Dear Dr. Debbie,
Our boys are 5 and 3-years-old. I wish I didn’t have to constantly remind them to be nice to each other. Is it too much to expect them to not hurt each other, call each other “Stupid” or worse, grab a toy away from their brother, or tease one another about stupid things like who got the last French fry?
“That’s Not Nice” on Repeat
Dear T.N.N.o.R,
It sounds like there’s a lot of friction in the family. Brother against brother which brings out mother against children. Some adjustment in your behavior may bring about improvements in theirs.
Positive Attention
Look for every opportunity to give each child individual, positive attention. More than compliments and conversation, find ways to spend one-on-one time with each. When one child is absorbed with Legos, for example, this is the time to snuggle up with the other son to enjoy a picture book. While one brother is coloring, invite the other to be your sous chef and learn from you how to line the salad bowls with lettuce and then scoop in the potato salad. The key is to engage in a focused connection between you and the one child.
Penn State University cites many benefits from consistent, intentional, individualized attention. In addition to improved social skills for the child, you stand to gain a more trusting relationship between the two of you and a keener understanding of who this unique young person is. Positive one-on-one attention from their shared parent also reduces siblings’ need to make their brother look bad or feel bad. During one-on-one time they are each made to feel special in their parent’s eyes which reduces the root cause of sibling friction – jealousy.
Modeling
Your children are watching what you do and listening to the words you use. Think about how you can set the best example for how you want your children to treat others – with patience, with consideration, with kindness. You are modeling respect in the ways you treat them and in the ways you treat people outside the family, too. Granted, they are still young children, still in the ego-centric stage of development, and can’t easily take someone else’s point of view. But just like watching you use a cup, they learn what to do when interacting with others by watching you do it.
You also present a model of how to use language to express emotions, including negative emotions such as annoyance, frustration, and anger. If parents and other significant adults use name-calling and cuss words, children will pick them up along with the rest of their vocabularies. If insults such as “stupid” are slung about carelessly, these also get picked up.
There are better ways to express disgruntlement – a situation might be “challenging”, the help someone is providing is “counterproductive”, the weather that’s causing you to change the day’s plans makes you “unhappy”, the recipe that gave you high hopes for being gobbled up by the family turned out to be “disappointing”. Notice that no person or thing in these examples needs to be called, “stupid”.
Try to eliminate hurtful words from your speech. Make a list of the words your children use to hurt each other and resolve to eliminate them yourself. Some people use a rubber band on their wrist to inflict a physical consequence to uttering a banned word. Perhaps if your children understand that you are working on improving the model you are setting they will be motivated to change how they express themselves, too.
Coaching
One of the best ways to get better social behavior out of young children is to be there in the moment. Close supervision is required not only to keep children safe but also to prevent them from acting in ways that could physically or emotionally harm others. Instead of waiting until there’s a brawl, follow what’s going on between them so you can intervene with effective strategies they can use before things get out of hand.
Stay close when they are playing together (or just playing near each other) so you can catch a child with timely and specific guidance before he acts on impulse. For example, suggest finding a toy to trade for the one he wants. Suggest setting a timer for two minutes to help them take equal turns. Put a request into words – “Your brother thinks the top block should be red for a chimney” – when a child doesn’t feel heard, and help them talk out the conflict.
Time spent in guiding your children in resolving a variety of conflicts is time well spent while they’re young.
Separation
There will be times when it’s best for siblings to have alone time. Preventatively, set up spaces in your home that allow for one child to occupy them. This could be a reading nook, an art corner, the Lego spot, a snap together racetrack with cars, or a doll house with furniture to rearrange. A doll house (or castle, or barn, or auto repair shop) with dolls allows a child to direct their actions and dialogue all by himself. All conflicts are created and resolved by him alone. This is great practice for real-life human interactions.
Alone time for both children gives parents a break from managing altercations between them.
It’s hard to be nice ALL the time.
Dr. Debbie
Write your question to Dr. Debbie! Please include age(s) of your child(ren) and other details about the situation or concern.
Deborah Wood, Ph.D. is a child development specialist and founding director of Chesapeake Children’s Museum, located at 25 Silopanna Road in Annapolis. Online reservations are available or call: 410-990-1993. Walk-ins are welcome. Art and Story Time with Mrs. Spears and Puppy the Puppet is on Mondays at 10:30 am. There is a Nature Walk on Thursdays at 10:30 am.
Dr. Wood is presenting a series of Zoom workshops on Wednesday evenings for parents and other caregivers of young children: Ages and Stages, 0 to 5 years-old on January 14, Baby Talk, Early Language Development on January 28, Temperament Differences on February 11. See the full series on the calendar on the Chesapeake Children’s Museum website.
