Sibling conflict

Some tips to try

Three short pieces from the library, and the part of each you can act on tonight.

• The Quiet Sibling at Bath Time. The well sibling has gone quiet. The quiet is part of the picture.
  • Keep something hers alone every week: the bath, the bedtime, the swim.
  • Notice in passing: “I have been thinking about you this week.”
  • Do not praise her for being so good; the silence is the cost.
  theparentbook.com/parents/library/quick-tips/the-quiet-sibling-at-bath-time
• The Second Child, and the First. The question every first child is asking is whether she is still the one.
  • Carve out ten exclusive minutes a day with the first child.
  • Say “I love you, you are the same to me as last week,” often.
  • Skip the gift-from-the-baby and the dressing-up as the helper.
  theparentbook.com/parents/library/quick-tips/the-second-child-and-the-first
• The Sibling Who Has Noticed Everything. She has noticed. The household has not yet told her what she has noticed.
  • Tell her, in the car, briefly. Use the clinical name.
  • “You did not cause it, and you cannot fix it.”
  • Sibs runs an information service for siblings aged seven to seventeen.
  theparentbook.com/parents/library/quick-tips/the-explanations-no-one-has-offered-her

If you want to read further

• Siblings and the Fights That Aren’t Fair. A chapter for parents whose children keep finding new ways to fall out. theparentbook.com/reader/siblings-and-the-fights-that-arent-fair

Worth your time

• A book for you: Siblings Without Rivalry, Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. Forty years old; still the cleanest single book on sibling row de-escalation. uk.bookshop.org/p/books/how-to-talk-siblings-without-rivalry-adele-faber/b9ffdacca8cbd8a2

Where else to go

For almost everything, the NHS is the right first move, and it costs nothing.

• Your child’s school. The pastoral lead, the head of year, or the form tutor. Free, already knows your child, and often the fastest route to a change that helps. Before or alongside anything else. A school cannot act on what it has not been told, and what you bring is often what it did not have.
• Your GP. The gateway to everything the NHS offers a child: paediatric assessment, a referral to CAMHS, and support for you as the parent. Ask for a double appointment. Describe the pattern over weeks rather than the worst single day, and say plainly what you are worried about. Bring a written list; the ten minutes go quickly. www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-gp

• Family Lives. A free confidential helpline for any parenting concern. I send parents here when the question is about them, not about the child. When the chapter is about the experience of parenting itself, the family system, or a parent who needs to be listened to. Particularly strong for bullying and for the parent who is holding things together at the edge of their capacity. Family Lives confidential helpline 0808 800 2222 · Mon-Fri 9am-9pm; weekends 10am-3pm · Live chat Mon-Fri 10.30am-9pm; WhatsApp 07441 444125; email askus@familylives.org.uk www.familylives.org.uk
• Place2Be. School-based counselling charity. Their Parenting Smart articles are written by school-based counsellors and are my default for primary-age concerns. When the chapter is about primary-age (5-to-11) social or emotional concerns, particularly anything school-anchored. The Parenting Smart articles on friendship, behaviour and routines are the strongest sub-resource. parentingsmart.place2be.org.uk

The full list for sibling conflict, with what each organisation does and when it is the right call, is at theparentbook.com/help/sibling-conflict/services