Not a parent.
Make them unite in their hatred for you.
That doesn’t work. (personal experience)
can confirm. My sisters would wake the house fist fighting bc they couldn’t decide who slept where
That could work.
By constantly modeling respectful good behavior and correcting them when they are rude or mean to each other.
That’s the funny thing about kids. It’s the same with pets. The problem isn’t them, it’s you. You have to learn how to behave better so that they behave better
I think two things that are common causes of sibling bad feelings are differences in treatment, and handling of sibling conflicts, both of which can create feelings of unfairness and resentment.
I don’t have prescriptions for those things. Kids are different and necessarily need to be treated differently. But one should be aware of how this can feel unfair to one sibling. And be aware of how your need to end conflicts and restore order can again wind up being unfair to one sibling.
I think the hardest thing is being able to see things from their points of view.
Yes, but there is no guarantee this will work.
Doing nothing returns a substancially more probable outcome of sibling rivalry/hatred.
Family sense, notion and belonging are taught.
There’s no guarantee that anything will ever work. Look for siblings that love and respect each other. Then look at the type of home they came from. Try to emulate what you see.
Don’t make them compete for your respect and affection.
Love them both for who they are and never compare them.
What !? Siblings hating each other seems exceedingly rare in my personal experience 😅
When they’re v young it is a bit of an attention fight…
Strive for equality of treatment.
Growing up my sister and I didn’t get along when we were younger, she wanted to give me back to the hospital when I was born.
Over time we shared some similar interests, she played violin, I played cello. She pursued it to a master’s degree, I quit to have less divide attention on school which I also failed at.
My parents always gave us options for what we wanted to try and despite her getting more financially to cover those things, I knew I could have those things as well if I asked but I wanted them on my own.
By our early teens any anger was over and was got along for the rest of her life when she died of brain cancer at 42.
This is akin to the nature vs. nurture debate–that is, how much of one’s personality is due to nature or to the people who raised them and the environment they grew up in? As the article I linked states, it far messier than the simple title implies.
Kids are not born as identical blank slates, they come straight into the world with their own set of personality traits that are essentially “hard wired”.
So, the answer is, you do the best you can, and hope for the best. There are no guarantees that raising your kid a certain way will result in a “good” kid. And, “good” kids can come from shitty upbringings.
I have two sisters and a brother, we were all raised by the same parents in the same house, together. Our parents loved us and did their best to raise us, which was pretty damn good. However, we are all as different from each other as we could be. In the past I’ve described us as the four corners of a world map–which, when the corners come together, make a globe.
Be the common enemy.
A lot of good answers here. Being a good model, correcting behavior, treating siblings with equity.
You cannot control everything though. They will have lived experiences outside of the control of their parent, good and bad friends, teachers, etc. They may be born with different medical conditions. All this is impactful in shaping a person, and how flexible they are.
Team efforts.
When people see one another’s skills and can come to have confidence in and rely on each other, that builds bonds. Creative exercises are good ways to achieve this. Co-producing a play or video, painting a room, or making a meal (while not hungry, of course) could be methods that help kids to practice this. We take our kids camping and there are lots of ways for kids to work together and rely on each other. Also, opportunities to exercise independent competence and to do tasks that help the family.
Trauma bonding is a dicier strategy. Could work out. Could end in tears. It all depends how many times you want to have them survive a winter plane crash on a mountainside. By the third time, they’d probably catch on.
Me and my siblings have pretty much always got on, apart from some normal squabbles when we were kids. They’re legit my favourite people to hang out with. I’m not sure exactly what my parents did to make this happen. I guess they treated us equally with love, respect, kindness and an excellent sense of humour.
Not a parent, not friends with my adult sibling: I suspect having emotionally mature adults around them would help. Also, don’t constantly side with the child with easier needs when there is a conflict between children. (Example: I wanted to not hear my brother’s music in my room. Brother wanted to play his music. Brother got his way. I got ear plugs.)
Don’t make the older child always do the selfless thing because they’re “more mature”. They shouldn’t have to share everything. (Example: brother got to ‘help’ blow out the candles on my birthday cake. He spat all over it because he was a toddler.)
I have kids. I don’t know why hating each other would be a given when raising them. Not my experience with my own kids or other families I know, apart from the usual angsty teen period kind of stuff.
Mine fought like banshees when they were young but are so close and friendly as adults. I didn’t do anything to make any of it happen as far as I can tell. I never understood why they fought so much, and they are so funny and love each other so much now.
Sometimes time is enough. I’m the 3rd of 4 with my eldest sibling being 10 years older. The other 3 of us are close in age, so through middle school and early highschool, we were shits to each other. Nothing crazy but we were all teens. Once we were all in high school, we all got along a lot better and that’s only got better over the past couple decades.
We were raised to respect people and be generally not shitty. We were all treated equally and nobody was spoiled or favored. I think those are the most important facets plus the friends we hung out with. Shitty friends will bring anyone down, speaking anecdotally. A strong foundation of understanding how to be respectful and what’s right and wrong has certainly saved my younger brother and I from going down really bad paths.
