Calm Parenting Podcast - Get Kids to Love & Respect Siblings?

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

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Calm Parenting Podcast listeners get an exclusive 20% off an IXL membership when you sign up today at ixl.com slash kirk. Visit ixl.com slash kirk to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. If you have more than one child, it is likely that they pick at each other. They pick on each other. They squabble constantly over little things that don't really matter. They come to you. They tattle on each other. They yell at each other. Sometimes they hit each other. They roughhouse. Sometimes it even gets violent, and that's not good. But they are going to have conflict because that's what siblings do.

And so the question that we got is, how do you get a 5- and 9-year-old or a 10- and 14-year-old or two 10-year-olds? It doesn't matter. How do you get two kids, two siblings, to respect slash love each other? I feel like all they do is yell or show anger toward each other. And the reason the mom feels this is probably because that's what they do all the time. So that's what we're going to talk about on this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. Welcome. This is Kirk Martin. I'm founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. It's pretty easy.

If you need help, reach out to our son Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. Tell us about what's going on in your family, the age of the kids. Let us know what is the source of the frustration that your child is feeling. And we will respond back personally with some ideas, some strategies, some tips and tools like I did with this mom. And we will help you however you need it. If you need help with our programs, email Casey. He'll put together a custom package within your budget. Or let's go to the website, CelebrateCalm.com. You'll find all our programs there. The Calm Parenting Package is one of the most popular. As kids get a little bit older,

we like the No BS program. Guys like that one a lot. We do have special programs just for men. Short and sweet. Bullet points. Tell us what to do. Or just get everything, and then you have all of our tools. So, you heard the question, and so here's my response, and I'm going to expand upon this for the podcast. So, what I responded back to this mom is, I think love and respect is an unrealistic goal for little siblings. For me, limited bloodshed is more like it. Now, I'm kind of kidding, but not really, right? We do want to stop some of the conflict, right? But know that this is very normal and

healthy as kids learn to set boundaries, as they learn to negotiate. So don't let it freak you out because some parents, especially if they were an only child, they're not used to this and you don't know like, well, what's normal, what's not normal? And some of you get freaked out because you just don't like the noise. And maybe you grew up in a home like I did where my parents fought all the time. And so I don't like conflict. So it's a trigger for me. But do think about this. The purpose of human relationships is not happiness and bliss and joy. That's not what it's about. It's about transformation. It changes who you are as a person. Look, that 35-year-old single dude who lives alone in an apartment and plays video games all night and isn't committed to any relationships, and doesn't have kids,

that guy's not going to mature very much. Why? Because he's not coming face-to-face with other people and his own issues. And that's why marriage is so hard. It's the union of two largely selfish people with all kinds of issues from childhood that you're mostly unaware of until you get older. And they're coming together under the same roof with often competing agendas, with different parenting styles. And now you throw in a strong-willed child and that throws everything into chaos.

They also come together. Look, you probably came together with your spouse or partner with perfectly imperfect dysfunction from your childhood, right? Like the girl with abandonment issues who marries the guy who avoids conflict and just disappears, who checks out, which further triggers her or your abandonment, which causes her to lash out or cling even more, which drives him away, which, well, you know the rest because some of you live that, or you have some version of that where it's like, oh, now I know I do this, he does that,

and then that triggers me, and then it's this endless cycle. And now you come face to face with the person who knows you best, who knows all of your flaws, your embarrassing character traits, right? Which is why sometimes hubbies get very controlling. They don't want their wives going out after they blow up for fear their wives are going to tell the other women and other couples about how he threw spaghetti on the wall because one little thing went wrong. It happens, right? So that's why marriage is so difficult, but why it is also one of the things that you need to work on hardest because it will cause you to grow up more quickly than anything else.

But it's hard, and that's why everybody puts it off. Everybody puts it off, right? So you complain about your kids. Oh, they don't do the hard things. Neither do you. Neither did I. Put it off, put it off, put it off. But I want you to dig in and work on it. And I do have a warning for you. These issues aren't going away. It's not just going to magically appear. Well, I heard this other day on a phone consultation. Well, my hubby said, well, once we move into the new house, we won't have all that stress and everything will be better. Very typical guy kind of thing because that was me. Oh, yeah. When this happens, all of my own personal issues are going to go away somehow magically

and so are yours and we're going to go away somehow magically. And so are yours. And we're going to have bliss. That's so, besides wrong, it's immature. And it just doesn't work. And so I want you to dig into that. Quick plug, be upset if you want. Part of the reason that we put together our marriage program is that because most people don't want to go to marriage therapy. And I

understand why. Because when we did it, you know what it felt like? It felt like the therapist and my wife were teaming up on me, right? Because it's like two on one. I'm just a dude, right? So we put together this program so that you could do it from home. And so it's simple little action steps that are very guy-friendly and girl-friendly for both of you because nobody taught us how to handle conflict, right? And you're not teaching your kids how. So think about this with siblings. They're together all the time competing for limited attention slash intensity from their parents. There's only so many screens in the home sometimes, so they're fighting over that or for food or where they get to sit in the car.

And so they're going to fight. Think about it. Why wouldn't they? It's very natural. And if we can look at it in a different way of like, oh, our kids fight all the time, it's so bad. I'm not saying it's good or that I like it. But this is where they learn how to set boundaries. How to say no.

How to negotiate. How to deal with disappointment, how to learn not to poke the bear and get smacked. Right. And some of us didn't learn that as kids. We had we disappeared or we let our older siblings run over us and then they learned how to use intimidation on us. And then they got married and they did that with their wife, or they learned to be sneaky, right? It's where they're learning how to have human relationships, and think about how short-sighted we are. What do we tend to do? You know what?

You guys be quiet. You go to your room. You go to your room, and we separate them. Why? Because it's irritating. Because we don't want to hear them fight. Because it's uncomfortable for us. And because maybe the truth is we don't even know how to handle conflict.

So what happens? We get uncomfortable. We break it up. We smooth it over. We separate the kids. Instead of teaching them, because watch, remember discipline. Discipline doesn't mean to punish or send a child to his room. The word discipline literally means to teach. So we need to teach them how to be assertive or how to walk

away. So one of my first questions is, why does that make you feel so uncomfortable and so uneasy? Why do you feel compelled to jump in and make it right? I know on a surface level why, because they're just irritating. Be quiet. I bought you guys all these toys and all these video games. You can't even play well together for 12 minutes. What do I have to do around here? And I get that. But why don't we take the time to actually teach our kids how to handle conflict so when they grow up and get married, they know how rather than blaming, checking out, steamrolling, proving our point, lashing out, all those things we do in our marriages, right? And so that's what I'd focus on more than trying to lecture kids to be nice to each other. Moms, I get it. I hear that, but

please stop with that. It's not useful. It's a waste of your time. Kids, you need to learn to be nice to each other because one day you're going to be best friends. Well, do you love and respect your siblings? You know, the ones that you don't invite to Thanksgiving dinner because they're irritating and you don't get along? Or maybe one was favored by your parents or your parents have babied that one brother you have and now there's conflict in the home. You have all kinds of conflict, right? Did you get along perfectly with your brothers and sisters when you were a kid? Probably not. So let's dig into this. Sibling issues usually come from one of two places and they're actually both connected. Usually there's a

provoking child and a reacting child. Now the first source of sibling conflict is boredom. So you've got the provoking child whose brain gets bored and so he just pokes, looks at, or irritates his brother or sister so he gets a reaction. Stop! Leave me alone! And now he just caused, by simply looking at his sibling, he caused that sibling to react. Stimulates his brain. Becomes a little game. How can I poke? Push everybody's buttons in the homes.

Now mom or dad comes into the room. We're upset. Why can't you just leave your brother or sister alone? Now the other parent comes in. And now one child, by looking at or poking or almost poking his brother, now has three people reacting to him. That just fed his brain, right? And I'm not saying it's right, but that's how it works. And so that's why we often advocate, as silly as it sounds, when kids are squabbling in another room,

instead of coming in with a big lecture about how they learn to have to be nice to each other, instead of lecturing or sending them away sit sit right on the living room floor and your kids are going to stop squabbling look at you like what are you doing and you say hey child number one whatever their name is don't call them child number one or like hey provoking child look I know what's going on with you you've got this awesome brain it's very very busy and it's often looking for, you've got all these ideas. It's looking for stimulation. When you get bored, you hate that. But two things I know about you. One, you love money. You really like money. And I think you like to earn some. And two, you've got a really big heart. Never toward me, but toward other people.

Now don't say those things. Just think them in your brain. But two things I know about you, son. You've got a big heart and you like to earn money. So I know why you're bothering your brother, because you're bored. But what happens is you become dependent on your brother. You need him to react to you. Otherwise, you have to amp it up. And another thing that goes wrong is you end up losing all your stuff when you do that. So I've got an idea for you. Listen, I've got to go get started on dinner. I'm going to go for a walk. If you want to come talk to me, I bet we could brainstorm three different ways for you to use that brain of yours to earn some money, to make money, to have some cash. And then with that cash,

you can actually give some of it away to a charity that you care about. And I'll even match that. See, now I've just taught the child, I know why you're bothering your brother. It's because you've got this really interesting brain that needs to be stimulated. Right now, you're using it in a negative way, and you're going to lose all your stuff, right? Or I can show you a different way so you feel good about yourself. You do something constructive, and you get what you want, which is money and helping other people. So you just taught them. It didn't take that much time. It took me sitting down, and I gave him an opportunity. I gave him some space to think about that idea. I walked away. I invited the child into that, right? Does that make sense? Now the second,

so one thing you're going to have to do with these kids is purposeful missions to reduce the boredom and stimulate the brain. The brain has to be stimulated with purposeful missions. Remember that phrase you'll hear in our curriculum all the time because that's what they're motivated by. So the second thing that's going on with your kids is this. It's often not just a boredom issue. It's the child who doesn't feel good about himself, right? So you have two kids and usually it's one child is, let's say, the good kid. Everybody loves, does his homework on time, never really gets in trouble. And then you have the strong-willed child who seems to always be in trouble.

Why don't you guys like me? You always pick on me. I'm the only one who's in trouble. It's not fair, right? And so here's what's happening. That child does not feel good about himself. And so he will take that out on his sibling. And that makes sense to me. So the best way to handle that is this. If you have a child who lacks confidence, doesn't feel good about himself, if they feel less than others or their siblings, they're going to take it out on their siblings,

right? Probably the good one who everyone loves. And that's why you can't compare your kids, unless you want the story of Cain and Abel repeated all over again. The jealous, rejected son kills his own brother. And so in reality, think about this. Most sibling issues aren't really sibling issues. They're about a child being bored, having a lack of purpose, or lack of confidence. And the best way to stop this is to have each child using his particular gifts, talents, and passions, serving other people, engaged in activities they excel at, even if they don't get good grades for that. Think about that. Think about that. You want your kids experimenting with things, building things, tinkering with things, running their own little business, doing service projects,

volunteering, helping little kids or little kids with handicaps. You want them volunteering at the animal shelter, doing things for old neighbors down the street, something with purpose, a service project, tinkering with things. See, a child who is engaged, doing things that he's naturally good at, usually for another adult, is hearing like, man, you're really good at that. That builds confidence. Look, confidence comes from one place, competence, being good at something. I want you affirming your kids, but it doesn't come from people saying, oh, you're so amazing. You're so wonderful. It's when I'm actually good at something, I use that particular skill, and I know inside, man, I'm good at that, and I have a larger purpose.

So look, a child who is doing these things doesn't really have the time or inclination or need to pick on their siblings because they're too busy running their little business or helping other people or being engaged in something in the community, a larger purpose, something they care about, right? That's what I want us to focus on. And that's why we're so big into understand the root of it. It's not about, well, I need to teach my children to be nice to each other. There's nothing to do with it, right? It has everything to do with focusing on that brain, on something purposeful and positive, building your child's confidence, building their, doing something

they're competent and good at so that they have a purpose. That, that will change the sibling dynamic in your home. Because once I get that child, quick example, that, that, that 12 year old child that we were that we were working with recently, who everything was negative for her, but she's really good with kids and she loves soccer. And we got this 12-year-old girl helping a soccer coach teach little kids how to play soccer. Now she has her place and her space. And you'll hear some, when I do phone consultations, boot camps, all those things I talk a lot about. Find the space and place for your child to thrive. This 12-year-old girl now has a mission. She's working with little kids that which she loves and she's naturally good at. And these kids are little kids are loving on her and they want to learn from her. And she's

teaching them soccer, which she's really good at. And she's having all kinds of adults say, man, you're really good at this. You could be a teacher one day. You could be a child psychologist. You could do all kinds of things because you're so good with kids and you're so good at soccer. And she feels good about herself. So when she walks back into her home at night after teaching these girls, there's no need, there's no inclination, there's no energy to pick on siblings because she's got her own space and place in which she thrives. Find, discover what your kids care about and spend time there. If you need help with this, reach out to Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. Listen to the Strong Willed Child program. The Motivating Kids

program is very good. We have an entire CD called Stop Sibling Fights. We've got one on Stop Fights Over Screens, too. But I encourage you, go through these programs in detail because they will show you exactly how to do this. And if we can help you, let us know because we want you to enjoy your kids again. Love you all. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.