Dear Dr. Debbie,
Our boys are two and four-years-old. Sometimes they can play together just fine. But out of the blue, one will get angry and hurt his brother, usually over sharing a toy. What’s the best strategy for reacting in a way that teaches them to be nicer to each other?
Looking for Lasting Peace
Dear LfLP,
One benefit to having a sibling is that there are daily opportunities to gain social skills, including how to consider someone else’s needs and feelings. These skills build up with success – aided with your calm intervention – over time.
I Want What He Has
Most of us can easily identify with having feelings of envy, even as adults. (You may still feel this most strongly about a grown sibling of your own.) Envy is a key component to effective advertising – to entice a potential customer with an image of someone enjoying a product or service. The more closely you identify with the actor in the ad, the stronger the chance that you’ll be envious and think about making a purchase.
A universal stage in early childhood is known as “Parallel Play” in which a child is happiest if he can engage in the same activity he sees another child doing. This typically occurs around 18 months to four-years-old. If there are duplicate objects, or no objects needed for an activity, such as singing together, there is no conflict. Otherwise, the quickest way to appease one’s envy is to grab the object from the other child. This is a normal but not a very effective behavior. (Anticipating a negative consequence, and holding back from immediate gratification, takes more maturity than a preschooler has.)
Conflicts between siblings can be greatly reduced if you have duplicate items to play with. It also helps if you include singing, dancing, making silly faces, making animal noises, jumping back and forth over a line on the carpet, popping the bubbles that you blow for them, and other activities that don’t depend on holding one and only one toy.
If there is one object central to an activity, arrange for both children to use it at the same time. This could be sitting on the floor with them to roll a ball from one person to another, or snuggling all together while you read them a picture book.
You can set them up for success with blocks, crayons, or other activities in which materials can be divided. You’ll have to do the dividing for them since division is at least a 3rd grade math skill.
Identify and Validate His Feelings
Awareness of one’s own feelings comes before the ability to consider someone else’s. Help this skill along by labeling the emotions your children are experiencing. “You’re so excited that Daddy’s home!” “When the bird flew away that made you sad.” “You’re very proud of that drawing. Let’s hang it up!”
Never discount a child’s feelings, as in, “That’s nothing to be afraid of.” Nor should you tell him to “Stop crying!”. If you feel that your child’s feelings are more than you can handle, this is an indication that you need a safe place to share your own feelings. (Maybe they’ve been suppressed since you were little yourself.) Feelings are neither good nor bad; they deepen the human experience. Our feelings teach us about ourselves and guide us in our relationships.
It is important to note that when a person is having big feelings, it’s very hard to consider someone else’s feelings.
Model Empathy
You can show empathy to an angry child without being angry yourself. Express concern with your face, tone of voice, and words: “That made you angry!” “I’m so sorry you got hurt.” Take immediate action to direct the children toward at least a temporary solution. This could include a compassionate hug, returning the coveted object to the child who had it, and or grabbing a duplicate toy to give the child who grabbed from his brother. Of course you would caringly tend to an injury requiring first aid.
Follow up with conversation about the feelings that were expressed in the incident. Everyone had feelings, even you. Your empathic state can be expressed as, “I was sad to see you so angry. That must’ve been a big feeling you were having. You both wanted the toy very much.” Beyond expressing your compassion toward their dilemma, direct them as much as needed to resolve it. (Get a duplicate toy or an acceptable trade so they can both play, set a timer so they can take turns with the coveted toy, or suggest a new activity for all.) Your empathy is further expressed by compassionately acknowledging, “It’s hard to be sad / angry / frustrated / disappointed.”
Practice Taking Different Perspectives
In between your children’s real conflicts with each other, explore the subject of empathy from a safe distance through picture books. Ask questions about characters’ feelings as you read a story together. Ask, “How does she feel about that?” and “What’s another feeling she might have about it?” to get your children thinking about feelings that exist in others. It helps if they can relate to the characters – two brothers, for example – and the situations – such as a conflict over a toy. Stories also get them to take the perspective of more than one character in the same dilemma. Goldilocks was hungry and tired, so her actions make sense. Baby Bear was upset about his empty bowl, his broken chair, and his occupied bed. This also makes sense.
Here are more books to look for:
The Unbudgeable Curmudgeon by Matthew Burgess
Titch by Pat Hutchins
How to Apologize by David LaRochelle
Philomena’s New Glasses by Brenna Maloney
For Everyone to Share by Nigel McMullen
The Bad Birthday Idea by Madeline Valentine
The Long Haul
Kindness between siblings is possible, especially with deliberate and consistent attention on your part. Respond to their skirmishes with calmness, concern, and a quick solution.
It takes time and effort for a child to develop the skills needed to successfully manage feelings with consideration for the feelings of others. Parents are the perfect teachers.
Dr. Debbie
Deborah Wood, Ph.D. is a child development specialist www.drdebbiewood.com and founding director of Chesapeake Children’s Museum www.theccm.org.
The museum is open daily from 10 am to 4 pm. Online reservations are available https://www.theccm.org/event-details/purchase-tickets-in-advance or call: 410-990-1993. Each Thursday there is a guided nature walk at 10:30 am. Art and Story Times with Mrs. Spears and Puppy the Puppet are on Monday mornings at 10:30 am.
Read more of Dr. Wood’s Good Parenting columns by clicking here.
