Clashes amongst siblings can be of all sorts, mild or aggressive. It is what you as parents are going to do about it that will result in either positive or negative consequences. Obviously the first child will, in most cases, feel superior to the rest of the clan because firstly, he or she is the number one amongst the rest and second, everyone came to know him or her as a person first rather than the rest.
It is this extra attention the first and the last child of any family acquires that causes the rest of the middle siblings to feel left out or attention deprived. Not only this but, not necessarily do all your children need to possess the same personality. Each one of them will possess different characteristics. It is your job as parents to understand them, get to know them better and work with them accordingly.
Dealing with your first child, for example, in the same manner as dealing with the youngest one will result in multiple problems. The first child obviously will have a heap of responsibilities to take care of and giving the same sort of tasks to the youngest one will result in competition amongst the two as to who will finish their work quicker even though the technicality of their chores will differ greatly. It is this competition that needs to be avoided or dealt with appropriately as parents.
Another important factor that needs to be taken care of is if you are expecting another child, make your already born children familiar with this idea and help them develop a friendly relationship with the going to be born baby.
Avoid punishing your children for silly mistakes. This will cause them to develop a better relationship with you as parents. Also, try to keep a weekend day reserved for a family time. Play family games, go out for dinner or lunch together as a family and develop a better understanding amongst your children.
Try and always invest in some useful activity amongst the children, something that they can do together as a team because individual work always leads to competition. Try to get them to be competitive with the children of others and not themselves. Your children may also be competitive or become a rival of his or her siblings because he or she may feel that injustice is being done with them.
In order to avoid such cases it is imperative that you treat all your children equally. Regardless of whoever starts the issue, it is important that you punish all those involved in the issue rather than just one party. This would give them a sense of equality and feeling that it was both of them to blame.
If all your parental strategies go to fail then this may result in one of your child constantly nagging on the other siblings. This constant picking will drive the siblings as well as the parents completely insane. Therefore, it is necessary that you not only notice the negative activity performed by your children but highlight the positive and loving behavior as well. Reward such behavior and encourage it. Rewards act as great learning motivators for the children and will help in them behaving in a similar manner next time around.
Assigning responsibilities to children according to their age and mental ability can also be a motivator. Along with feeling important, children will also be likely to develop sensitive behavior towards each other, they will care about each other's tasks and will be more affectionate towards each other. Try to encourage the siblings to sleep together so that they share their night time talks together and not only this but encourage them in performing multiple chores together too.
All these strategies will work as reducing the amount of competition amongst siblings and result in them being more affectionate and sensitive towards each other. Parenting can be a tough job but maintaining equality, justice and committing yourself to your children every once in a while can help eliminate all such negative consequences.
