled time together, soI would schedule the youngest
has some time with the oldest,maybe just five minutes a day,
or 10 minutes or 15 minutes aday.
The youngest has a time slotwith the second oldest.
The youngest has a time slotwith the third oldest.
I tell the old, whoever is theolder of the two kids, when

(07:38):
they're playing together.
I tell them now, when you playtogether, you're going to play
on that younger child's agelevel, not what you want to do,
what they want to do.
But the next day, if the childis old enough, we're going to
reverse that and say, okay,today, when the two of you play

(07:58):
together, younger one, you'regoing to do with the older one
what would be fun to the olderone.
Okay.
What we're learning to do inthose scenarios is we're
learning to help them care aboutthe other person and spend time
with other people based onwhat's being a blessing to that
other person, not just spendtime focused on what I want to

(08:21):
do with them.
Okay, setting up those timeslots of different siblings
interacting can be very helpful.
So, on this day, nathan isgoing to play with Andrew,
something that Andrew would like.
Now, the next day, andrew andNathan are going to play
together, but Andrew is going todo something Nathan would like.

(08:42):
Okay, now let's look at thistime slot of Andrew with Emma.
Andrew's time slot today is tohelp Emma with her reading.
He's going to listen to herread and be her cheerleader and
encourage her.
Good job, you've got it.
Oh well, that word wasn't quiteright.

(09:04):
Actually, this is how youpronounce that one, you know.
So I would schedule differenttypes of interactions, um with
the kids, and I know that seemslike micromanaging, but what I
was doing was teaching them howto have healthy sibling
relationships in this way.
I want my kids to be able tointeract with a variety of ages,

(09:27):
and scheduling some focusedtimes like that helped that to
happen.
And again, this could be fiveminutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes
a day that they're scheduled todo that, so it's not like it's
taking up the whole day.
I'm scheduling the youngestchild's schedule first because
the youngest one has a nap time,has a feeding schedule, like

(09:51):
when they're really little, andthis one is going to play with
them, this one is going to readthem a story, this one is going
to feed them their breakfast, sodifferent things like that was
helpful to me, but also it wasteaching them how to interact
with these other ages.
Another reason why I wouldschedule the youngest first is

(10:14):
because the youngest ones lovetank empties the quickest.
The younger they are, the moreoften they need love tank feel
filling.
So that little one having thatscheduled time with all those
different people in their day,that's super awesome for filling
their love tank as well asteaching the older ones that

(10:36):
empathy and caring for someonein another age group.
Then when we have a friend thatcomes over and we say, hey, I
want you to spend a little timefirst on the family unit, or I
might say, your younger siblinghas been used to spending time
with you when that friend comesover.
So to totally eliminate thatall of a sudden would be super

(11:00):
hurtful, heartbreaking really,to that younger child.
She's developed a friendshipwith that friend now too and
things.
So we're going to have 30minutes where the younger
sibling gets to play too, andthen you will take an hour of
just you guys.
Okay, now let me add in oneother little thought idea for

(11:24):
you.
When I would schedule in somedifferent things throughout
their day, I also took intoconsideration what does this
child need to grow in Like, forexample, maybe one child could
actually really benefit fromplaying memory, the game memory.
It would teach them a differentaspect of brain development.

(11:45):
Or maybe this child wouldreally benefit from the game
sorry or shoots and ladders,because it would teach them
disappointment and to be okaywith disappointment.
Or maybe this one is a newreader and this other one needs
to practice their phonetic cards.

(12:07):
So I'm going to have the olderone, who really could use that
practice, to do practice withthe phonetic cards to the
younger one who's just learningthem, because it gives practice
to both of them.
Or maybe the younger one islearning math, learning addition
, single digits, and the olderone is a little bit weak on

(12:31):
their review of that.
So I'm going to have them dothe flashcards to the younger
one because they both learn fromthat.
So I definitely scheduled plentyof that kind of interactions
with the kids.
It doesn't mean that it took upall their day and they had no
time to play alone and play theway they want to play and do

(12:53):
lots and lots of other life inthere.
But yes, I was intentional withlittle bits of time of
interactions with my kids,considering their sibling
relationships and alsoconsidering the character
develop that they developmentthey could benefit from and the
academic benefit that they coulddevelop from even spiritual

(13:15):
things like maybe this one istoo young to read a devotional
book by themselves, and thisolder one would really benefit
from being a teacher of God'sword and the heart of God to a
younger one, because we allbenefit when we are both a
teacher and a student.

(13:36):
It's so, so, so good for ourcharacter when we learn how to
do both.
We want to learn how to lead,we want to learn how to follow,
we want to learn how to be ateam player you know, part of a
group.
So the giving our kids allthese varieties of learning
opportunities can be sobeneficial.

(13:57):
And yes, it takes a little timeto get ourselves in the habit of
creating some schedules andgetting our kids in the habit of
following some schedules, butin the long run it mega, mega
freed up my time to have thesedifferent interactions happening
, because it wasn't me trying todo everything myself.

(14:20):
When we try to do everythingourselves, we are keeping other
people from growing in ways theyneed to grow.
So stop thinking that theloving mom does everything not
true.
If we take the perspective thatwe do everything, we get burnt

(14:40):
out and there's just a milliondominoes that fall when mama is
burnt out.
It harms our relationships.
If I'm burnt out, I'm not ableto notice the different
character development or heartissues that are going on around
me.
If I'm burnt out, I amphysically, emotionally,
spiritually depleted so muchthere.

(15:02):
That doesn't work well whenmama tries to do it all.
So recognize that all of theseparts of your life that you're
trying to manage, you're themanager of them.
You're not the doer of all ofthem and they are opportunities
for growth within your family.
Pray that God would help you toidentify what's the way to set

(15:27):
up the growth.
God, give me direction and helpwith this.
So we're wrapping it up herefor today.
If you would like more help onthis topic, I mentioned to you
earlier in this episode that Ihave an online book which I call
Home Schooling.
In Real Life, I've beenhomeschooling for almost 26

(15:49):
years, so I've definitely had achance to figure out some ways
to make it all work well.
That resource is only $5.
I have another homeschoolonline book called the
Homeschool High School Roadmapto College.
This resource is all the insand outs that I've learned about
how to homeschool in highschool successfully to give them

(16:12):
what they need for success incollege if that is where they're
supposed to head next.
That resource is not just aboutcollege.
It is about how to homeschoolhigh school solidly.
That resource is also only $5and you can find both of those
along with lots of otherresources from me, including
four books.
All of that can be found on mywebsite,

(16:35):
practicallyspeakingmomcom.
Then click on shop and you'llsee all of the goodies there.
I will also put links in theshow notes to some of these
things.
I'm also going to put in theshow notes a link to a podcast
episode about the circle ofinfluences in our child's life,
such as friendships and how dowe help them navigate all of

(16:58):
those relationships.
There's gonna be a link in theshow notes for that episode.
So finally, I wanna know, moms,do you have any questions for me
?
Ask them in my Facebook group,intentional mom, strong family,
and you'll get an answer from me, along with answers from lots
of other awesome moms in thatgroup.

(17:18):
Hey, moms, can I ask what infavor of you?
This week, my husband, rich,and I have felt called to take a
leap of faith in our ministryto travel to attend a course by
focus on the family, to receivecertification for counseling
marriages in trouble.
If you would want to help us toafford that trip, you can also

(17:41):
go to my website,practicallyspeakingmomcom, and
click on the donate button atthe top of the page.
Don't feel pressure about that,but if you appreciate what we
do here, we would be so gratefulfor you to help us achieve that
goal.
Until next time, may God blessyou and your family as you
continue to be an intentionalmom building a strong family.

(18:05):
See you next time.
Music.