Updated Aug 22

Siblings all over Australia today have spent time playing happily together, then fighting, then playing again. Some research shows that younger siblings fight on average every 17 minutes.

It's challenging to help kids play well with their siblings. This is true for all children - and may be especially true for children who are managing additional emotional, mental health or life challenges .

But if we can spend a few minutes every now and then, coaching and talking them through starting play, maintaining play, managing conflict and ending play kindly - then the rewards are great - for them and us.

It can be helpful to consider what skills are involved in siblings playing well together, and then think about which ones children are doing well with and which they need support with.

Here are at least 8 skills kids need to play with siblings/peers - they need to effectively:

Start the play – i.e make a suggestion about what to do and how, and invite their sibling to join in
Maintain the game/play – come up with new ideas about what to do next when things get boring
Compromise and be flexible when their own ideas don’t work or are rejected
Help out a sibling when they get stuck, hurt or frustrated
Calm themselves down when they get angry
Adjust rules or expectations when other siblings can’t cope with the current play
Be able to follow directions or suggestions made by siblings
End the play gently when they have had enough without hurting people’s feelings

How skilled are your children at doing each of these things?

More importantly, what is one skill you can pick to work on with them this week?

If you would like to help your child work on these skills, you might like to:

a) Have a conversation with them (when they are not already fighting or upset - ie before they are playing)
b) Ask them questions about how they are going, what they would like to work on, what they do when things go wrong.
c) Explain a skill, what words they might say or not say and explaining the benefits of the skill
d), Ask them to role play the skill with you.

Working on coaching skills like this can be time consuming. But even just doing a little of this (a few minutes at a time) - can over the long term, sometimes save parents/caregivers hours of time in dealing with conflict because instead of children needing us to sort things out every time - they are gradually getting better at avoiding or managing the conflict themselves.

If you'd like to read more about this issue: I've been following the work of Dr. Laurie Kramer on this topic recently - really interesting read for those interested.

http://www.mom-psych.com/Interviews/Kramer-GS1005.html

Kirrilie

Our online resource Calm Kid Central has modules for parents/carers of children with emotional health needs about helping siblings get along with fewer fights and coaching children to be kind to friends and siblings. To find out more click below:

Learn More