How I'm Managing Sibling Rivalry
Sibling rivalry really triggers me.
And the ways in which it manifests: in the unconscious fighting for attention, the telling on each other in order to move up the pecking order, in the meanness with which my kids can so glibly destroy each other.
I've been trying to work out what is at its root for me. And I think there are several different threads:
it makes me feel like a bad mother. Because their behaviour must surely be a direct reflection on what I have taught or rolemodelled to them, right?
it makes me feel like a bad sister. Because the way they treat each other reminds me of how mean I could be to my little brother.
it makes my inner child feel sad. Because their need for attention reminds me of how I too fought to get the same.
And the resulting shame and sadness often feels so uncomfortable, that - instead of consciously processing its root cause in my own past - I project it outwards onto them.
The urgency of my need to no longer feel my discomfort revealed by the ferocity with which I demand that their behaviour changes.
Obviously, that never works.
It gets me all hot and bothered - I've upset them without dealing with the root cause within me.
And it transforms me into the subject of their frustration: no longer am I the person from whom they want attention, I'm now the one who doesn't understand. And who is treating them unfairly.
So I'm working on a two-pronged approach.
Not to get involved or intervene in their sibling squabbles, however hard it feels to hear what I perceive to be unfair or cruel behaviour.
To work on the reasons why their behaviour seems unfair or cruel to me and to heal the triggers in my own past.
Is it working, I hear you ask?
Kind of. We're getting there slowly.
And in the meantime, I've bought a book on it. And then there's always earplugs.