I’m the youngest of three. My sister, four years older, and I had almost no sibling rivalry. My brother, five years older, and I had pretty bad fights some of the time. We’re all pretty friendly right now.
I think what shocks me about my kids is that the fighting is worse than anything my brother and I ever did.
Great ideas…They triggered me to think of some more of my own.
Follow-up:
Since posting this thread things have gotten much better. I think the problem was that they had gone to separate camps for July. Each had a great time. Then they came home and went to a sports day camp together for two weeks, more my younger son’s domain. There was some competition for turf for a couple of weeks. Now they seem to have found their equilibrium and settled down.
Also, after reading the above suggestions Ms. Plan B and I upped the punishments a bit. We had been waiting for three strikes before giving them a five minute timeout. We started giving 10 minute timeouts for any physical abuse. Only had to give them about three of those to start seeing some change.
About the separate boarding schools…only if things return to the level of two weeks ago and stay there would we seriously consider that.
My little brother and I are vicious towards eachother. I don’t know how many fistfights we have gotten into. I know blood was drawn at least a few times. And we talk crap to each other all the time. “Dammit little brother, you ruin everything, just like you ruined our parents lives.” And a few weeks ago, “Come into my room again and I’ll slit your fucken throat.”
I know that we would do anything for each other. But until then, we are at each other’s throats.
I’m thinking that the problems we have is because for the longest time, we were referred to as, “The Boys.” We weren’t thought of as separate people, but as one. And that can get to a kid. We have different personalities. And being forced together only make our differences more appearent, and when parents don’t notice we’re different, things will blow up. With us, it has gotten better because he went to live with our dad.
My youngest brother and I (four years’ difference) fought mercilessly all through our childhoods. He had an insanely bad temper (he once kicked down the door to his bedroom when Dad threatened him with no TV for the night) and would scream until he literally turned blue.
Anyway, fists flew all the time. Blood was drawn. The emergency room was visited a time or two. There were stitches. A few times MammaHomie had to pull him off of me and he would be kicking and flailing so violently that he hurt her.
Today my brother and I are the best of friends. We have a respectful, adult relationship.
FWIW, I was listening to a Christian family counselor guy on the radio once a long time ago. A mother called and she was sobbing, saying that she feels like a failure as a mother, her adult years are ruined, blah blah blah, because her two sons fought all the time. The counselor guy was sympathetic, but basically told her that siblings fight, especially boys, and that deep down they love each other, and that they’ll likely grow to be decent men who get along fine. The counselor threw in a couple of caveats. Don’t encourage sibling rivalry (Why can’t you be more like your brother?); make sure neither of them have mental health issues (like, they torture puppies for sport); etc. But the bottom line is that siblings fighting, even physically, is normal and they’ll grow out of it.
HeyHomie, I had the same experience with my little brother, too. We’re also 4 years apart. We always played together, but there were a couple of years that I just hated him. When I was 11-13 and he was 7-9, he was a real asshole. A simple beating was never sufficient (the harder my mother spanked him with the wooden spoon, the harder he would laugh). I got so angry one day that I took one of those long seraded bread knives and chased him around the room with it, threatening to stab him. I never would have, but he made me angry enough to want to. During these years, my mother was beside herself as she watched us tear into each other. There was nothing she could do to make us get along.
But now, he’s one of my best friends and we get along great. He can still be a douchebag at times, but I still love him.
Those last three posts are great. Very reassuring that things will be OK.
I’m gonna unreassure you. 
I’m the oldest of 4 sibs, with 18 months on my middle brother, and the youngest two are 18 months apart.
Me and middle bro tore into each other for a decade. I had 4 stitches in my chin from being hit in the head with a bicycle. He went to the hospital several times with concussions, and for being choked into unconsciousness. As adults, we just don’t deal much with each other. Yeah, we’re acceptably pleasant to each other at family gatherings, but otherwise we never speak. At one point we went three years without talking, just 'cuz neither of us was around the other.
The youngest two are even worse. Their decade of battles culminated in my sister kicking the other brother through a plate glass coffee table. Neither talks to each other at all.
In each and every case, these fights started because neither parent was willing or able to help resolve a peaceful or reasonable solution to any dispute. (Why in hell should I be sent to my room if middle bro steals from me?)
It’ll be a PITA, but if they keep at it hammer and tongs you’ll have to enforce a detente.
That’s not so bad. The reassuring part is that the violence here has neer been that bad, and I can’t say the trend is getting worse. We’ve had a few more excellent days, so I’m thinkng that one post camp week was an exception, not the beginning of a cascade into hell.
I’m guessing that you’re not a parent of two or more now based on the suggestion that the parents should have resolved these disputes fairly. I can’t begin to tell you how impossible that is. Maybe I’ll start a separate thread on that once this one fades out.
And…what’s a PITA?
PITA-Pain In The Ass
I think you should ask yourself, if there are instances where the sibings are actively NICE to each other as well.
Siblings who constantly bicker, yet also stand by one-another, play together or help, joke or comfort each other, I’d say the problem is behavioural, not emotionally damaging.
My three year old brother and I constantly fought. There have been maybe *ten * instances, in our entire childhood, where my brother went through any trouble to be nice to me. One time he asked me to sit by his motorcycle to show me how he was mending it; another time he asked me if I wanted to ride on the motorcycle with him to the school we both went to. I rememebr countless times when my own friendly approaches to my brother were ridiculed or turned into a fight. There were many times when we ignored eachother or were just sort of civil, but the really nice times stand out because there were so incredible few of them. 
With the most reasonable and grown-up retrospect I can muster, I must say that it was a very bad situation, that did a lot of damage, both to me and him. He never learned to treat girls nicely, he has had some trouble with relationships as a result. I learned that it was normal to be treated in such a way and that I didn’t have much niceties to expect from other kids. For a long time as a kid, I actively avoided other kids, as a result.
I wished my parents would have taken sides and ended my brothers harrassment.
I asked my parents about it, a few years ago. My mother never noticed it because she was the oldest sibling and her fights with het broher and sister were (and still are) even worse; my father didn’t notice because he had been terrorized by his sister and he thought girls were the strong agressive party.
I’ve avoided my brother for as much as I could all my life. The last 8 years, we have grown a bit closer, and have visits with our SO’s and phone once every two months. But I’ve never truly forgiven him, and I feel I can’t say how much I still resent how he treated me. He wouldn’t understand, and the reason he wouldn’t understand is precisely the reason I can’t tell him.
Man I’m getting emotional just typing this.
My three year older brother :smack:
I’m glad you gave up on the “three strikes” method, all that does is give each child an opportunity to be naughty twice without getting in trouble. I have seen brothers, after the count of one, frantically making sure they hit their brother again, just because they know they can.
Please don’t ever consider sending just one of them away. I can’t bear to think of the message that would send to the one who is made to go.
At their current age, they can stand longer timeouts if you need administer them.
I almost fell off the porch the other night when my seventeen year old granddaughter said that she is excited about being in high school with her fourteen year old sister. At first I assumed that it was just for the purpose of tormenting her. But somewhere along the way they have become good friends. It is to weep!
Not yet, but it’ll happen. However I do know of cases involving friends’ children where one kid is obviously honest while the other is a sick and twisted liar, the parents know it, the parents see it in action, and yet they still continue to punish both children.
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How bad was this verbal abuse? I have a brother 2 years younger than me, and I verbally abuse him a lot. My Mom tells me to use words, because otherwise it would be fists for that disrespectful waste of air.
I think it is because he is just an easy target for my rage. I would come home feeling worthless because of something that happened in school (High School is hell you know) and he would not notice. Rightfully so, because I didn’t want anyone to notice. He would go on business as usual not giving a damn about my problem (cause he did not know I had one) and acting foolish. Foolish because home is the one place you can do that. When I snapped, it was usually bad for him. Too bad, he should of stayed away.
I did not hate him, I was mad at something else. So the next day everything would be normal.
BTW, I’m 18 and go to college now. Less upset now, so there is less violence in the house.
On the school thing – does one of them want to go away to school? In that case, it might not be such a bad thing. My brother and I were terrible children, fighting all the time (cats and dogs fighting, verbal, physical, at least one trip to the ER), and my parents played on our different interests to get us into different schools (not boarding schools, however). We both wanted to go to the schools we attended. He stayed in Catholic school, mostly for the sports program, and I opted for the public high school, mostly for the drama and arts clubs. Of course, my parents made sure the academics were fine in both schools. I’m not sure what they would have done if we had wanted to go to the same school, but they were pretty sneaky in encouraging us on the two schools without making it seem like it was some sort of punishment. Once we were established in two schools, simply having different schedules, activities, and friends removed a lot of the potential for conflicts.
Oh, the activities. A lot of our conflicts resulted from one of us being forced into an activity where the other really shined. I have a lot of sympathy for my parents on this one, it’s bad enough taking kids to one afterschool activity, let alone two. I cried my way through sports camp, he still talks about the trauma he experienced in taking piano lessons even though it was clear he had no musical abilities at all. As we got older, and became able to get ourselves to and from activities without depending mom and dad to drive us around, the emotional relief was palpable. This is something that my parents say they would have done differently – letting us opt in or opt out of things earlier based on our interests and abilities instead of pairing us up because it was more convenient for the car pool.
Heh, my mom just called while I was typing, so I mentioned this to her, and she pointed out that the only thing we continued to HAVE to do together was swimming lessons, because it’s important for all kids to know how to swim (despite me crying through the swimming lessons as well). So there’s some advice from my mom. 
We’re one of the happy ending stories, we’re very companionable now, even though we still have very different interests and lifestyles. We don’t live in the same area, but we talk on the phone and email all the time (we’re in our 30s now). The worst thing we do is pretend to bicker at family events to get our parents riled up, then we bust out laughing. Yeah, we’re not real mature.
That reminds me of my brother, too. My parents were unusual (“hippies"in the opinion of our rather square neigborhood”) and my brother desperately wanted to fit in in the schoolyard. He felt that our parents and me (I was attending the same elementary school, three grades lower) made his attempts at fitting in an uphill battle, even thoug we had an implicit agreement that I wasn’t to acknowledge him in school, so he could pretend I wasn’t his sister.
He has told me a few times that his harrassing me was an attempt to punish me for being a “weird” (dreamy, smart, nerdy) kid, as well as an outlet for his frustration. His ridiculing of me was a his attempt to make me more “normal”.
Actually, my younger one would probably consider it a treat - and not in a totally bad way. Lots of sports at these schools, no parents bossing you around, could be fun.
But as I said before, it was probably just a perfect storm of a bad week. As of today the new winning streak continues. If there is any boarding school in the future it will be for other reasons.
Here’s a challenge: You’re taking two boys, ages 5 and 7, to school in the morning. Each of them got a “gold” coin over the weekend. The 5 year old has “his” coin with him. As we get close to the bus stop the 7 year old says: “That’s my coin, give it to me!” The bus is coming. If we miss it, they’re late for school, I’m late for work. The fighting escalates. The 7 year old is genuinely aggrieved. The 5 year old is genuinely aggreived. Quick! You have two nanoseconds to come up with solution.
In all fairness, it’s not always that difficult. The pleasure and satisfaction has far outweighed the grief, for me at least. Hope you’re saying the same after you have a few.
As a twin, the kind of rivalry I had with my sister was–IMHO–different than most sibling rivalries. We fought all the time, especially right before we moved out of the apartment we shared in college. But we were also best friends. We could have a knock-down, drag fight one minute and the next minute we’d be friends again.
Growing up, our mother (we never fought around Daddy) was constantly nagging at us to stop fighting. Sometimes we’d actually be fighting, but other times we’d just be having mean fun with one another. It would annoy us when she couldn’t tell the difference.
I believe that taking one out of the house will do more harm to the brotherhood relationship than good. Sharing space and attention with someone is a learning experience.