Stop Sibling Fights Fast (Scripts That Actually Work)

It's often because those needs aren't being met. Never let stuff become a a point of conflict in a relationship. We want long-term lasting results, permanent results, we have to focus on the cause. If you're going to choose to be bothered by small things, how often will you be bothered? I.e. generally start with validation. Who do you want to be? What kind of person do you want to be? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. We're your host, Greg and Rachel Denning. trying to we're trying to take all that we've learned with working with thousands of families across all kinds of continents and give you the stuff that just works. We are trying to get more specific with some of the actual details like on the dayto-day what does this look like? How does this feel? What do I say? And so, especially today, that's something we're going to go through. We're we're literally going to give you scripts for one of the biggest problems that parents complain to us about. So even as we talk about these things, we want to continue to remind you as we often do because that's what we focus on is that we cannot only give attention to symptom management, especially if we want long-term lasting results, permanent results. We have to focus on the cause, the underlying causes, and on healing wounds or fixing broken bones instead of just putting band-aids on things or giving some medication that you're like, "Well, that's great. It might be a temporary fix, but it's not a long-term solution. Yes, we're going to give you some ways to handle specific situations, but the goal always is let's get rid of the infection. Exactly. Let's really heal the issues because then that's when you get to a place where we are now where most of the time we're not dealing with the symptoms because we're all healthy. We're all mentally, emotionally strong. So, there's very little conflict. There's very little if no fighting. You know, it's a good place to be because as a family, we feel happy every single day. We feel connected every single day. There's not the irritations, frustrations, annoyances of many life, many in family life. And so, like, it's fun. It's it's exciting. It's wonderful. It's like you love being with your family because it's a good place to be where you actually feel good with each other. Okay, let's get into some of them. First one, she took my toy or they're playing a game and they're fighting over the who's winning, who's losing the toy. It's escalating. Let's do stuff in space first. You touched my thing. You took my toy. And this goes from toddlers to teens, right? Like, oh, you touched my shirt or you moved my thing. You picked up my Legos or you touched stuff on my bed. Playing with my volleyball. I didn't say you could play with my vol. Why are you touching my stuff? Right? And naturally, humans are are very possessive and it starts with kids like this is mine and and they want to hold on to things and they want to control things and they want to have space and it's the the desire we have to have some control and and to have possession, right? So, our approach uh from the very beginning was unique, but it worked like a champ. I wanted our kids to know that stuff is just stuff. And I wanted them to keep it in proper perspective that if if we lose it all, it's still just stuff. In fact, when our kids were young, we did lose everything financially, right? Like and we lived minimalists, like minimalists. And we're like, okay, we yeah, we came down to fullon minimalism. And it was it was a really great learning, really great experience for all of us. And it and it taught us like, okay, so you know, you have all the material things, the stuff and things, whatever. It's just stuff like the things that really matter the relationship, the love, the health, the, you know, good good mental, emotional health, spiritual health, you know, our our family, those are all the things that matter the most. Stuff is just stuff. It can be replaced. Never let stuff become a a point of conflict in a relationship. Right? So, okay, but say that it's happening right now. And again this is this is why it is challenging in in this space here is because the response you give is going to depend on like I already said the age and maturity of your child. That's why when in our extraordinary parent mentoring method, we're separating into cohorts so that we can talk to parents of like, okay, this age of children, like the next cohort we're doing is 5 to 14 because the way you talk to them is going to be different than your teenagers and different than your younger children. But let's have a scenario. Let's say it's like a six a five and 8-year-old was one of the things we received. What would you specifically say in that situation when it touch like, "Hey, come here. come here for a second. And they're and they're real fired up, right? They're emotionally like, "No, but he touched, you know, he broke the thing I was just building." And I'm like, "Oh, that's that's tough." So, I'm not dismissing their feelings either. I'm like, "Yeah, that's really You're validating feelings." It's like, "Oh, he did. That's what little boys do." And they break those things. Okay, come here. And and so we talk through it and I'm I want to put it in perspective. Very often, this is what I did. And man, it would work. So again, use it tactfully. I'm like, guys, if if this is causing fighting, if this toy right here, say it's a stuffed animal, but I want it. And no, it's my turn. I'm like, this is not near as important as the two of you, and I love you both. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this stuffed animal, and I'm just going to get rid of it. It's gone cuz and and again, I'm I'm soft. I'm gentle. It's playful. I'm like, I never want you guys to fight. your kids already know your personality that you would tease them like that playful and but then I would do things I'm like I'm like it's not it's not worth it you guys if this is going to be a source of fighting we we're just better off without it and so I would open the window and just toss like it's gone and they're like and all I did was throw it on the lawn right but it's a pattern interrupt and it was a reminder like hey it's it's never worth it guys come on I'm serious and then then it would probably be something of like well I'll go get it if you can play with it without fighting. Oh, they can go get it. Like, oh, if you get it, hold on. Only if you make agreement like you're not going to fight anymore and we're look what what could be different. How can you guys work this out? They're like, well, she can take it first and I'll take it next and I'll play with the bunny and she can play with the cat. And then I would say something like, "Would you like me to set a timer for that?" You know, especially if they came up with a time. So, in that scenario, one, you're validating you're doing a pattern interrupt in a playful kind of crazy way. in perspective and then you're putting it in perspective like your relationship is more important than this toy. Think think about that listeners. Like it's it's so powerful. If I teach the principle in a playful, fun, calm way, it's going to land versus I go over there, you knock this crap off. I hate it when you guys are fighting. This is ridiculous. I'm throwing all your crap away. I'm going to get rid of everything cuz I'm so sick of you fighting. Yes. That's what dads are doing all the time. Like, and some people might say, "Well, it's the same thing. you're taking the toy. Well, no, it's not the same. The way you present it, the way you handle it, the tone is all very different and it has a different impact. Yeah. So, just a couple things that are similar, but I would do. So, I generally start with validation. So, if one of them is so upset that they're yelling out, they took my toy or she did this, then I start by validating. I'm going to be like, wow, that's frustrating. Oh, that's so rude. I'm validating what they're feeling so they know right away. Not that and my kids know this already because I've done it enough. Not that I'm picking sides, but I'm validating the emotion they're feeling in that moment. Right. And importantly, you're not looking at the quote guilty kid with the eye like it's so rude. Yeah. I'm not It's more like just a statement of reality like that's rude. It's not nice. It's not nice, right? Which they already know. But then I also will again I'm going over to them. I'm touching one or both of them. And then I'll say something like, "Did you take it or did you ask for it?" And they'll be like, "Well, I just took it." And they're usually because they're in the heat of the moment, they're going to be like, "Well, but this this and I did this." And and they're trying to justify their position is like they're fired up and they they have reasons. Yeah. They have their reasons, but I'll I'll stick to the main core. Like I like I don't get off in the tangent. I'm not going to talk about all the details. I'm simply going to stick to the the principle. Like if you want something from someone, the polite thing to do is to ask. So give it back and then ask. And if she's nice, she'll let you use it. If not, you're going to have to deal with it cuz that's life. So I'm teaching the underlying principle of manners and interaction and how you, you know, you have to have some diplomacy. I'll walk through it. I'm like, hm, let's try, let me try that. If I came up to you and I said, can I have that now, please? How would you respond to that? And so we kind of then start doing this roleplaying of like let's see what this actually looks like in the real world and do you think that's actually going to work? So I'm asking questions. I'm giving examples. We're roleplaying and we're helping ultimately to understand how to interact with another human being around stuff around possessing things. And so essentially what you're trying to do is teach them the skills while not while not discounting their feelings because their feelings are real and hearing their reasons and then going back to the main points. Say I get that. That makes sense. I understand. But still, if we're going to be nice people in a family, we have to interact with each other in certain ways. Two things we've always done that are absolute game changers. So if you're taking notes, you're paying attention, like write this stuff down. So I I would say superpower number one is intervene when it's small. Number two is we're always um tactfully asking the kids and reminding them who they want to be. So it wasn't like who wanted them family we want to have right and or who I want them to be or who you know somebody at church or grand whatever. It's not it's it's like no who do you want to be? What kind of person do you want to be? It's incredible. Even little kids. Yeah. I'm never using it in a manipulative way or shaming way like you're better than that. That's not who you want to be. It was always said in a very calm, honest, open question of like, well, who do you want to be? What kind of person do you want to be? Just like that. Say, hey, hey, bud. What what kind of person do you want to be? What kind of brother do you want to be? What kind of sister do you want to be? What kind of woman do you want to be? And when you ask that way, even little kids know. They want to be good. It's just like we have it in us. It's that upward reach that God put in all of us. They want to be good. And so, but you're constantly reminding them, who do you want to be? This isn't this isn't about me. It isn't about anybody else. Like, what kind of person do you want to be? Hey there, this is Greg Denning. We want to reach as many people as possible and help as many families as possible with these conversations. And we want to keep this podcast adree forever. You can help us do that by subscribing on Spotify or Apple Podcast or wherever you listen, your favorite platform, and on YouTube. and leave a quick review and and share your favorite episodes with friends and family. It makes a big difference. Thank you for being a part of this very important movement. And if they're calm, you don't do it right in the moment when they're all heated on fire like, "Hey, who do you want to be?" is it's inappropriate. You calm them down. They're sitting on your lap or something or you start with the validating because we did all that other stuff. Emotions calms them down. And so then like who do you want to be? How do you want to handle this as your best self? like the kind of person you want to be and they know it. They're like, "I want to be nice and I want to be generous. I I do want to share." The third thing I wanted to mention is we always ask them how it makes them feel. I always did this since they're little. So, whatever behavior they're doing is like after again calm them down like validating. We're handling it all. Once they're in a chill state, it's like, "Hey bud, how does that make you feel when you're fighting? How does it make you feel when you take something away? I know you wanted it. you knew it wasn't yours and you went and took it anyways. How does it make you feel? Again, it's not manipulation. It's not shame. I'm just asking an honest question. I want them to have self-awareness. And when they're sitting there like really wanted that thing, but yeah, it doesn't it doesn't feel great. Or when I'm when you're fighting and and really upset. How does that make you feel? You're like, it was I was angry. I'm like, do you like it? No, I don't like it. it it because it has this s bitterness that comes with it because and if you help them recognize that then they're like yeah I felt I felt the bitterness and I don't like it. like perfect, fantastic. Let's not do the things we don't like. Right. Because I think what you're talking through here that's so key to this entire situation is that we're trying to help our children develop self-awareness. Y because the more self-aware they are, the more self-directed they'll be and the better behavior they'll have because they learn, yeah, I feel differently during different times. know if there's never a space for them to feel those positive happy feelings, it's difficult for them to know what that feels like and to ever then want to get into that state because they're always in a negative state. So that's one of the key that's one of the problems and one of our major roles as a parent is to help facilitate more positive states and point it out like guys, wow, this evening involves us playing games here together and just being as a family, no fighting. How's that feel? Love it. And they're like this feels so good. like, "Yeah, let's do this more." So, we're acknowledging all the good feelings. We're letting them experience the bad, and they're like, it it really all you're doing, you just make it black and white for them. You just hold it out. It's like, "This feels bitter and kind of nasty, and this feels wonderful." You just choose which one you want more of. And they're naturally going to choose like, "Wow, more good feelings." Exactly. So, um I in my Every child wants that. Parents may not know it. That is what they want. Every human being wants it. The only reason that you don't have it is because they don't know how to get it. Probably because you don't know how to get it. But once you learn how, then it's easy for all of you to get it as often as you want. And they may just assume that like, oh, this is just life. Like, I'm always I'm upset all the time. And maybe they learn that from you. Okay, I can hear some of you asking like, okay, that's a cute little strategy, but what if the kid doesn't calm down? What if they're hotheaded? you go over and trying to intervene taxfully and they're just ranting and raving. They won't calm down. They won't listen. They won't reason. And this is whether they're five or 15. So then then what what do we do if they're escalated and they won't respond to reason? That's when I'll say to them like, "Hey, you need to you need to calm calm down here. Take take a breath. Calm down." LA. I'm like, "Hey, if if you don't chillax, you and I are going to have to separate from this situation, this space together, we'll go into the bedroom." Yes. Which is critical. I am not sending them into solitary confinement. That doesn't help. Sending little kids off into a timeout or or teens into timeout, that's not good. You're like, I'm banishing you. You're upset and so you have to leave our family. You have to go away. Now, obviously, there's a lesson there of like when we behave this way, we don't we're not allowed in the tribe. The tribe doesn't want us around. We we literally get isolated when our behavior is poor. But when we're trying to teach this, I'm like, you and I are going to go away here. I'm going to go we're going to go in this room. I'm going to help you calm down, right? So that they know that you you as the parent, the most important person in their life who's there to teach them and mentor them, you're not abandoning them. You're going to help them through these difficult emotions. Right? Cuz if they're not if they're not settling down and they're not responding, it's cuz they're so heightened. Like their brain is in such a reactive mode and they likely don't know what to do about it. It's like, I am crazy. I can't even calm down with you standing here. It's like, hey, we're going to go over here and and you and I we're going to calm down. I'm going to teach you how to do this. We're going to go over there. I'm like, we're going to breathe. I'm just thinking through scenarios depending on the situation. I may just, again, I'm not sending the other child away in punishment. I'm just saying, "Hey, let me help your sibling here. Why don't you go work on something else or go do something else while I help them figure out how to calm down?" So, I I might send someone else off, especially if we're already in a bedroom or whatever. And we're going to we're going to listen because if they need to vent a little bit, say, "Okay, tell me about it. Okay, keep going." And then what else? What else? like and then they feel better cuz they vomited out all this anger and frustration and we hear them and we're just listening. judge them and we validate their feelings. And that that right there is so powerful. And I think if parents did that more often, it would solve so many problems. It prevent so many problems because often the reason a child explodes is because just like the reason we explode, there's a lot of stacked emotion that hasn't been resolved and finally there's this breaking point and they don't know what to do about it. But if we focus on punishing the behavior because we think that's the problem, then we don't fix the issue. We're doing the symptom management. So, we have to go resolve the issue. We have to heal the infection, heal the wound. And that and that is going to take an investment of time. That's one thing parents don't like. They're like, "Well, that's going to take too much time. I don't have time to go sit and listen to them." Then guess what? You're going to get the results you don't want. You have to be willing to invest in your child so you can get the results that you want. And listening to them vent about all of their problems and complaints is one of the best ways to do that without judging them, without telling them they're wrong, without telling them that they don't see clearly, whatever all and all you're going to have all of those thoughts and feelings. Just listen. Just validate, understand, say, "Yep, that's part of being human. We all feel like that at some point." and they'll feel automatically better. Then you can hug them, you can hold them, and they'll calm down and they'll make better choices. They feel better. They will be ready to move through the world without fighting. One of the most valuable things of listening is that they're they're going to start articulating patterns. Yes. Because it's always like talking is thinking. Yeah. People think by talking. Sorry. If you're listening like, "Why you so why are you talking to mom like that? What's what's going on? Why are you so reactive? She's always trying to control me or she never trusts me. She's always picking on me. Okay, there's something I'm I'm not just going to dismiss that and like so you feel like you feel like mom's like picking on you. Yeah, she always pick on me. Okay, tell me why. Mhm. To tell you saying something like tell me why is helping to validate because you're not immediately discounting it as like no you're wrong. There's something wrong with you. nor am I saying, "Yeah, she totally does." Right. Golly. And just say, "Tell me." So, I'm trying to understand. And and right or wrong, if the child's reality is, "Well, so and so is always picking on me or I'm always the one that's picked on. It's never fair." I'm like, "Okay, those are big words. Interesting. Let's walk through that." If they feel like there's a a pattern of injustice, then the next little thing that happens is going to be a big explosion, right? Because it's stacking adding to the stack of injustice. just like this is so infuriating. I'm like, "Oh, that's why we're getting these really big emotions because they feel like this is a pattern of injustice. I'm just being wronged all the time." So now I'm like, "Boom, there's the cause." And as a parent, I'm going to talk to Rachel. I'm like, "We're going to go solve the cause of this pattern instead of just dealing with the symptom every time." Exactly. Super powerful strategy. Okay, good. Let's go to the second one. This one has to do with antagonizing. So, he's always annoying me. He's touching me. He's in my space. Kids are funny, too. They like to poke or pinch or hit or like every once in a while, they just get this little streak of like, I'm going to do something annoying right now. And they'll like slap. We saw it the other day. These little these little sisters that were here visiting and one of them just punched her. I'm like out of nowhere. And man, she was on it. She's like, "Fight's on now." And and even with like I reached out to try to intervene. Mom reached out to try to move. She's like, I'm going to throw punches. Like, yeah. I'm I'm getting justice here cuz she hit me. I'm going to get her back. Yeah. And there's that sense of revenge and retribution and and I'm going to make this equal. And like they were throwing punches and finally um I was like, "Look, if you want to punch somebody, come punch me. Here come." And they're like, "No." And they're like, "Come on, come on." And and finally they came over and then it became a little game. They were punching me in the stomach and we were laughing. We're having a good time. and totally disfuse this little duke it out situation. But they'll do it. They'll do the things like you're saying, they'll they'll purposely be annoying or yeah, get in the space, whatever. Then so I generally will, and again, this depends on the age of the child. It depends on their maturity. It depends on what I already know about them. My 11-year-old can get annoyed with her 8-year-old sister, especially as she gets older now. She's more mature. She's growing up. She's starting her cycle now. So, she's going into adolescence. There's a big changes in her body and her brain and her thinking and her way of being. And so, she feels like, "Wow, I'm really maturing. I want to start leaning into the older ones." And, "Oh, this little shadow of mine is annoying me." Right. Right. And besides the fact that she's also someone who really does appreciate her alone time, you know, she likes to be alone. So depending again, depending on all of those different things, that will determine the response. But I'll often say something like go over, give her a hug, and like, "Oh, I'm sorry. Why are you feeling?" I I try to bring it because our approach is always bringing back individual responsibility. So I'm never like, "Yeah, she's doing annoying things. She might be, but that's not the point because I'm trying to teach my daughter responsibility for her own feelings. So, I'm like, why are you feeling annoyed? You see how that question reframes it? Because most of the time, the reason we're feeling annoyed by someone's behavior is because of our own feelings. Maybe we're hungry, we're hangry, we're tired, we didn't get enough sleep, we're frustrated or irritated about other things. This happens with parents, too. So if we recognize rule or expectation in our head that's like not realistic. If we recognize that the annoyance is actually coming from within then we can resolve that and the quote unquote annoying behavior isn't an issue because we've removed the inner annoyance. So I know that about her. So I will go to her. I will hug her. First of all, I'm not going to get after her and be like just get over it. Like what's your problem? Stop. like, "Oh, why are you feeling annoyed?" And then she will is going to vocalize some reasons. And if she is essentially something like, "I just need some time to myself." I'm like, "Great. You can do that. Why don't you just say, "Hey, Sanji, I'm going to go take some time and do some things on my own cuz I need some space." And then if necessary, I help Sanji understand that that's okay. That's a normal part. Like I take some personal time, dad takes personal time. It's a normal thing to do and that's okay. And you can switch that too. And so depending on the situation, you might switch it. And you'll talk to our 11-year-old and say, "Do you remember what it's like when you're eight and you just want to play?" And it's the coolest thing in the world to play and you just wanted to play with your older siblings. Like it was it was just play play. Please play with me. And you hated being alone. That's like it means the world to her when you play with her. Do you think you go play with her for 10 minutes and then have some alone time? And she's like, "Oh yeah." So you're giving them person or I even tell her I I'll because I will I'll use that respon that that approach and remind her of again how much we do love being a family and she's said before like oh it'd be so sad to be a only child. So I remind her of those things while still validating her own personal desires which are valid. Yep. So and so I might say okay but if you do that after you go take your alone time can you then play with her later? Right. So, it's either before or after, but I give her the option. So, then she's like, "Yeah, okay. Yeah, I I can do that." Another thing I'll do in situations like this and and and these little situations literally can be infinite. They don't want to sit next to each other in the car. It's cuz like we're too close. They're touching me. They're they're sitting right next to me or their stuff is like all over. It's in my space. It's like all these little things and it can be it literally could be infinite. So, one of the things we're constantly teaching our kids and I'm even teaching my clients is like only small people are bothered by small things and I'll teach these lessons. We'll have it in, you know, our family devotional. I'll teach it. But even in the moment, I'm like, and I I'll kind of chuckle. I'm like, did Hold on. Did you hear what you just said? Yeah. So annoying. I'm like, wait, you're bothered cuz there's something right there next to you. Yeah. So annoying. I'm like, hold up. Like, let's get a little bit of perspective here. It's important to emphasize what you're talking about that we preempt certain scenarios or perhaps it's a scenario that's occurred before and so we have a special discussion about it as a family not with pointing fingers but like hey here's a thing small people get annoyed by small things then it becomes a thing that we've already said and so then when you say it in the moment they don't take it personally because they're like oh we talked about that we talk about that all the time so and it's not like you just do this oneoff random we got to have a family meeting and I'm going to we're going to talk you know I'm not pointing it out but this is it's like oh they they're they see right through your little act but we're constantly teaching principles and this is one of them. So then then I'll point out I'm like are you really going to choose to be bothered by that? Is that like how do you how's that make you feel? Is that the best self? Again we're teaching the same principles but I'm like you're really going to be bothered that somebody has to sit next to you? I mean, come on. Like, if you And again, here's the the big principle we're constantly teaching. If you're going to choose to be bothered by small things, how often will you be bothered? And even a kid will get that be like all the time. Like, yeah, you'll be upset all day every day because something's stupid. Wouldn't it be better if you just decided not to be bothered by small things? and I'm teaching well and and we also put it into context because especially you know if you're getting in the car and you're going somewhere and doing something we could say well I guess if that bothers you you could stay home if you don't want to sit next to them all right you don't have to come and not not mean not rude it's like well the natural consequence is if you don't want to sit in the car then next to someone else yeah I guess then you don't come in the car and once they start to realize the context of the the larger environment and consequences involved it's like Oh, well, yeah, I guess that's not a big deal. One of the things is our kids know when we say things like that that we would actually carry them through. Yep. If they decided they were going to stay and they were too young, I'd be like, "Well, I guess I'm staying with you cuz you don't want to be bothered by sitting next to your sibling." And so, they're all going to the beach or the water park or they're going to do something awesome, but you don't want to sit. So, okay, I guess you miss out. And the reason why we are willing to make those kinds of sacrifices is because we realize in the end we're raising children and natural consequences are the best ones to give. So I have literally missed out on so that our children learn the lesson that they chose because they didn't want to endure the small annoyance or whatever. Same. I've done the same. Yeah. And and make sure that the consequence is natural. When we come up with arbitrary weird disconnected things, they just are resentful. They do not learn the lesson. and they just get mad that you took away something that was totally unrelated. But if the consequence is natural, it's the lesson's built in. Oh yeah, I didn't get to do that because I was acting annoying or I was choosing to be bothered by something insignificant. It's a privilege to have your siblings. It's a privilege to be in a family. These are good things, but they naturally come with irritations, annoyances, frustrations, like because that's life. And so we have to learn to weigh those and be like, "Oh yeah, actually I would choose this." Another thing that I forgot to mention that fits with both of these is whenever they got possessive like she's sitting on she keeps getting on my bed. Like well did you I'm sorry. Did you buy that bed? I must have missed that. Did you go with mom and buy a bed? Like no. I'm like oh who bought it? Like you did? Oh so it's my bed. Okay. So what about this room? I forgot. Did you pay rent this month? Oh, you didn't. Wait. Well, who pays the mortgage? Oh, I do. Oh, wait a minute. This is my room. So, I'm letting you sleep in my room on my bed. That's so nice of me. You know, I think I'll let your sister sit on my bed, too. And and I just keep bringing this back and like it's just stuff and his things and it's and it's all mine. And at the same time, you know, if they want personal space, great. We can arrange for personal space. But the idea is it's really not yours, right? Just keep it in check. Okay, next one. Stop copying me or mimicking. And of course, parents just get involved. They It's annoying and they're like, "Stop doing that. You guys are being ridiculous." But we would probably start doing it. In fact, we have done it. We start coughing them, too. just to make it playful. Especially because oftent times something like that starts out as like a game where one of them is doing it and then one of them gets tired of it and so then they get upset. So essentially what I do, especially in a scenario like that, is I remind them, hey, well, you did start out as playing a game. You wanted her to copy you. Now if you're done having her copy you, just say, I'm done playing this game now. Can you please not copy me anymore? And worst case scenario, stop talking. Y because they can't copy. Actually, they will. If you stop talking, they'll stop talking, too. Copy that. Or you can say with your little sibling, let's play the quiet game now instead. So, you're you're modeling, you're roleplaying how to respond to the situation depending on what what's causing the irritation. And that's often something with like a younger age. And and then there you can use any kind of diversion or distraction like let's do something else. That's when I would jump in and start wrestling or tickling or hey, well, check this out. And you could just find a drawing. You could look up a cool video of dolphins and like you might even, you know, they're over there. You I start noticing, right? We start noticing and they're starting to squabble and it's getting a little bit of annoying. I I might pull up something I know they love and like, look at this guy. Well, this is Look at this lion. This is insane. I can't What? And they come running, what is it? What is it? What is it? I show them the video like look how rad that is like so so cool. Oh that time we were in Africa on the safari and it's gone. Yeah. Right. And you just just help them like let's move on from that. We don't need to have a fight over it. Yep. Okay. So but you're keeping it light-hearted. Yep. Name calling insults or swearing even. Now often parents may respond reactively like saying don't say that. And I would actually say suck you little brat. Stop calling names. Right. I actually Wait, let's let's pause. If you're calling names to your kids, to your spouse, to your neighbors, to your in-laws, to your siblings, no wonder your kids call names, right? If you're swearing, they don't call names doing it. Especially you you call you call them names. Yes. And you're you're insulting. If they hear you insulting, as soon as you notice your kids are doing it, check yourself and be like, "Well, no wonder. It's totally my fault." And then here's what you do. This is so powerful. so important. You hear them calling each other names and assaulting each other or swearing and you walk over instead of them getting in trouble, you walk over and you say, "I am so so sorry that I taught you how to do that. I apologize. I recognize that I've been doing that and I don't like it. I don't like hearing you say it. I'm going to change it. So from now on, when you hear me call names, I want you to call me out on it." That's one of the best ways to approach that scenario. or the same with the insulting, the same with the swearing. You take responsibility for it first and then ask them to hold you accountable to it. And that right there is going to encourage them to not use name calling or insulting or swearing cuz your kids would be like, "Well, dad, I hear you call the neighbor an idiot all the time." And it's like, "Well, yeah, but I I don't want you calling your child that." Yeah. Well, it's cuz he is an idiot. He's like, "Well, my little brother's an idiot." new and so then you're in the you're in the weeds there trying to tell them it's not the same whatever it's like no you lost man just don't do it but then okay so how do you actually handle the situation you you apologize right and and in our this is for true for our family we and we taught this early on little kids and reiterated it 10,000 times we do not call names we do not insult we do not swear and so I actually and that's where kind of story I started with when because we weren't doing that or we stopped doing that early on. When I do hear my children do something like that, first of all, I'm wondering where they got it from because they didn't get it from us. They got it from movies. They got it from other people. Snarky cartoon they watched. And so I often respond in a sort of reactive way, but it's intentionally reactive where I'm kind of like, "Where did you hear that?" So that they know, especially because I don't often do something like that. they know, oh wow, I just said or did something that shocked mom. And that gets their attention. And then I'll say like something like, well, that's actually a swear word. I don't want you saying that anymore, please. So, I'm I don't shame them, but I have this shocked response so that they are aware. They're they pay attention and then I teach them the principle. We don't talk like that to people because that's not nice or appropriate. Or even ask like, "Does that sound like a gentleman or does it sound like a lady?" Well, and depending on their age, they may not know because generally, at least in Mike situation, it happens when they're younger and they don't know. They're just experimenting. They heard something and they're they're going to try saying the word or repeating it. So, they don't necessarily know. Now, if they get older, you're still I'm still teaching. Even at a young age, they may not comprehend like what I'm saying. So, you might say something like princesses don't talk like that or ladies don't talk like that. No, we we we want to be gentlemen and ladies. So you'd be teaching the idea and trying to um cement that in their brain that way. Exactly. And with the older ones for sure, like, "Hey guys, we're we're classy." Yeah. We're even if people mistreat us, even if they insult us, like we're we're going to walk the higher way cuz that's who we want to be. We want to be dignified. We want to be classy. Now, we can just stand up for ourselves, we can defend ourselves, but and never at any point do we want to lower ourselves to some pathetic behavior. Yes. And and because we have taken that approach early on with our kids, we don't have a problem with them insulting, name calling, or swearing even as teenagers. That's none of it. Yeah. It's non-existent because we taught it so effectively. And we teach it through stories. We teach it through examples. Was asking questions like, "Who are who are your heroes? Who who are the people of your admire? We're reading great books together all the time." And you remember so and so did you ever notice was like she was she swearing and speaking about filthy things and none of it's like no and and every once in a while when the kids were little like they were talking about we called it toilet talks like hey bro you want some toilet talk go talk to the toilet like we're not doing that here like seriously go and they're like oh and they're like no I'm dead serious like go talk to the toilet if you want to do toilet talk and otherwise be classy right and this is something that we are pretty these are this is one of the things that we're pretty firm on. Like we hold a very high standard with this, especially the name calling and insulting. I mean, the swearing too, you know, I I obviously I am actually guilty of swearing more than anyone else in the family, but for the standard rule, the swearing and then the name calling and the insulting, like it's a hard fast rule. So, we don't allow any of the name calling. And so because like none none at all because in general our overall approach is so loving, warm, open. We have a lot of freedom within boundaries in our family. Our children make a lot of their own choices. But when it comes to something like that, we are firm. We are if if you ever describe us as being harsh, that's probably when we're going to be harsh because we want them to know we are very serious about not insulting and calling names because when you fix that, that's one of those underlying behaviors that fixes a whole lot of problem. So, if you can eliminate name calling and insulting from your family, of course, starting with yourself, you're going to improve overall behavior in general. Like children are going to be nicer to each other just because they don't call names or insult each other. Y to me it's a big deal. It's and it's a big domino. Yeah. No one starts moving things in the right direction. That's really Exactly. Okay. Next number five. The older sibling snaps at the younger sibling. You know where they learned how to do that from the parents obviously. Yeah. Yeah. So stop snapping parents because if you're snapping at your children then as your children grow older they think well this is how you treat children. Y you snap at them. Same with criticism. So if you criticize the older ones, what are the older ones going to do? They're going to criticize the younger ones. Yeah. I know you probably think that we blame everything on you, the parent. But that's because we do. That's because we do. And the reason we do is because we have learned firsthand from experience that if there are problems in our family, we the adults are at fault. It's our fault. It started because you started the family and the problem started with you. Yes. So when you recognize that, it's actually very freeing. People avoid it because they think it's condemning or shaming or makes them feel guilty. But when you accept that, it's actually freeing because then you realize you have the responsibility, which means you have the power to change it. Y and when you have that power, it's empowering. So it's a good thing to know that it's your fault. There there's going to be times when you have to remind the older kids that they're not the parent that you are. You're like, "Oh, I got So, I'll say something like that if they're getting after their sibling. I'll say, "Hey, I'm the mom. Let me be the mom." Something like that. Or I will say, "Um, hey, you're older." Which means you have the responsibility to take care of your younger siblings, not to XYZ. And to be kinder, to be more mature because you're older. If if you want to help correct a behavior, do it with real maturity. Yeah. Like way you could do it better. And so again, I go into the role playinging now as them being the older thing. And I'll and I will also teach my older children the principle of what I'll call the emotional bank account. I can ask their siblings and them to do things that they can't ask them to do because I have a bigger emotional bank account with them. I of course gave birth to them. I raised them, but I'm constantly depositing into their emotional bank account every day with hugs and cuddles and love. So when I ask them something or I get after them, that's a withdrawal from that account, but I have enough capital in the account to make that withdrawal where the sibling is going to have less capital simply by the nature of being the sibling rather than the parent. And so they don't have as much capital to make withdrawals with. And so I have to tell them, you need to make more deposits if you want to be able to make those types of withdrawals. In some situations, the siblings might have more capital than parents do. So parents, if you're not making big investments in your deposits, like your kids might listen to each other more than they listen to you. And it's because of that account. Yeah. The other thing I want to make it personal with the older child. If they're snapping, I want to just go talk to them about it, teach them the principle, and say, I might bring something like, "Hey, remember the other day when you uh you broke that thing of mine? You remember how I handled it?" And like, "Yeah, you just came over, gave me a hug, told me it was okay, and asked me to help fix it." I'm like, "Boom." What if I'd come over and snapped and yelled at you and and insulted you and called you names? How would that have made you feel? Like, h yeah, I was so glad you were so nice about it that you didn't overreact. Yeah. So, let's do the same with with your younger siblings. When they make mistakes, when they do things, let's just treat them with kindness cuz you feel better and they feel better. Yeah. Exactly. Good. Okay. Uh number six, fighting over fairness. It's not fair. I love this So, our go-to for this one that we've said from very early on is fair is where pigs win ribbons. And you're not a piggy. Life's not fair. Yep. So, we either say life's not fair or we say fair is where pigs win ribbons because we want our children ultimately to know life is not fair. It's not fair. So, don't expect to be to get fairness. And especially in a family dynamic where all the children are at different ages, different maturity levels, they're going to be treated differently. based on that. And we want our kids to know this child gets to do this because they have earned that right or that ability by passing this class. We like to call it that like they passed this class so they get to do that thing or they are older so they don't need as much sleep or they're this so they we teach them why the unfairness exists. And when they understand that they realize like oh okay it's not actually unfair it's just life. Yeah. Kids will constantly compare and compete and they'll be like hey well my sister got to do this. I'm like, "Hey, buddy. Are you a 17-year-old girl or are you a 14-y old boy?" Cuz last time I checked, you're 14 and you're a boy. Yeah. And and so we're just pointing out the differences, always talking about like, "Yeah, it's it's not fair. It's just life. You get to do things that other people don't get to do and other people get to do things you don't get to do and right and you know, you get this and others don't." I mean, and then then we even and we've traveled so much and they've seen so much so many so much suffering and poverty and so much unfairness in the world and they and so they know it up front up close and personal. We're constantly in different nations, countries, demographics. We're among some of the poorest and some of the wealthiest and like so our kids they never bring this up anymore cuz like it's so blatantly obvious just through travel life is not fair. and they feel actually a lot like a lot of gratitude that we have such a wonderful life. I mean, one of the things they often say because we do morning devotionals and there will be questions and they're just like, I'm so grateful I have such a blessed life like we have an amazing life. But I also don't want to be misunderstood because we do practice fairness in our life as far as say like food is concerned or different thing like you know if we if we make some food we all try to make an effort to make sure everybody gets some. We don't just then say, "Oh, too bad. Life's not fair. You missed out." If someone feels missed out on the food, we feel bad. Or and then, you know, people will share with them, "Oh, I still have some left. Here, have some of mine." So, okay, good. Next one. Seven. Physical aggression, hitting or biting. Yeah. Or violence. This is another one of those that we hold a very firm line on. And I think the best way to do this is when they're small. So, when they were small, one, we don't hit that. That's when it starts. It's the biting and the hitting when they're little. And when they did it with firmness, we just let them know that that was not acceptable. We did not let it fly. I see too many parents who their little kids will be hitting and they don't say or do anything about it. They just think, "Oh, that's how kids are." Or super soft, like, "Don't hit, don't bite." No. When they are little and they're doing that, I let them know they've crossed a line and that's unacceptable. Yep. And if necessary, I will I will take them and hold them in a timeout so that they know if they do that kind of thing, there are going to be consequences. And because we did it when they were small, they don't do it. Our none of our kids hit unless we're in the gym doing crab magaw. Then they love to hit each other. Then they hit each other. But all of that's in intentional fun play practice training. Yeah. So, so very firmly in the very beginning like, "Hey, nope. We do not do that. Do not cross that line." And because we're so loving and gentle and affection all the time, when we when we when I have to when I speak like that with any of my kids, I'm like, "Don't you ever don't you ever do that again. That is unacceptable." And they're like, "Holy crap, I just crossed the line. I'm not doing it." And so it put a stop to it and it's done. So we have zero hitting, scratching, punching, biting. There's no physical there there's no physical meanness at all. Zero in No, there will be plenty of wrestling and roughousing. So we rough house a ton. And I think I think that's an important element in all of this. I I would I would suggest there there's a few things that I would suggest like for all families, but I think every child should participate in some kind of martial art, some kind of physical outlet 100%. You should be roughousing, wrestling, doing martial arts. And I think I think that's a good thing for our family too is we rough house and we wrestle a lot so much. But that's how you actually learn control. There's a lot of research on it on how it helps their brain develop and they learn more about the world and social interaction and um self-regulation and and they learn about the movements of the body and and an accidental whapside head. They realize, man, that really hurts. And so they don't they don't think unconsciously, I'm going to go slap my sibling. and they're like, "Well, I got accidentally hit one time. That that rocked me. I'm not doing that." Actually reduces gives them context. The physical aggression. So, kids who aren't getting who aren't getting a lot of the rough housing are probably going to be more physically aggressive with their sibling. Exactly. But if you if you got a kid like hitting a boxing bag every day and going to jiu-jitsu or kaggal or or even gymnastics maybe. Gymnastics. Yeah. You you have a physical outlet. So, you're just getting that out. You're moving your body. It feels good. You don't have this need to like gosh, I just want to punch something. It's like you I went three times this week and punched until I was exhausted. Like I'm spent. I don't need to hit anything. And now if they if you do have older children who haven't learned this younger on, then I would definitely do some serious intervention on this. Take the same approach with the name calling and insulting and say I am sorry. I should have never and I would do this not in the moment. I would do a special talk about it or discussion in this case. Like this would be one of those things where I'd be like, "I should have never allowed you to learn that that was okay. I should have never done it." You know, if you've done it in the past, it's not acceptable and I'm going to change it. And there will be serious consequences. If they're old enough, I would have them help you come up with the consequences. 100%. That's what I was thinking. You think we need to have for this? So, when they're calm, when they're in a really good state, and you're talking about who you want to be, and they're like, "Yeah, this is amazing." If you learn how to ask good questions and have good conversations, your kids, they get it. And they themselves will say, "Yeah, I feel so bad for hitting my sibling, and I it makes me feel terrible. I do not want to do that." And so then you say, "Okay, what's what's come up with a consequence that maybe you think is I don't know, but for them, maybe it's like I have to go weed the garden if I do it." And that's something they hate. And you're like, "Okay, great. That can be your consequence or whatever." The the point is not punishment. The point is correction. You were correcting the behavior and the point is that the lesson hits home. So if they come up with something like, yeah, I'm I'm driving home the lesson, right? So if she's hitting, it's like, hey, this this is absolutely unacceptable and it's not who you want to be. You need to come up with a natural consequence and one that's this has to stop. It needs to be painful enough to you that it's a motivator. you need to come up with a severe consequence that I mean it it hits and and you come up with it, we'll sign a document and I'll help stick to it. We're not doing this anymore. You know, if if the desire there is to change and they come up with something and then they hit, it's like we're falling through on that. You you said you'd miss out on this big thing you wanted to go to. You had a big birthday party or something that was really important to you. Like, hey, you crossed the line. You've got to hold yourself accountable. This is on you cuz this is unacceptable, right? Cuz it is. It's a big deal. And that's another one of the things that will totally change the culture of your family when you eliminate Yeah. something like that. Okay. Number eight, blaming each other. How many of these there we might have to stop cuz there's 10. But blaming each other. It's his fault. For us, we we don't do blame. We focus on ownership, individual responsibility, ownership. So when we go into a situation where there's potential for blame, something happened, we go in and we simply say, and this is this might be one of the situations. We could ask a question, but it might be one of the things where we make statements of like, well, you did this to contribute and you did that to contribute. And if I don't know, I might say, well, what did you do to contribute to it? How did you make this situation worse? Because every situation, nobody's innocent. like there's very few innocent people. Sometimes there is. And even even if it were, you could still say, "How can you choose to respond?" Because you're not a victim here. We're in our family, we're very adamant about this. We teach it all the times like there's no victimism. You're not playing the victim. And even if somebody does something to you, you still get to choose how you respond, right? And so let's just take And that's true for everything in life. even trauma, tragedy, even if you are actually a victim, ultimately you have the ability to choose how to restructure that in your mind and how you're going to use it for your benefit throughout your life as opposed to being an endless victim to it. So powerful. Okay. Jealousy and competition. And in something like this, I often feel the underlying cause is some type of attachment issue perhaps where especially if there's competition for the parents or competition for things in the family or attention, it's often because those needs aren't being met. But if those needs are met, then they feel secure. Yeah. The need to keep goes away. It's like I don't have to be jealous or or competitive because my parents give me all the attention I want. I have a sense of significance. I do my thing and I and I do it well and and my parents I get recognized for it and I don't have to be like my sibling because that's fine. Like he plays the guitar and I sing and and the other one is phenomenal at this this other thing that they do whatever all the different skills or talents like we're good. Yeah. Okay. Last one. Kids ganging up on another sibling. And so if this is a a situation or an issue in your family, I would do something similar to the hitting an aggression aggression by having a meeting about it, discussing consequences, talking about how, you know, apologizing for not teaching this sooner for contributing to this and just saying, you know, moving forward there's going to be real consequences about this. we're going to stick to this cuz that's another one of those hard boundaries that's going to make a huge difference in the culture of your family. And when we can have a few of those, right? And I hope you're seeing that as we talk through these. There's some of these we're like, "No, this is a hard boundary." But we're emphasizing them because they make a big difference for the rest of them. And some of them, yeah, they're going to happen. It's going to come up. They're going to be the squables and things in there. You address them in the moment. It doesn't have to be a huge deal. You role model. you give them examples of how to do it, but on some of these things like no, this does not happen. It's not acceptable. Hardines. And when you hold that standard and model that standard, the whole dynamic in the family just shifts and it's so much easier to have peace and connection and warmth and love and joy because essentially it's built on a foundation of mutual love and respect. Yeah. So if this were happening in my family, I would spend some time thinking about it, coming up with stories and examples, and then I would teach it to the whole family in in a way that they got it like they felt some movies so powerfully. Some there's some great movies out there, great books, great stories. So I'm going to come up with stories and quotes and examples that they all can relate to that each child would be like, "Yeah, my hero would never do that." Or I Who's your favorite character in your books or your movies? have every one of them pick one and like would they do this? Mhm. Like no no they would they would do the opposite. They would stand up for him. They would fight for him. Like that's amazing. That's what needs to happen in our family. That's the caliber of people we're going to be. We don't do that crap now. It's been happening in our family. So it needs to stop. Let's come up with a consequence. And just off the top of my head here, a fun consequence for everybody would be just buy a can of super hot peppers. And any kid who does that gets in participate in that, they have to take a bite of it. And so everyone's around and and like cheering them on, right? So it's not like this horrible thing. You're not putting the scarlet letter on your kid. And you know, banish is like, "Hey, you did it." And and we all agreed, so better take a pepper. Yeah. And it's, you know, again, it's not harmful, not permanently damage anybody, but there's a really intense consequence. And all you're doing with the consequence is just, it's a reminder. Yeah. You're just like, "Oh, yeah. I don't want to be like that. I slipped up. Wow, this is crazy hot. Like, it's making me cry. I'm sweating. My tongue is on fire. Gee, I'm going to think next time before I go say something mean or mocking or tearing down one of my siblings. Yeah. Yeah. But they have to opt in. They have to choose. It's almost like, as weird as it sounds, a fun consequence, right? But the lesson comes across, right? Exactly. Cuz that is possible. It's possible to have fun consequences that are impactful enough Exactly. that they actually that they cement the message. Love it. Okay, great. So, um I think that's it for now. We are going to continue to be talking about parenting and get as detailed as possible. And if you want to get our free guide on raising seven welladjusted kids, you can get that in the show notes. There's a link to that. It's a six-step guide. And every one of you parents should get in the extraordinary parent mentoring method. Yes, it is absolutely world class. Correct. cohort because we're going to have it by cohorts according to ages of children so that we can more specifically address the challenges of so like in this scenario we would talk specifically about your different age groups and be like okay this is how you handle it with 5-year-old a six-year-old a seven-year-old so that it's even more specific tailored information and content and resources so uh thanks for listening if you know somebody who could use this episode share it with them in fact I guarantee you know somebody who could use this episode. So, go ahead, including your spouse and share it with them. Grab a link and leave us a review if you liked it and and share this and let's let's help parents and families. Let's strengthen families and help families build their own unique extraordinary family life. Love you guys. Reach upwards. [Music]