Sibling issues - help/advice before I lose it today

[zebrarobot]

I have 2 ds (8 and 4) and sometimes they get on and everything is fine but mostly, 85% of the time, they don't get on.
Let me preface all of this by saying of course I love them both to death but days like today I just want to run away and never come back.

The main problem is that 8yo cannot see his 4.5yo brother as anything more than a little baby/toddler who is going to destroy all his things.However if we went to softplay or the park he would happily play with kids of that age as he would with other friends.
He seems to see his brother as a threat which is a shame because 4yo is lovely and has such a kind heart and literally sees 8yo as his idol - wants to be just like him. 8yo dismisses 4yo ideas and tries to take over and be the boss.

When they do "play" together its more just going into 4yo's room and smashing/throwing teddies or blocks around, jumping around and end up fighting with each other and someone gets hurt. They just cannot (mostly due to 8yo taking over ) sit and do a puzzle or lego or play with blocks/trains etc, yet 8yo again happily does this with his 5yo cousin.

I treat them both the same, there is no favouritism here. 8yo is very mature and wise beyond his years and seems to understand when I explain things to him but yet every time they go and try to play all hell breaks loose. Doesn't matter if it's inside, outside, in one or the other's room, if it's a made up game or a board game, or an activity i've set up.

I feel at 8 and 4 i shouldn't need to dread the weekends and the thought of constantly refereeing them. I spend one on one time equally with both of them to make sure no one is feeling left out, and individually they are both amazing wonderful kids. Neither of them have any issues at school or nursery with their own friends.

Is this just sibling rivalry? Does anyone have any advice on how to improve things? I'm dreading 2 weeks off at Christmas with this behaviour if it keeps going.

If it's relevant I am more of a "gentle" parent as in - we have firm boundaries but I will not shout/scream or use time out etc. Usually if it kicks off I will allow them time to calm down separately. And then all come back together, talk things through - what happened/how each person felt/what they should do next time similar happens then usually say sorry/have a cuddle or something then move on. We don't really do punishments or removing privileges but wondering now if I need to be stricter and if so, how to do this?

How does everyone else deal with this?

Imo your 8 yo does need consequences for bullying his sibling... Def not precious but fun fighting is a no no for me.

@Santahatesbraisedcabbage

Imo your 8 yo does need consequences for bullying his sibling... Def not precious but fun fighting is a no no for me.

I agree probably, although it's not always physical. Sometimes it's just an outright rejection, like 4yo isn't worth playing with.

Eg 4yo will say .. do you want to play x with me? And 8yo will literally just say no and it breaks the wee ones heart. When I ask why he doesnt want to play he will say "because he will wreck my room/ mess up my lego/ he doesnt know the rules" etc .. his excuses always elude to 4yo going to wreck everything, which he doesnt! When they do go to play it ends up just a bit carry on, jumping around, throwing stuff, trashing the room and then eventually someone ends up hurt.

Any ideas of suitable consequences?

*allude to

Just to add, the main issue really seems to be the thought that 8yo feels 4yo is somehow not good enough to play with, despite happily playing the same games/ doing the same activities with other kids the same age - family and friends. Even strangers in the park. But never with the same bickering, arguing etc as when its his brother.

My dad says its just normal sibling rivalry but surely they should be able to get on at least some of the time?!

I'm afraid I just wouldn't tolerate it.

I would ask the 8 yo to ask how je thinks the constant rejection makes the 4 to feel? And how can the 4 yo change his opinion of him if he doesn't give him a chance? And is that fair? And how would the 8 yo feel in a similar situation?

I wouldn't use consequences as much as expectations.

@SwumMum

I'm afraid I just wouldn't tolerate it.

I would ask the 8 yo to ask how je thinks the constant rejection makes the 4 to feel? And how can the 4 yo change his opinion of him if he doesn't give him a chance? And is that fair? And how would the 8 yo feel in a similar situation?

I wouldn't use consequences as much as expectations.

Thank you. This sounds like the conversations we have alot of the time and as i said, he seems to take it in, can answer all the right things.. but same thing will undoubtedly happen next time.

So what do i do?

It sounds like you're already way ahead of thing, but one thought that might be useful is that maybe it's unfair to expect that they could play together. I know as parents we always have this vision of siblings that are inseparable, but in reality they are people with their own thoughts about it, and as adults, no one forces us to get on with particular other people.
Maybe worth focusing more on them being allowed to not want to play together.And if the younger one feels rejected, that's not the older one's fault, they are allowed to not want to play with someone else.
If the older one is struggling to deal with a situation it's good if they feel able to say, no more, and take themselves away for some me time, without that being treated as a bad thing. As an adult, many of us could do with being able to say no when we don't feel able to socialise.
It does sound tough though, i don't think that's a full solution. But it will likely change as they get older.

8 year olds and 4 year olds can be very different and it sounds like when the 8 year old doesn't want to play you need to find ways to distract the 4 year old and give the 8 year old some space. You can't force them together when one isn't in the mood, it's not realistic. I think you need to separate bullying behaviour from the simply not wanting to play.

Thank you @johnd2 and @MoreAloneTime

I agree. I dont force them to play and explain to both they are allowed to say no or want to play on their own sometimes. I guess I just sort of thought it would be nice if he could say yes sometimes.
But I also am not raising a people pleaser and wouldn't expect him to say yes every time.

I think the thought of siblings automatically being friends is true, that's what I had in my head. But maybe I need to accept that they just aren't. Hopefully as they grow older they might get on better. But atm day to day is tough. We have a baby dd as well and they both dote on her, they dont see her as a threat I guess.

I've recently introduced sticker charts which are working really well to get my 6 year old twins playing together nicely. 5 stickers and they get a treat, and I'm sprinkling those stickers like confetti id set up a game, and say if they play together nicely without fighting for 15 minutes they get a sticker. Keep the games short and sweet and referee them to begin with. But at 4 and 8 they're into different things and different developmental levels. It's quite a big age gap. My niece and nephew are 5 years apart and they never really get on either. The 8yo might be getting frustrated with the 4yo not being able to do or understand things the same way he can. Not really his fault, he's 8.

Your 8 year old is still a very young child and is absolutely not responsible for his younger brother's happiness!

As the oldest and a monther of 3 now teens and pre teens I think you're actually setting the oldest up to resent his brother.

You say there's no favouritism but you absolutely are putting parental/ care giver responsibility onto an 8 year old.

My parents did this - when my sibling was 4 and I was 6 I had to understand that she was only little and put her needs before mine, let her join in when I had a friend over, let her play with my toys, not complain or retaliate if she broke my things or hit me in a temper, and if I didn't want to play with her I'd be emotionally blackmailed into doing so.

The thing is the story was exactly the same when she was 6, and when she was 8, amd when she was 10 - by which point I was only allowed to go into town to meet my friends if I took her with me, because it wasn't nice to exclude her, she only wanted to be with me, I was being selfish wanting to do things without her etc. I even got called selfish for reading if she wanted me to entertain her.

I'm pretty sure my parents resented me not carrying the load of entertaining my sister, and thought having more than one child meant they'd have very little to do aside from feed, clothe and discipline, but the older one should not be made the younger one's emotional keeper/ entertainer!

With my own children I've always been absolutely clear that they never have to play together. I kept younger ones entertained myself when older ones didn't want them involved. We had a rule from toddlerhood on that no child goes into a sibling's room without being expressly invited and nobody ever has to play together if they'd rather be alone or if they had friends over.

It was harder work but the emotions and entertainment of my children are my responsibility not their siblings.

I genuinely believe that not being emotionally blackmailed and shamed into taking responsibility for younger siblings emotions is why they're all really close and barely ever fight now at 16, 14 and 10.

The middle one started seeking out the youngest as an equal playmate when they were about 5.5 and 9 - before that all 3 often played together led by the eldest, or the older two played together and I did activities with the youngest to keep him out of their hair.

Now they're thick as thieves and inseparable, but they weren't at 4 and 8. They didn't fight or bicker, but a 4 year old isn't on an 8 year old's level. They loved each other but the older one regarded the younger more like a puppy than a friend back then.

Don't make your 8 year old little boy responsible for a 4 year old's emotions. Not wanting to play with him is not bullying. Entertaining the little one is your job. You can set up a bad relationship for life if you carry on putting emotional responsibility for a small child into another still fairly small old child.

If the elder one is bullying the younger is it because he's being made to play with him when he doesn't want to?

I have a 4 and 8 year old but mine are girls. Like your boys, 85% of the time they hate each other. One won’t play with the other, ones playing the game wrong, ones got something of the others. The elder one tries to take over games and as soon as the youngest asserts herself the elder one immediately throws a strop and shouts “I’m not playing then!” Or “if you don’t do X I won’t do Y”

When they do manage to play nicely it’s wonderful to see.

The 8 year old dotes on her cousin who is the same age as her younger sister, and she’s so sweet and lovely to DD’s friends when they’ve been on play dates, it’s just her sister she cannot be nice too and the little one is the worlds worst for winding her sister up.

I have no advice as nothing we seem to do seems to make a difference to how they behave with each other!

Have a third child. My older 2 (age 7 and 4) have really united against the common enemy of their 2 year old brother!

DS1 and DS2 get on well and play together well most of the time but we have the same problems with DS1 making the rules and storming off when DS2 asserts himself. In the end we gave DS2 a popular toy in our house so DS1 has to play nicely with his younger sibling if he wants to play with the toy too. It worked really well as he would try to take over, storm off and then come back after having a think with a much better attitude and prepared to compromise which has helped with the rest of their interactions.

DS2 is the one in our house that sometimes needs to be by himself and we've encouraged DS1 to not feel rejected and take it personally but to think about something he might like to do by himself (or with DS3 or an available parent if that's an option).