Teen sibling rivalry

[tittletattle39]

Does anyone else struggle to have a positive family outing with their children because of sibling rivalry? I feel like every nice thing we do ends up with bickering and impatience at best and mocking and physical aggression at worst. I’ve tried every strategy under the sun but it feels impossible to get my children to be civil to each other for either an entire outing or for a prolonged stint of being in the same space as each other at home. It really gets me down. They are polar opposites in terms of personality and would never choose each other as friends in the outside world. I feel sad that they could be so close but instead they choose to go into battle with each other. They are 14 and 16, born 18 months apart. This is not a new problem and has been the case for as long as I can remember. Please tell me I’m not alone with this. I try to do things separately with them where this works but it just doesn’t work for lots of scenarios.

Mine were like this! They are adults now and have a nice relationship based on choosing to be in contact rather than it being a duty or habit. So hang on in there and keep being consistent and providing that structure. I did buy a large book about sibling rivalry which boiled down to ‘let them figure it out, tell them you know they have the skills and don’t be a referee, remove yourself from the game’. When things got really negative I said if they didn’t improve then one of them was going to have to read the book, that usually did the trick.