In a shouty rut with sibling squabbles

[BogstandardBelle]

Help me oh wiser ones!

DS1 and I have got into a crappy pattern of dealing with him being horrible to his little brother, and I need some alternatives / different perspectives.

DS1 is 11-going-on-15 and DS2 is 8. DS1 is, by nature, fairly dramatic, impulsive, argumentative, moody and emotional - you always know how he's feeling. He's definitely moving into puberty with moods up and down all over the place. DS2 is shy, quiet, considered and pretty much the opposite in many ways.

The pattern we've got into is this:

DS1 gets annoyed with something DS2 is doing - eating too loudly, liking football, breathing too loudly, whatever. If I'm not in the room, he's (I am sure) fairly robust in telling DS2 to stop - he'll mimic him, boss him, etc to the point that DS2 gets upset and cries. At which point I tend to storm in and get very cross with DS1 for "making his little brother cry". DS1s reasons for being annoyed with DS2 seem (to me) to be so petty. I tell him off for being so mean, he argues back. He uses very dramatic, absolute language ("he does this every single time! (he doesn't) You always take his side! (I don't) You love him more! (not true)) and then stomps off in a huff. Often stopping for a last swipe at DS2 ("you're the worst brother in the world!!")..so I haul him back and the arguing starts again. It's horrible, it leads to nothing but bad feeling on both sides, and it isn't teaching him anything positive.

I've lost perspective on this. I don't know if I am over-reacting (and this is just what siblings do - my sister and I fought like cat and dog and are really good friends now, but I'm the oldest so I never really saw her perspective of it) or under-reacting. I leap to defend "poor little" DS2 when I find him crying because his brother has been mean. But my cack-handed attempts to tell DS1 off leave us shouting at each other and he blames DS2 even more after as "it's all his fault".

Advice welcome.

Ha, no advice, but you are not alone. Dd1 was annoyed with dd2 at breakfast yesterday, for eating too loudly!, (dd1 was trying to read a book at the table, after finishing her breakfast), which is unreasonable - if she wants quiet, she should be in her room. So then as soon as dd2 sees an opportunity to 'get her back' she will of course do that, even hours later, which results in ongoing bickering, all the time. Sometimes I intervene, but a lot of times I let them argue it out. Dd2 hit her yesterday, but dd1 called her 'lazy' first! Arghhh its horrible.

Thank you for saving me the trouble of writing it all out. Different age gap but seriously similar. Like the older one resents the younger one. Younger one is full on, gets fair share of tellings off. I want to keep calm and not go mad. Especially in the mornings.

Mornings and bedtimes are the worst! And it blows up so quickly that I walk in quickly and just react - which doesn't help. I do see red when I see DS2 upset. But DS1 is so mean at times!

Well I'm glad I am not alone. I've got a copy of Sibling Rivalry on the way... I liked How to Talk etc, but I think DS1 now moves too quickly into high level drama for those tricks to work any more!

Bedtimes aren’t too bad as I tend to get 10yo DS occupied after he’s got ready first.
Not thought of a sibling book. Will investigate.
I’m the youngest too and my brother was awful so I may over react...
10yo DS is getting harder to manage even when his sibling is out of the way. A lot of drama over reacting very sensitive. I’m trying to stay cheerful but it’s upsetting isn’t it.

Joining in solidarity rather than with any advice.

I keep wavering between stepping back (I’m sure I’ve read it’s good to let siblings work out squabbles themselves) and trying to nip things in the bud by stepping in early and laying down rules (‘we don’t insult each other’, ‘no shouting or there’ll be no tv’ etc)...

I remember reading Sibling Rivalry when I was pregnant with DC2 and just thinking ‘oh my god, there are so many tiny ways I’m going to fuck my children up!’ . Don’t get me wrong, it is a good book, but it does show you how many ways people can be hurt by sibling relationships...

Whenever I think about my kids fighting I conclude they would probably all benefit from one on one time with parents - to kind of balance out the fighting and feeling less favoured etc - but I’m pretty bad at putting that into practice so far so not sure if this strategy will actually have any effect.

It definitely doesn’t help when I’m stressed already then leap into an argument because they’re screeching and I can’t bear it - for this reason whilst I’d like to encourage them to do lots of interesting things after school I actually try and push them into watching different tv/screens in different rooms just whilst I cook dinner so I don’t get that panicked feeling of shrieks from next door whilst all the pots and pans need to be dealt with and then just going into shouting at everyone mode.

Fist bump in solidarity. Same age gap here (although mine are 10 and just turned 7). I spend my time acting as a referee, and if they are both in the house I cannot be out of the room they are in for more than 5 minutes before one or other starts shouting and pushing at the other.

Mornings are bad, although I have noticed that if I am still upstairs getting ready it is generally fine, when I get downstairs it really starts. We do quite a few activities after school, mostly because it breaks up the time and if we are busy with something, there is less time for fighting. Bedtimes are a complete flash point here though, some nights I could just sit down and cry. I don't know why going to bed has to become such a nightmare. It doesn't help that they share a room, I have been saying for the last year that I will clear out the box room for DC2 but it hasn't happened. My big ambition for the next few weeks is to get it cleared for decorating over the next bank holiday weekend.

I am pretty convinced DC1 has never completely got over DC2 being born (plus we were in hospital for 5 days after the birth, and I had never been away from DC1 for more than a few hours before that), although in public DC1 is massively protective of DC2.

I just checked on Amazon, turns out I bought the Sibling Rivalry book years ago. I have no idea where it might be, so have just repurchased it for Kindle and will read it over the weekend.

I am pretty convinced DC1 has never completely got over DC2 being born (plus we were in hospital for 5 days after the birth, and I had never been away from DC1 for more than a few hours before that), although in public DC1 is massively protective of DC2.

Same here, including being in hospital for 5 days after DS2 was born. Have you ever seen the episode of Frasier where he and Niles are having a big fight and Frasier eventually shouts "You stole my mother!!!" That's definitely part of it.

It doesn't help that they are such different personality types. I'm sure that if they weren't brothers, they wouldn't be friends. Not that I'm trying to make them be best friends - just get along well enough that they can be in the same room (they share a bedroom too - and there's nothing we can do about that).

Don’t get me wrong, it is a good book, but it does show you how many ways people can be hurt by sibling relationships... This is very much on my mind. My sister has had very fragile self-esteem and periods of depression etc. Nature or nurture... probably a bit of both and I can't help thinking that having a big sister be horrible to her at times was part of the negative "nurture" for a sensitive child. DS2 is very quiet and I'm trying to teach him to be a bit more robust, but DS1 just runs roughshod over him.

I have had my shouting fits about this too but often I just say ‘I don’t want to know. Sort it out yourselves’
When I see dd being mean though, I will call her out on it. I’ve done the ‘I don’t think it’s nice to live in a family where people are mean to each other. Do you? Shall we all be mean to each other and live as a horrible family??!’ I’ll cite some ideas of how we could all be mean to each other etc. Seems to work sometimes.

Make sure you get time with each of them and be tactile too. I think they still need a lot of hugs at that age.
Also, do you all laugh together? Watch a film together?
Talk at dinner about how things are for them individually.
Doing little things can help build connections.

.At which point I tend to storm in and get very cross with DS1 for "making his little brother cry"

It's not always the one who's crying that is the victim. He could have goaded his older brother to retaliate then sat back in tears to watch his brother be punished.

My younger sister always did that.

My mum had zero tolerance for any physical violence or shouting and would punish immediately for that, regardless of provocation. Other than that she mostly refused to get involved. It was a pretty good system really.