Not a parent.
Tell them you love them lots, tell them they have to love their siblings, that family is important because family will get you and support you when none else will, when they’re a little older and fighting really bad, walk past them and tell them something like, “you know you two are best friends right?” Celebrate differences, try not to compare, make value judgements or set expectations based on personal value.
So my experience is a bit different as I had teen mom with ~5-7 year gaps between each siblings. Personally gaps are real nice if you have a choice. Less competition. But I think the real answer is team activities that are not competitive. I played comp stomp with siblings regularly. Taught my brother to play rts at 3. We still play together 25 years later. My youngest sibling just wants to do their own thing and the older ones didn’t encourage playing together so she’s more of an outsider. I remember she complained about it when she was like 5 but I wasn’t around much then to force it. I told the others to step up but they never did. If they did I wonder of things would be better between all of us.
High fences make good neighbors. Most of the really serious conflict between my sister and I was related to competition over use of shared resources like the family computer or TV. Perceived unequal treatment was another big one.
Be the common enemy.
Give each a knife.
The survivor will not hate his/her sibling anymore.
Give them a common enemy.
I think there is a lot of luck, because you can’t account for taste or personality. Me and my kids all get on because we share a sense of humour, we are not afraid to take the piss out of each other, and we like playing stupid computer games.
Love them both for who they are and never compare them.
Don’t make them compete for your respect and affection.
Make them unite in their hatred for you.
That doesn’t work. (personal experience as a sibling )
can confirm. My sisters would wake the house fist fighting bc they couldn’t decide who slept where
That could work.
By constantly modeling respectful good behavior and correcting them when they are rude or mean to each other.
That’s the funny thing about kids. It’s the same with pets. The problem isn’t them, it’s you. You have to learn how to behave better so that they behave better
I think two things that are common causes of sibling bad feelings are differences in treatment, and handling of sibling conflicts, both of which can create feelings of unfairness and resentment.
I don’t have prescriptions for those things. Kids are different and necessarily need to be treated differently. But one should be aware of how this can feel unfair to one sibling. And be aware of how your need to end conflicts and restore order can again wind up being unfair to one sibling.
I think the hardest thing is being able to see things from their points of view.
Yes, but there is no guarantee this will work.
There’s no guarantee that anything will ever work. Look for siblings that love and respect each other. Then look at the type of home they came from. Try to emulate what you see.
Doing nothing returns a substancially more probable outcome of sibling rivalry/hatred.
Family sense, notion and belonging are taught.
What !? Siblings hating each other seems exceedingly rare in my personal experience 😅
When they’re v young it is a bit of an attention fight…
Strive for equality of treatment.
Growing up my sister and I didn’t get along when we were younger, she wanted to give me back to the hospital when I was born.
Over time we shared some similar interests, she played violin, I played cello. She pursued it to a master’s degree, I quit to have less divide attention on school which I also failed at.
My parents always gave us options for what we wanted to try and despite her getting more financially to cover those things, I knew I could have those things as well if I asked but I wanted them on my own.
By our early teens any anger was over and was got along for the rest of her life when she died of brain cancer at 42.
This is akin to the nature vs. nurture debate–that is, how much of one’s personality is due to nature or to the people who raised them and the environment they grew up in? As the article I linked states, it far messier than the simple title implies.
Kids are not born as identical blank slates, they come straight into the world with their own set of personality traits that are essentially “hard wired”.
So, the answer is, you do the best you can, and hope for the best. There are no guarantees that raising your kid a certain way will result in a “good” kid. And, “good” kids can come from shitty upbringings.
I have two sisters and a brother, we were all raised by the same parents in the same house, together. Our parents loved us and did their best to raise us, which was pretty damn good. However, we are all as different from each other as we could be. In the past I’ve described us as the four corners of a world map–which, when the corners come together, make a globe.
Team efforts.
When people see one another’s skills and can come to have confidence in and rely on each other, that builds bonds. Creative exercises are good ways to achieve this. Co-producing a play or video, painting a room, or making a meal (while not hungry, of course) could be methods that help kids to practice this. We take our kids camping and there are lots of ways for kids to work together and rely on each other. Also, opportunities to exercise independent competence and to do tasks that help the family.
Trauma bonding is a dicier strategy. Could work out. Could end in tears. It all depends how many times you want to have them survive a winter plane crash on a mountainside. By the third time, they’d probably catch on.
