Fighting between teen siblings

[lifesrichpageant]

DS1 and DS2 are close in age and DS1 has been winding up DS2 since toddlerhood. It is tedious at best and enraging at worst. DS2 is now old/big/strong enough to fight back. It is relentless. Can anyone give me hope that it won't be this way forever? Can they get a nice adult relationship going later in life?

bump

Are they both now teens ?

you should have dealt with this when it started.

sounds like they actually hate each other now. So not good for a friendship as adults.
No idea how you fix it now with teenagers

I think the above post is really harsh. I know of plenty of siblings who fought as teenagers and have a happy, well-adjusted adult relationship now. (My sister is one of my closest friends and would also be my 3am crisis call as an adult, and we did our fair share of fighting and disliking each other.) I'm not saying it's ideal, but I think it happens frequently enough that jumping to the conclusion that they hate each other isn't necessarily the case.

I have three teens at the moment, and two of them have a particularly tempestuous relationship. They're quite different types of people. I definitely don't have the answers sadly, but some things I/we are doing which I think are helping are:

1. stay out of it as much as possible. Obviously not if someone is getting hurt/bullied. I really dislike a lot of the bickering my kids do, but they don't actually mind it a lot of the time.
2. try not to get too caught up in your own feelings of wanting them to be close. It'd be nice if they are, and we all hope it happens for our kids when they grow up, but it might or it might not, and it won't actually have that much to do with you as a parent.
3. if I think one of them is being especially out of order to the other or has overstepped, I'll try to say that in a fairly matter-of-fact way. Getting emotionally involved doesn't help, but I think it's important for both of them to hear that you don't think their behaviour is OK.
4. acknowledge that the relationship is difficult at the moment. And that they may not be close when they're adults and that will be their choice.
5. stay well back when they're getting on well. My two had a really happy time doing a load of cooking together recently. It was completely spontaneous and not very convenient, but I let it run and was glad I did.

I don't think any of that is very helpful or groundbreaking. I think, for me, just stepping back and accepting that it's their relationship to figure out has been really important for my own feelings. Good luck with it all.

@danesch thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful post. It helped me a lot. I agree with you that their future relationship is ultimately up to them. I do try and let them get on with it/sort it out themselves but once in a while I wonder if I should intervene more. And yes, once in a while I hear them laughing hysterically and playing FIFA or singing silly songs and I try and make myself scarce at those moments!! Thank you for sharing, these teen years are magical and trying at the same time. Good to know I am not alone.

I have 3 teen boys. The younger two are closer in age and have always driven each other mad and fought quite a lot. They don’t really fight with the older one but they aren’t so close to him. Now they are older teens they are fighting less (although they still drive each other mad at times) and are doing a lot more together and get on really well most of the time. I think fighting as they did was partly because they are close to each other. I tried to ignore/leave them to it mostly unless someone was likely to get hurt (they don’t seem to really intend to do physical damage to each other). Most of the time it didn’t really seem to help when I intervened so I think you’re doing the right thing and agree with @Danesch.

@lilyfire thank you! Sometimes parenting is so wearying that you just need to hear from someone else that there is hope and a light at the end of the tunnel. I will continue to sit on my hands and keep my mouth shut as much as possible :-)

Couple of fighting DCs here too, OP. DS15, dd12. I find it quite depressing especially as they used to get on so well when younger! Good advice above though, the older mine get the more I start to see that they are going to have to take responsibility for themselves - I can't always fix things for them.

What @danesch said.

My older two fought and wound each other up throughout childhood and teens until they got to about 16 and 18.
They are the best of friends now as adults and voluntarily spend the day together once every few months (maybe hiking or something) just to spend time together. In between they sometimes hang out to watch a film, or cook for one another, or go out for the evening together. They help one another out (eg, with decorating where one now lives) and just really get along well, and introduce each other to partners and they all spend time together.

The younger one got on well with the oldest, but not the middle one as a child and into teens. But they both look out for the youngest now, and go out of their way to drive them places, help them out with money things, work things, just life stuff generally. Still some 'teasing' but underneath there is a real warmth and I know they would all do whatever they could to support either of the others.

Just giving you hope!

I have 13 year twin Ds’s and they are currently at each other’s throats from morning until night.

I honestly think it’s their hormones changing and very different personalities, as well as being with each other 24/7.
Whilst I was at work this evening I had a call off of ds2 as ds1 was screaming at him as he couldn’t find his phone, I ended up having to leave work as I didn’t want to come home to a bloodbath.

Me and my brother also used to go at each other hammers and tongs when we were younger, my mum couldn’t leave us alone for longer than 10 minutes without a war ensuing 😂 we are fairly close now, even though he has taken a bad path in life I wouldn’t want to see him hurt or in pain and most definitely don’t hate, so no advice from me just some solidarity.

My sister and I argued constantly when we were younger -hair pulling scrapping fights and howling crying you're the person I hate most in the world emotional and everything in-between! We are complete opposites and she's quite a hard person to get on with - not me being subjective -she had similar arguments with our parents, other siblings, and pretty every one of her friends and partners whereas she's the only person that's ever driven me to such extremes!.

As soon as we stopped living together it all stopped and we get on really well now.

Meanwhile my close friend, who was incredibly close, best friends, inseparable with her sister growing up now no longer speaks to her because said sister slept with her boyfriend (and then married him!) when they were in their 20s.

So from that very limited anecdata I don't think childhood closeness is a definite indicator of an adult sibling relationship!

Another thought process . My two siblings, m and f , one older one younger , are quite by nature and growing up we were close in a way and never argued . But now we are much older , we don’t really have a close bond . Sure we see each other sometimes but no real connection so to speak . So arguing siblings can go the other way , best of friends when older . You just never know !

Ahhhhh thanks for these replies! Very hopeful!

Me (f) and my 2y older brother fought pretty much non-stop throughout our childhood and into our late teens there were rare reprieves. He then went away to uni and it all changed after that. Now we're quite close, hang out a lot and haven't seriously argued in about 10+ years.