Help!!!  I constantly hear things like "Mom, she's in my room again" and "Dad, she won't stop looking out of my window" or "Me first, me first, me first".  I hear that sibling conflict is normal and helpful to a child's development but I don't understand how!!!  Why does it happen and how can I help promote peace and harmony among my children?

Signed,
Desperate

Dear Desperate,

Yes.  Learning to cope with sibling disagreements and disputes can help children develop skills such as: 

• valuing another person's perspective 
• compromising and negotiating 
• controlling aggressive impulses

As useful as sibling conflict can be in teaching these skills, your family can only tolerate a certain amount of conflict, so it helps to keep it under control.  

Most brothers and sisters experience some degree of jealousy or competition which can flare into rivalry.  Conflicts among siblings can be affected by the individual characteristics of the children in the family. Iif one or more of them are fussy, easily bored, tense or easily frustrated conflicts can be more frequent. 

Recent research suggests that the way a family functions can affect sibling conflict.  If parents are able to model how to find solutions to daily problems that are respectful, productive and not aggressive, if there is an overall family understanding that physical aggression and name calling isn't acceptable, and if members frequently enjoy fun as a whole family, sibling rivalry may be lessened.

It is also of value to observe the interactions of siblings in the TV and movie images your child sees.  More and more, sibling conflict and disrespect seems to be the norm.  Monitoring and talking about what they see can be helpful.  There are real life consequences to violence and talking about a nonviolent solution to problems in a program or movie can be very helpful.

Experts suggest:

• Only get involved if there is a danger of physical harm. Even then, try to resolve the problem with your children not for them.  
• Separate your children until they are calm and have them return with at least one idea about how the conflict could have been avoided or resolved.
• Avoid putting the focus on "who was to blame"  It takes two to fight and anyone who is involved is partly responsible.
• Use a schedule to help with frequent squabbles over the same item such as TV.
• If fights between school-age children are frequent, consider weekly family meetings where you can reinforce your family rules about fighting and name calling and talk together about solutions to recurring problems. 

Parenting is the hardest job in the world!!
Signed,
Ms. Jane