“MOM! HE TOOK MY TOY!”
“DAD! SHE WON’T LET ME PLAY WITH HER!”
“HEY! THAT’S MINE!”
“YOU SAID! YOU SAID I COULD TAKE A TURN!”
Sound familiar?
There are so many sweet moments in parenting siblings. When they get along, when they share, when they teach each other things, when they help take care of each other, and when they make each other belly laugh? Amazing.
But you also know all too well the tough moments of parenting siblings, especially the fights. Maybe your kids are both explosive, taking out their feelings on each other. Maybe one is explosive, and one shuts down during conflict. Either way, you can see how it’s disrupting their sibling bond and your home.
Parents who have tried it all can find success with DBT for sibling conflict
Sometimes it feels like siblings can make an argument out of anything, or nothing at all. You’ve tried it all:
- Modeling good communication with them
- Encouraging them to get along
- Enacting consequences for fighting
- When you’re fed up with being a referee, you’ve tried letting them figure it out between themselves.
But you may be feeling stuck in what sometimes feels like a sibling war zone, and you want to do something to make your home—if not conflict-free—at least a constructive place when your kids disagree.
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) can provide you and your children with tools to manage interpersonal conflict. One of the main pillars of DBT, interpersonal effectiveness, encompasses a set of skills that are created to help children, teens, and adults manage emotional reactions during conflict through a balance of self-respect and respect for the other person.
The goal isn’t eliminating sibling conflict; it’s working through sibling conflict in a way that creates an effective result for everyone, while also maintaining the relationship.
Why do siblings fight?
Our sibling relationships are foundational in teaching us how to get along with others, even from an early age. If children don’t have solid guidance in how to manage interpersonal conflict effectively, sibling conflict can spiral into a cycle of resentment and fights. Even though it can feel like children’s arguments are frivolous, for kids, things like fairness and being treated like they matter are very serious.
Siblings may fight because of:
Invalidation
Ignoring, mocking, or belittling the feelings and needs of a sibling is invalidation, and it can feel crushingly upsetting. It can push a child to either ignore their own feelings and needs in conflict or to explode as a way to finally be heard.
Comparison
Comparing siblings (or siblings comparing themselves to each other), holding one up as “good” and the other as “bad”, hurts. It can feel like abandonment or rejection, which can feel unsafe and upsetting for a child who depends on belonging to survive. It can create resentment and stoke conflict for both siblings, making arguments about even the simplest things into intense battles.
Sensitivity to fairness
For emotionally sensitive children and teens, fairness is the same as respect, and unfairness can hurt more than you might expect. Little inequalities feel very big to children sensitive to fairness, escalating sibling conflicts when things don’t feel fair.
How can DBT interpersonal effectiveness skills help siblings de-escalate conflict?
DBT-C and DBT-A programs at Suffolk DBT are both designed to help children and teens manage emotional and behavioral dysregulation, supporting them with structured, DBT-based approaches to interpersonal conflict.
Instead of screaming and hitting, blaming and accusing, or giving in every time instead of asserting themselves, your child or teen can learn to balance managing their emotions with speaking their mind in a way that helps them get along with their siblings (and others!) throughout their lives.
GIVE de-escalates body language and tone to calm conflict down
GIVE is a great chance to remind your kids they can use their body language and tone, even when they disagree, to remind themselves and each other that, at the end of the day, they want to get along and they care about their sibling. Feeling like someone cares about you makes it easier to find a middle ground to agree on. To use GIVE, remind your kids:
- Be gentle. Speak softly, don’t hit or yell, and don’t use mean language.
- Show interest in their sibling by paying attention, actively listening, and not interrupting. Wait for their turn to talk.
- Validate their sibling’s point of view. Recognize that their feelings are coming from somewhere, and they matter too.
- Adopt an Easy Manner. Smile a little. Use some humor (without dismissing their sibling). Relax their body. Breathe easy.
FAST helps shy kids stand up for themselves and helps outgoing kids stay respectful
FAST is a DBT interpersonal effectiveness skill that helps your children stick up for themselves without exploding, exaggerating, or shutting down. To use FAST:
- Fair: Be fair to yourself and your sibling in what you say and do.
- (No) Apologies: Don’t over-apologize for wanting or needing something.
- Stick to your values: Only say or do things that line up with the person you want to be.
- Tell the truth: Don’t exaggerate, don’t accuse, stick to the facts.
DEAR MAN helps your kids hear each other and negotiate
DEAR MAN is a structure to use for conflict that helps each sibling feel heard, while sticking to their point. DEAR MAN is a step-by-step process your children can use when they disagree, which includes:
- Describing the situation in their own words
- Expressing how they feel about the situation
- Asserting their perspective and what they want to happen.
- Reinforcing the positive outcomes of things going their way
- Mindfully sticking to their point or overall goal; no changing the subject, no arguing about other things, no exaggerating, no yelling.
- Appearing confident by maintaining eye contact, using a confident voice, and not over-apologizing
- Negotiating. Listen to their sibling, and think about whether a compromise is possible.
Parental modeling can help kids use DBT for their own conflicts
While you coach your Long Island kids on how to use DBT interpersonal effectiveness skills, you can start to use them in your own life, so your children can see how conflict management can go when using DBT.
- Having a disagreement with your spouse? Try GIVE to keep your cool as you figure out your differences.
- Managing a work disagreement? At the dinner table, talk through how you’ll use FAST the next day to assert yourself while staying respectful.
- Is one of your adult siblings picking a fight about the holidays, responsibilities at home, or a family vacation? Try DEAR MAN to keep the conversation on track without escalating the hard feelings.
Suffolk DBT can help your family use DBT to reduce sibling conflict
Suffolk DBT proudly provides quality dialectical behavior therapy for families in NYC, Suffolk County, and Long Island who are struggling with managing sibling conflict. We welcome you to contact us today to get started on a calmer household where sibling conflict is handled with DBT skills that prioritize respect and effective communication.
Our experienced NYC counselors specialize in serving teens, children, adults, and college students struggling with emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and interpersonal dysregulation, and can guide you and your children in using dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skills and treatment to help you manage emotions and work through life’s challenges.
Frequently Asked Questions about DBT for Sibling Conflict
Don’t siblings always fight? I fought with my siblings. I thought that was normal?
Disagreeing with siblings is totally normal, and in fact, an important life lesson on how to interact with others. That said, ongoing fights without resolution aren’t effective or constructive interactions, and using interpersonal effectiveness skills, you can teach your children how to navigate conflict on their own.
DBT equips your children with skills they can use long-term to manage their sibling conflicts in an effective way, so the normal human experience of sibling fights can help them for the better.
My kids’ fights get pretty bad, sometimes violent. I’m not sure that interpersonal effectiveness is all they need to manage how they feel. Can DBT help in other ways?
Violent sibling fights need to be stopped as quickly as possible to prevent further injury or emotional damage.
Dialectical behavior therapy includes interpersonal effectiveness skills, along with mindfulness, emotional regulation, and distress tolerance skills to help children and teens manage their reactions to emotional overwhelm. This broad set of skills, along with individual counseling, group therapy to practice skills, on-call therapist support, and family support to incorporate DBT skills in the home, can help stop violent reactions to difficult emotions.
A comprehensive New York DBT program for children or adolescents, like those at Suffolk DBT, can help your child (and you) to prevent violent conflict in the home. Contact us today to get started.