There's a lot of great challenges we get to face his parents. How to deal with
sibling rivalry in toddlers, is one of the first ones. Little kids are little
kids. That's true. We can kind of expect them to act like little kids still and
it's pretty common for for little kids and especially toddlers to get kind of
possessive or to have some rivalry with their siblings - yeah - yeah. Fighting is a
normal part of their maneuvering the world. Exactly and one of the things
that's important to understand about child development and especially with
toddlers is that they have a really difficult time regulating their own
affect or emotions - okay - and their behaviors. So we can't really
expect them to handle this on their own. Yeah, they don't even know how. We had a
friend recently she was talking about... She picked up her toddler son, I think
he's 3 and he had been playing with his best friend, which is also his cousin.
She said when they get in the car to go home, it's kind of like confession
session and he tells all the naughty things he'd been doing. She's like, "Well,
you don't hit your cousin." He goes, "But I want to hit!" And then she goes, "You don't
bite your cousin." "But I want to bite!" And so there's that whole thing. He even
though she's told him before and he knows he's not supposed to hit or bite,
he wants to and that kind of rules his behavior in the moment. Right, because
he doesn't have the capability at 3 years old to regulate and monitor his
behavior the way that we would hope that he would learn to do. Right, eventually. So
just get it in your head first of all. This is what kids are like and as we
adjust our expectations, we feel less frustration. But you're not saying it's
okay to just let them do this, right? Exactly. I mean we're here as
parents for a purpose, right? Right. So well, first of all, remember your job as a
parent is to love them no matter what and even if. Yes, love
no matter what and even if. Now that being said, there are some things that we
can do as parents to assist them in regulating their own behavior. And one of
the first things I think you need to remember is they are toddlers. And there
are stages of development, we've talked a lot about the stages of moral
development but there's also just the developmental norms that you would
expect with a young child - right - and so, we've got to become aware
of those. Vicki, when you mentioned development, one of the things that comes
to mind first of all, especially for young kids is the importance of
proximity. What have you learned about that as you work with kids. So one of the most
important things with proximity, when you've got a young toddler in particular.
Let's talk about the toddlers. If they are doing something physical that you
want them to change, you need to be in close proximity to them when you give
them that correction. And the reason for that is when they don't...You notice I
didn't say if. But when they don't comply right from the very beginning, you
physically guide them to the compliance. But they're not going to listen the
first time? Nope - and so - especially from across the room- right. So if you train them.. I'm
going to say it from across the room, they're not going to do it, I'm going to
have to say it again. You're actually training them to wait until you have
said it 2,3,4 times and how many of us moms don't already have that
going on in our life. It's like, "Why do I have to say it 10 times before you
listen?" So with a child, especially a toddler, be in proximity when you want to
change one of their physical behaviors, you need to be in their proximity to
help them change that behavior. Now it does a couple of things. 1, you don't
say it again and so that's taken away that middle repeating, repeating. But also,
we talked about how they don't really have that self-regulation. They don't
have the self-regulation. So helping them immediately perform the action you're
asking them to do. Physically guiding them. Physically guiding them is actually kind
of sending up setting up neural pathways for them to be successful the next time.
Right - you're training that behavior. Now let's take a more broad look at this for
just a moment. Because the sibling rivalry that we're
talking about typically it's a problem because of the kinds of behaviors
they're doing. Maybe they're fighting or arguing and that's why it becomes an
issue.We strongly recommend that you establish some family rules. Around the
general principles that we want people to follow and the 3, I love these
3 family rules Vicki because they're simple - right - and you don't have to have
a big, long comprehensive list of rules. Your kids will find something that's not
on the list, trust me. Rule number 1, respect yourself and others - yep - that's
going to address the sibling rivalry directly. Yeah, so we sit down and you
notice that that if we're talking sibling rivalry, unless you're like my
friend who has triplets that are 3, 2 and a half, you're talking
about a toddler and probably an older child too - right - and so you've got to
respect yourself in others and there's going to be a different way that you can
address that respect for a toddler versus maybe the 4 or 5 year old
that you're fighting. But it's the same rule. And you can put this into terms
that they will understand easily. I've worked with kids as young as 3 or
4 years old and they pick up on this idea of respect as being nice and so
they'll latch onto it. They'll be able to do that. Rule number 2 - respect property.
Right. This is all about stuff and some of the sibling rivalries that happen are
around possessions or toys or stuff. Right, right. So we teach that second rule
respect property which means take care of things. Don't take things that don't
belong to you. Put things in their place. Right. And rule number 3, you're going to
love this one, okay? Because this is the catch-all to pick up everything we
missed. Cooperate and obey. We instill those 3 rules as part of our family
culture and then we enact appropriate discipline around those 3 rules. So
any violation of those rules, including hitting your brother or
taking something away from your sister, those things have appropriate
consequences within the discipline. Maybe one final thought Vicki. We've talked
about this on another videos as well. Every interaction we have with our children
will invite them to do one of two things. Think or fight - yeah. So we really want to
find ways with our toddlers... You know we're talking about toddlers in
particular. To find ways to help them think about things. And I think that's
one of the reasons it's important to have those family rules established
because instead of just saying don't do that, that's not nice, you you are kind of
reiterating the family rules and you're saying, "Hmm...do you think that when you do
XYZ, that it's going with our family rules or against them? But you're kind of
inviting them to process it themselves. Now remember there too so there might
not be a lot of processing. You might just have to tell, "Oh that's not
respecting." Another important acknowledgement Vicki when you brought
us back to the young children especially, modeling - right. Extremely important. If
you're all uptight as a parent, if you're yelling and screaming, guess what you're
modeling for your kids? And I know that kind of... That bites a little because we
all get tipped over from time to time. And we know that you want to stop
yelling and get your kids to listen without having to yell at them, remember
to model the kind of behavior that you're hoping to seeing their kids too.
You've got this. As a conscious, positive parent, you've got this and we've got
your back too. Vicki and I have teamed up to provide for you a training that you
can actually get into free of charge at parentingpowerup.com where we want to
help you to feel more confident as a parent in these skills we talked about
here on the channel. Hope you'll join us there.