I have been very concerned lately about the relationship between my two daughters. Kiki thinks that Gleek is rude and annoying. Gleek thinks that Kiki is just mean. This makes me sad. I want them to be friends. I want them to find joy in being sisters. I know that it is very common for siblings to squabble while growing up, but then be great friends as adults. That’s the pattern I had with my older sister. But I still feel like they are missing out right now.
So today I tackled the problem. I have a marvelous parenting book “How to Talk so Your Kids Will Listen and Listen so Your Kids Will Talk.” I decided to take chapter one “accepting feelings” and teach it to our family. The idea is that in order to really communicate with someone else, you have to accept how they feel even if you wish they felt differently. This acceptance opens the path to further conversations. I don’t know how much the kids absorbed, but the concepts have been introduced. It is a start.
After the lesson was over, I realized that the biggest offender on the “not accepting feelings” count, is me. I don’t want Kiki to grouch and Gleek, so I jump in and explain why Kiki should be tolerant. Or I jump in and make Kiki stop. I do everything but listen and accept because I don’t want to accept that my daughters annoy each other. The honest truth is that there is only so much that I can do to improve their relationship. In the end they are the ones who will make it good or bad. I have to accept my lack of control and only make myself accountable for the things I can do. And one of the things I can do is stop reacting defensively and start really listening to what my daughters feel about each other.
As always, you are amazingly insightful. I think it’s great that you are atuned to the relationships in your home and are trying to improve them (even if you can’t always control things). I agree that siblings who fight when they are young often get along fine as adults but I still have emotional baggage from my bad relationships with my sisters when we were growing up. It’s a good idea to take sibling rivalry seriously and do your best to help them get along now.
Julie
This is true, in principle. But it’s difficult to “be accepting” when two (or more) daughters are taking turns to deliberately torment and provoke each other into shrieking fury for the sheer amusement of it.
Some things should not be accepted. If they can’t learn to get along with each other, how are they ever going to learn to get along with strangers without being written off as complete jerks? (Mine, not yours.)
Thoughts from the inside
It has taken 20 years for my brother and me to get along as friends. Living in separate states helps. But everything our parents tried to make us get along just seemed to make it worse. I know it’s hard but you just have to let them work it out for themselves. That and try to keep the bloodshed to a minimum.
Good Luck!
My sister and I are 28 months apart (I think that is a much smaller gap than your girls.), and I am really not kidding when I say that I didn’t think she was even human until we were in high school together. And we shared a room! We really honestly rarely got along very well when we were young. My mom used to get so mad at us when we’d fight and tell us that we were sisters and that we should love one another – we both thought she was crazy – love this person! Ha!
I can happily report that we now get along much better! Since I was 17 & she was 15, we really have been good friends (for the most part – a few years were a little sketchy when I first got married). But my mom’s interventions had nothing to do with it. We had to find our own ways to love and respect one another.
Feelings are to be accepted, but behaviors must be curbed or controlled. If the child can’t control her own behaviors, then it is my job as parent to control the behaviors for the child.
I have to allow Gleek to feel angry at her sister, but I can’t let her hit just because she feels angry.
*nod* good distinction.
What I wish is that I could figure out WHY they feel the need to pick on each other. I just don’t get it.
I don’t get it either. Kiki is the most empathetic and sympathetic child I have ever known. She gives everyone the benefit of the doubt and yet she consistently imputes the worst possible motives to every single thing that Gleek does. Then she takes it upon herself to correct Gleek’s “wayward” behavior. And from there we start yelling…
Just throwing this out there on a wild guess, and it’s possible I’m forgetting a post of yours that would make utter nonsense of it….
Is Kiki one who tends to want to do her own thing, while Gleek wants to be played with? Is it possible that Kiki subconsciously feels that if she assumes that Gleek only tries to take up her time because she loves and admires her big sister, if she treats Gleek as being in the right, then that implies she has to do whatever Gleek wants?
(I was the “I’m reading. Stop trying to drag me off to play with you!” older sibling.)
OK, they’re not mine, I just take them to school, but I’m trying to understand this kind of thing in siblings, too; the particular 2 I have trouble with are 2 years apart, the older one is trendy and goes out to clubs and suchlike (at age 14!), the younger one is very bright and what when I was in school we’d have called a “swot”; and makes sure everyone knows it. The older one is also the eldest child, and as such cops a lot of flak, while the younger ones tend to get away with stuff. I recall that with my sister (2 years younger): she’d start a fight, I’d hit her, she’d go crying to mom and *I’d* get a row.
In your case, there’s a bigger gap (6 years?) which I reckon may be leading Kiki to think that she’s more like Gleek’s mom than her sister. The correcting behaviour bit sounds like that – find out if you can whether Kiki feels she “should” be correcting Gleek, and try to explain gently that she doesn’t really have to, that’s one of your jobs.
Gleek, of course, already has a mom, and a very good one, at that; so probably resents the fact that Kiki tries to correct her, and as a result no doubt does things deliberately to annoy Kiki. One thing it’s easy to lose sight of is how big what we think is a not-very-big age gap is, when viewed from either a 6-y-o or a 12-y-o perspective.
I reckon they’ll get better as they get older, though, the age gap will gradually get to seem smaller, for one thing.
My brother and I are 15 months apart. That may have something to do with it.
This dynamic is definitely part of what is happening, but the gap is large enough that Gleek has pretty much given up trying to get Kiki to play. It was definitely an issue earlier though.
Logically I understand that they are the only ones who can build their relationship, but emotionally I really want to fix it. Thanks for your perspective it gives credence to the logical side of the equation.
You’ve put your finger right on a major issue. We are constantly having to scold Kiki because she’s trying to parent Gleek. Sometimes I will be in the midst of managing a Gleek behavior and Kiki will try to interrupt me so that she can scold Gleek instead. Unfortunately Kiki expects Gleek to act more mature than Gleek really is. I’ll look at a behavior and know that it is something that is typical for a 6 year old and that Gleek will outgrow it. Kiki will look at the same behavior and predict dire consequences for Gleek’s entire future if the behavior is not forcibly corrected right now.