Managing Sibling rivalry, which can take many forms:

Sometimes it can be a personality clash between brothers and sisters but quite often it is feelings such as jealousy which cause sibling rivaly.

They will always feel that the other one is being given more attention/privileges/freedom than them. But no matter why it happens, it still needs to be dealt with so that everyone can get along.

• Avoid arguing in front of the children if you can, or make sure you demonstrate how you compromise and make up after an argument!

• If your children the arguing develops into fighting it is important to stop that and remind them of the 'no hurting' rule. Let them know right away that you won't tolerate that behaviour by saying, "we don't hurt anyone in this family."

• If the children are arguing constantly, letting them work things out on their own is a good idea in many cases. But be ready to step in when these little arguments start turning into long-standing issues. Children can suffer immensely if verbal taunts and threats by brothers and sisters go on and on.

• Try to make sure that each of your children knows he/she is special to you. It is okay to be different, to have different skills and needs, but each of them is unique and equally important to you. (At some points this may not always be true if one of your children is going through a particularly difficult patch, but never let on to those feelings!) Jealousy is always exacerbated if comparisons are made between the children.

• One way of managing sibling rivalry and making each child feel special is to take them out on their own for a "grown up" outing, such as a trip to a restaurant. This gives you a chance to have a long one to one chat with your child without interference from the others. This is particularly important if there is a baby in the home, or a child with special needs, who takes up a lot of time and attention most of the time.

• If each child feels valued and loved, and is never compared to his or her siblings, then sibling rivalry will never become a serious problem in the family. Children will always quarrel and fight, but the anger should fade quickly.

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