Episode 160

Episode 160 Transcript:

Kyle And Sara Wester (0:1.400)
Hello and welcome to the Art of Raising Humans. I'm Kyle. Hi, I'm Sarah. And today it's a rainy day. know, I don't know if it's raining where you're at, where you're listening. We are recording this on a rainy day early this morning. We had some soccer games to go to. They got rained out because of lightning, right? Yeah. But today what we want to do is talk about something that keeps coming up time and again with families that we're working with. And it's something that's near and dear to our hearts. Something that we have found to be
a really awesome outcome of the parenting that we do, right? And it's something that I didn't even know was even possible. And it's really about raising siblings that actually like each other. Yeah. Right. mean, that to me was a big deal. I assumed that siblings had to grow up being competitive with each other.
Um, constantly fighting and bickering conflictual, right? Recently, we got to be on a summit where we talked about siblings. There was a whole sibling summit and we thought, man, this is such a common thing that comes up with families we're working with. It actually is many times the catalyst for them to seek help. Yeah. Yeah. It can be a really big problem in a family and it is normal. The conflict is normal, but then it just builds into a problem that affects everybody all the time.
almost every moment of every day, right? And many times it's the pain that the parent feels that they really would like the siblings to be kinder to each other, to treat each other with more dignity and respect and listen to one another. Yeah, be friends, be best friends. And they might find glimpses of that, but then for the most part, they find every day there's a lot of fighting, there's a lot of putting each other down, there's a lot of like...
parents having to intervene and stop the conflict. And so today we specifically wanted to go through this and show you three ways that we think we noticed that parents uh kind of the techniques they're using, the way in which they're approaching it are actually causing more problems to happen. And then we wanted to show you specifically how to change that in your family. Yeah. You have some takeaways, concrete takeaways of, okay, this is how I'm going to approach conflict.

Kyle And Sara Wester (2:11.968)
and start creating a family that's closer together, where the siblings actually are able to enjoy each other and get along better, right? um So first of all, I wanna talk about what is the benefit of having multiple kids, having siblings, how is that a benefit? know, because some people are like, I wish I just had one kid, goodness sakes. It's too hard with two or three, because they're always fighting. Yeah, yeah, I think the conflict, um and I'd even say I'm kind more conflict avoidant.
and the siblings having more than one child invites the conflict. actually creates the space for it. And there is a piece of me that was like, oh, that's bad. The conflict is always bad. But I've grown since then and conflict isn't always bad. In fact, we want our kids to have conflict because you know what? They're going to grow up and they're going to be in relationships with other people, with colleagues, coworkers, friends, uh obviously dating, marriage and
and there will be conflict. Yeah. And so you're saying that's a benefit of having multiple kids. Yes. More conflict. The opportunity. I remember us even having conversations early on once we had two kids and then you talked about having a third and I had these flashbacks because I come from a family of three kids and I assumed it had to be
where two was always gonna team up against one, because that's just the only family kind of like setting, understood that, that I had two siblings and it was always, I was the middle kid, it was me teaming up with my younger sister against my older brother, my older brother and I teaming it was always, you're always trying. The pain of that. Yeah, you're always trying to team up and trying to get power and I just was like, why would you wanna have more than two? Because at least with two, we can do kind of man coverage.
But then when it comes to three, now we've got zone coverage happening and it's hard to manage all of those dynamics. so I thought there's, mean, early on, I was a little bit concerned by having the three, because I didn't know how that could turn into something positive. There's a whole other person that we can all have conflict with. Yeah. Well, I almost like it seems silly, but almost like we have to have four now. Once you have three, you have to four, because then you can have two against two and maybe that's going to be a healthier version of conflict.

Kyle And Sara Wester (4:23.502)
Yeah, so I don't know you're listening to this. I don't know how many you have or I'm sure you may have gone through these same kind of thoughts I know lots of we're talking to parents Definitely whether they were an only kid or they had other siblings. It's very hard to imagine uh You having a family that's gonna be different that somehow the siblings are gonna interact in a different way than what you had in your family of origin You know, yeah. Yeah, and I think um Sometimes maybe it's the opposite where
you and your sibling are best friends. And then you're looking at your kids going, what is wrong? Why are you fighting? We were best friends. How come you're not? And that dynamic comes up in some way, that fear of conflict, what do we do about the conflict? Because I know it's there and I want them to be healthy with it. m
All of that is a constant when you have multiple children. And so I want to state before we go into this, Sarah, that I think a lot of times when we do talk to parents who maybe they're coming in for other needs, when I discuss the siblings, they will say, oh, know, they act like brother and sister. And there is this almost like assumption or this belief that it just has to be this way to where they're constantly fighting each other, where there's even at times they get aggressive at each other or call each other mean names.
And I just want to let you know, it doesn't have to be that way. That you actually can have a family where siblings grow up seeing each other as assets, not as deficits, where they see the strengths that each of the siblings bring to the table. And they really believe they are some of their closest friends. they definitely are going to have moments of conflict, but they're not worried or scared about that conflict. They believe that conflict is going to happen because we have different thoughts and we're
We're different people. not the same people. I want you just to, I guess you might just have to trust us that that can happen. Cause not only do we work at cultivating that and we've seen it happen, but with all the families that we've been able to work with over the years, it is a beautiful thing to watch those dynamics shift. And I've spent many times with parents in tears. Just, I didn't think this was possible. Yeah. And it is possible and very rewarding.

Kyle And Sara Wester (6:37.888)
I actually, as you were talking, I was thinking of the show we recently watched where the parent had died and the siblings were there. And I've heard it said in different versions and the show said it in another way, but it's really, the siblings are the ones that are really kind of the witness of your whole life. And a lot of times your parents, they're gonna go, right? At some point, but a lot of times our siblings are kind of the ones that track with us through our whole story and how much...
it just be really beautiful to have that be a close relationship. And it can be, it can be someone who is journeying with you in your, in your whole life. Yeah. Yeah. So as we get into these three ways that we find parents tend to handle conflict among siblings, I want you to kind of see, maybe use one of these methods, maybe use all of these methods, but, but, but as, as you're listening to and trying to identify maybe which ones you tend to fall into also just leave yourself open to the fact that
It doesn't have to be this way that there is a way to cultivate real genuine love, vulnerability, joy, all that stuff between siblings. The majority of the time, obviously not a hundred percent of the time, but the majority of the Well, and actually once again, want conflict. don't mind the conflict is good and it's healthy. so first way, sir, a lot of one of the mistakes I believe parents make is they resist conflict. Okay. Meaning that maybe it's from their family of origin where they were taught that
conflict's bad, it's only gonna lead to more aggression. So as soon as conflict or fighting happens, when the kids are really little, it's immediately stop doing that, or don't talk to each other that way, or we don't treat each other that way. It's a lot of those kind of statements of trying to stop and resist the conflict that's happening between the siblings. If you're, and yeah, it could be your personality, you know, any part of, if you notice that you're wanting to just shut down the conflict, that's a resistance inside of you, you know.
So just invite you to think through times where your kids have fought and what's going on internally for you. What's happening in there is it just that the biggest need or your biggest goal is just to stop the fighting. Then that is that resistance to it. And what that leads to is when you start resisting the conflict is kids learn, one, to maybe suppress their emotions. So if there is a conflict within them,

Kyle And Sara Wester (8:58.606)
they don't speak out about it because typically mom or dad. and dad are going to be frustrated and the kid gets the message. The goal is to not talk about conflict, to not bring conflict to the So, and they learned that at a young age because it upsets mom and dad every time there's a conflict or there's a big explosion or a big reaction or our mom gets really sad or dad gets really sad. And then the kid says, Oh, don't tell them about that. So that that's one outcome we see a lot as kids just learn to suppress that or two, they just get better at hiding.
So I remember as a kid, there was many times where uh some conflict was gonna happen. And even though my older brother maybe hurt me in some way or was somehow aggressive towards me, I wouldn't want to tell my parents because I felt like their reaction to it was gonna be really big, like way above what I thought it warranted. And so I almost didn't even wanna tell them about it. Yeah, think that is very common.
And of course, then when you grow up into your adult life, you carry that with you and you think, oh, if there's a conflict with a coworker, I mean, you just think I've got to shove this away, shove this away. And I don't know what else to It's not worth it. Yeah. Why bring that up? Yeah. I don't know what else to do other than shove it away, resist it, push it. Well, and even I'd say sometimes Sarah was just...
it was a crap shoot over whether or not telling my parents was even gonna help, Because it might turn into, they start getting mad at me that I even brought it up, right? Like, why do you keep getting into this problem? I can even see that at times when our kids are having conflict, I might slip into that of like, oh, why are you, go take care of this, it's annoying. So then the person who's actually been hurt gets yelled at, or I think another thing I would see sometimes is then whenever they blew up, then everybody was getting in trouble.
So then like now I have to deal with a grumpy parent all night to where it's almost like I'm being punished too for the thing my bread so there's all types of uh Ways in which the kid doesn't trust that bringing up the conflict will bring about anything helpful Okay, so the second thing so first one is parents tend to resist the conflict they they're scared of it or they don't want it It's undesirable. They don't see any benefit to it. Number two is dismissing the conflict

Kyle And Sara Wester (11:12.526)
You know, so, so basically when the conflict is brought up, lot of times parents would be like, well, go deal with it. That's between you two. You know, send the kid away. you know, yeah. But a lot of the just, I'm not going to step in. They just got to figure it out. It's, you know, almost, I love the word dismissing because there's just this piece of you look out the window and see that things aren't going well. And you're just like, they'll, they'll figure it with that be minimizing even, you know, a kid comes.
and a kid is crying about what the other uh sibling did and like, this isn't something to cry about. This isn't that big a deal. You're making too big a deal out of it, So then even minimizing the conflict that's within the kid.
a lot of this also looks kind of laissez faire. It's like, you probably deserved it. Yeah, my might be there. Some of that and the dismissing or are you tattling on here? I don't want you tattling. I don't want you. So a lot of that happens in school too. I saw a lot of teachers do that. At times I did that because I had other things in my mind or on my plate and I just didn't want to deal with it. I was like, I don't want another thing. So it wasn't like I was, I was resisting it, but I was trying to minimize or dismiss it because I wanted that kid to somehow
believe it also wasn't that big a deal. Yeah. You just wish wishful thinking. And I think I'm just going to put in there. We all have moments where we might slip into one of these. That's normal. We all have moments where maybe depending on how you were raised, this is your autopilot. So you get triggered and you fall into it. You'll be, you'll find yourself acting in one of these ways because that's the wiring that was laid in you. So you're, this is just how you know to be.
when kids are having conflict. So it's really just kind of, want to pause if you can, kind of step out of the moment and it's really okay to do that. It's okay to just kind of hit pause and realize this is not a dire emergency. Where am I at? What lens am I looking through right now in this moment at conflict? Yeah. And so a couple outcomes of that when you spend time dismissing it is one, once again, the kid may learn to suppress it or just not tell you about it because the kid's like, it's not helpful. They're just going to blame me or tell me it's not that big a deal, right?

Kyle And Sara Wester (13:19.518)
Or two, I think the thing I see quite a bit in parents who are dismissing is the kid just escalates. know, the kid feels like, yeah, you don't think it's that big a deal. So then what you end up having is a kid who is constantly exaggerating the conflict because they realize like you're going to minimize. So if you're going to make it smaller, I've got to make it gigantic. So then whenever you do make it smaller, at least it's something important to address. And the flip side of that is you'll have a kid who won't come to you.
You know, it's like, oh, and maybe they needed to, there could be a safety issue, there could be something big going on that you'd actually want to be a part of, but if they're going, oh, they're just gonna brush it off, brush it off, brush it off, or dismiss or whatever, then they're not gonna see you as someone to come to, and that's dangerous. Yeah, well, and so going back to those two before we get into the third, the resisting and the dismissing, I think what ends up happening in a kid's mind is,
they feel like they're alone within the conflict. So whether or not you're saying, I don't want to see the conflict and you're resisting it or you're minimizing it, either way the kid is distressed and the kid learns to not come to you anymore. That the kid learns that if I come to you, there isn't going to be help or support or guidance or teaching or discipleship or any of those kinds of positive things that the kid really wants. Like the kid is really coming to you because the kid's saying, I don't know how to resolve this within myself and with my sibling.
And so then the kid is kind of left to come up with their own ways of figuring that. And I know in my home, what that left me is lots of ways that we would try to get revenge on each other. You know, I mean, we'd be plotting for days on how to get back at that slipping from the thing they did or, other ways to like somehow make it even between us. And that's what kids are left to kind of contemplate. Okay. So the third one is, is reffing.
Okay, so basically, super common one, everyone will be familiar with. I think everybody's done this. And basically what that is, is two kids are in a conflict and the parent is called into it or the parent hears the conflict and they feel the need to come in and start pointing fingers and deciding who is the, who is the one who's right and who is wrong. Who's the one who's done the good choice and the one who's done the bad one. And so they're basically like, we call it reffing because you're basically coming in

Kyle And Sara Wester (15:39.342)
with like a yellow card or a red card. Yeah, like how you say you like blow the whistle and then you're handing out the cards. Yeah. deserves, yeah. Well, what, and immediately what happens is I know when my parents did this, you're immediately trying to get your story about how the other person is the bad one. Like you don't want to be the one who's blamed for the conflict because then you're likely to be punished. So the whole goal isn't to resolve the conflict. It isn't to reflect on the part that I played in the conflict. It is to point my finger.
and who I think is really to blame for the conflict. And my goal is to get you as the referee to team up with me and possibly red card that person and get them kicked out of the game. Yeah, you want that, know, judgment is coming and with that penalty and you want that to fall on the other person. again, there's not, it's not fostering insight. It's not fostering, taking personal responsibility and then going and repairing what I have done, what my piece is in this.
it is to always look external and get the focus on the other person. Well, I think, you know, I really love soccer. And so I think soccer is a really fun example to use for this is if you ever watch soccer, one of the negatives of soccer is the embellishment when somebody gets hurt. So somebody will like barely brush somebody and they'll go flying on the ground and they're rolling around and that's their ankle. But that's kind of what we teach our kids to do. Like we teach our kids to like, they barely get touch. And now they're like, Oh my God.
because they want the referee, just like in the soccer game, to immediately go, that is obviously. I'm the victim, I'm the victim. Yes. Obviously they're the horrible person. Yes, so it makes it real easy for the referee to do that. And I think as a parent, a parent feels the need to come in and somehow be the judge and the jury in those moments. And so if that's happening in your home, which I know for sure it did in my family of origin, it helps kids, it teaches kids.
to get really good at the blame game, really good at making up stories that make them look like the hero and the other person as the villain. And so it's not teaching It's that triangle that we've mentioned before. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not teaching kids at all how to take responsibility for their actions, how to own the part they played in the conflict, and then be open and receptive to learning how to resolve it. Yes. Okay. And what that's going to do over time is just create kids who also-

Kyle And Sara Wester (18:2.382)
push further and further away. So whenever I'm dealing with siblings like this, Sarah, and who come into the office or I'm coaching parents with this throughout the world, it's common that these siblings start to really dislike each other. And start to see the other sibling as the enemy almost all the time. Yeah, that resentment really builds and the relationship falls apart. And even with the parent, because the resentment even builds with whoever got the judgment.
it all, all of those relationships weaken over time and it becomes much more competitive. Yeah. Fighting for that parent to side with them. Okay. So, so there's three, we just talked about our resisting conflict, dismissing it and then reffing it. And now I want to get into how to actually change this dance. And you know, Sarah, what I love to do and what I get to do all the time with families throughout the world is I get to help families learn these very skills.
to change these dynamics in their home. So if you're listening to these first three we talked about and you're saying that that is my home and I so wish we could change these dynamics. Well, I'm going to tell you one of those ways in which we do that, but I want to also encourage you to reach out, reach out to me at Kyle at art of raising humans.com. And I would love to talk with you about how we can create a family where the kids are.
connected, are loving, are kind, see each other as assets and beneficial to their lives for the most of the day, right? To where they're not, they're not learning how to Well, and when there is conflict, everyone knows what to do. Yeah. Right. Everybody has the support. But it's like, oh, this is what we do. Yeah. So if you're interested in raising friends for life, definitely reach out to me. And I would love to set up a time to talk to you about how we could do that. So let's get into the fourth way.
Okay, the fourth way to deal with sibling conflict. So instead of reffing, what we want to do is start coaching. Okay. And basically what that looks like one, you can kind of get the metaphor there in the picture is when you're a coach, instead of like a ref, a ref is there to like officiate to opposing teams, as opposed to a coach is there to help manage, support and guide one team. You know, which first of all, just

Kyle And Sara Wester (20:19.214)
just you as a parent stopping like you talked about earlier, realizing, okay, this isn't an emergency. I need to take a moment and not just get triggered by this conflict. I need to take a moment and I need to intentionally approach this as a coach instead of a referee. Yep. And I love this because of that, you use that sports metaphor where if you just walk into the room and there's a fight going on, but you walk in seeing yourself as a coach to a team.
Just that mentality shifts things, just going, okay, it isn't him against her or whatever. It is us. We are a team. What am I going to do to build my team? Yeah. And I would say something we were kind of remiss in mentioning, Sarah, I think is an important component of this is as we get into coaching, I also want to take a moment to reflect upon how am I doing this with my spouse, right? How are we doing this with our partner as we're raising these kids?
because a big part of helping siblings resolve conflict is modeling how to resolve conflict with each other. If they're seeing us constantly at odds against each other, seemingly on different teams, right? And they're not seeing us learn how to resolve conflict in a healthy way, it's gonna make it kind of harder to coach, right? Because kind of similar, like if we had our kid getting coaching for soccer, any sport, we'd want to know that that coach knows how to play, right? If that coach doesn't have the skills on how to play the game,
I don't know how they're going to then be able to coach. So, so a big part of this is just reflecting a little bit on how to me and my partner or my significant other or my spouse, how do we resolve conflict? How did the kids see that? So you and I intentionally, I mean, the kids see us have conflict and we intentionally do our best to model how we work through that and how we resolve it, how we sometimes resolved it poorly. Yeah, we mess up and then we go back and apologize and repair and we're, seeking the win-win. It's, you know,
Not that we do this perfectly, but it's not I win, you lose, but it's how do we win together? And, and that modeling they're going to take and be and do that themselves much more than a bunch of words we say to them. a few things that you need to focus on if you're coaching kids through conflict is number one, you're going to focus on conflict is an opportunity. It's an opportunity for us to learn and learn new skills and to grow closer together.

Kyle And Sara Wester (22:37.612)
Okay. It's also an opportunity for us to push each other further away and also continue to perpetuate unhealthy ways of interacting. Okay. So if I first come in and I'm thinking, okay, oh man, this conflict between the kids, this is actually one of the main reasons why we had several kids is because we wanted many, many, many opportunities to practice resolving conflict with each other because that's going to make them even better at it when they're married someday or at a workplace or have friends.
So I'm going to focus on it's an opportunity. Second is coaching is all about helping kids learn skills. Okay. So that's the focus. The focus is I want this to be an opportunity for us to grow closer together. And I want to teach them in this moment, how to gain the skill, which is the skill of conflict resolution. So, so now that I have that change and I've shifted my focus, instead of trying to solve the problem for them, we want to sit with them and guide them through it.
Right. Okay. Pointing them to each other. Yep. Cause in the roughing thing, it's, it's, they're both talking at you to try to get you to make the judgment in their way. in coaching, it's turning the team towards each other and building the skills there. Yeah. So you might ask questions and once again, I understand this is hard when you have the dance or the pattern of everybody's looking, who's going to get punished and get blamed. They're going to be apprehensive about this at first.
So you may even have to tell them in advance like, hey, I want to change stuff. want to, I don't want to come in and resist. I don't want to come in and dismiss. I want to make sure we're actually resolving it. So when I come in, there may be a moment where you need to pause. Maybe we need to take a break before we come back to it. Right. So I wouldn't suggest just running right in and be like, just start asking these questions. And it's like a magic wand because they're going to be like, where is he or where's mom and dad going with this? they
they're eventually gonna judge who is guilty here. Taking that little break for everybody, including yourself to make sure you're in the right space, but it has proven that conflict resolution goes better when everyone starts in that space. So that is a very good point. So I would definitely stay away from why questions. Why did you do that? Why did you say that? Right? Once again, because that puts people typically on the defensive. So we're gonna move into what, where, how.

Kyle And Sara Wester (24:56.078)
curiosity questions. We're not here to judge. You're not here to punish. You're here to understand. Okay, so some simple questions that we typically ask. Hey, what happened? Right? Wait, what's going on? Right? What do you need right now? You seem upset. How can I help you? Right? Those kind of questions or what would help you both feel better right now? You know, what is it you're needing right now to get through this? Okay, so eventually the goal in the coaching once again, just like if you were a coach on a sports field is to get the information.
So both sides kind of understand what happened and then we're gonna figure out how to resolve and do that better. And we'll get more specific steps in just a minute, but that's the basic framework, okay? Is it's not here to blame who did the things right, who did... Both people were trying to resolve something and it just didn't go well. That's why they called you in because they think you can help them. And they're kids and they don't know how to make it go better. They need someone to help them. Yeah.
So a big part of this, Sarah, is we're trying to, once we're all more calm, regulated and composed, we're trying to connect with each kid in that moment. And I know a lot of parents, I don't have time for this, these conflicts happen as we're getting in the car to go, no, I get that. And I understand that lots of times we're pressed with time, but if you're able to do this five to 10 times consistently, you'll find that this saves a lot of time. Because you know,
eventually once you even get them into the car, the conflict continues on. They're yelling, they're screaming in the car. And you know, you're dealing with this every day, multiple times a day. But if you spend some time intentionally, both parents involved in this, especially be great, then you're giving them skills where eventually you won't be needed, where they're going to be able to do it on. I would say- I just want to insert real quick, like it's okay to hit pause. There have been times where,
It's true, you're walking out the door. A lot of conflict happens because there is stress already happening, but it's okay to be like, whoa, we're just gonna table this now. We're gonna come back to it. Let's just hit a reset here. And it's okay to just know you're gonna have to circle back to it because you're walking into the door, walking through the doors right now to whatever event you're going to, whatever it might be. Just, think sometimes we don't realize we have permission to just pause for a minute, but we need to be intentional about coming back to it. Yep. So, so first step.

Kyle And Sara Wester (27:13.164)
I'm gonna calm myself down. I'm gonna approach it as a coach, not as a ref. I'm not gonna be scared of conflict. I see it as an opportunity. Two, I'm gonna make sure that everybody involved in the conflict, we're all in a good space, right? We're all open and receptive to one another to be heard and understood. And we're gonna model that by asking curious questions rather than judgmental ones that are focused on blaming and punishing. The goal is to help them. And you might need to, especially with littler ones, but you're trying to build their insight. So they're trying to share their story.
with you, but really you want that directed to the other person they're in conflict with. So it's this way of building that skill of what was going on inside of me, what was I wanting and needing in that moment? And I need to share that with the person I'm in conflict with. Yeah. And so every time that this is happening, I'm always kind of thinking to myself, first of all, what was it that each of the kids was trying to accomplish? I want to take a, and once again, I can only do this when I'm composed and regulated. I want to try to put myself in their shoes.
What was it that that kid was trying to accomplish and then how did they try to accomplish it? And it's really that simple. That's the whole reason why there was a conflict was the kid tried to get their need met in a way that upset the other one. And so if I can then hear that, understand it and help the other one express how to meet that need in a way that they prefer, the conflict now is resolved. So a quick example that I like to use on this is,
had a teenager come in who was telling me all about how annoying his little brother is. So I was listening to this and then I asked him, can you give me an example of what he's doing? Well, lots of times I'll be sitting there watching TV, I'm watching a Netflix show and my little brother will come in and start shooting me with a Nerf gun. I said, what do you do once he does that? Well, then I run after him and I beat him up. So we laughed about that and we're like, oh, okay, that sounds like an awesome relationship. Okay, now do you think your little brother wants you to run after and beat him up? He said, no. And I said, that's it. What do you think he actually wants? He said, I think he just wants to spend time with.
Okay, so you spend time with him by running after him beating him up? Well, I mean, that's all I feel like I can do because he annoys me so much. And I said, well, what if you tried this next time you're watching a show and he comes in with his Nerf gun before he shoots it, why don't you look at him and say, do you want to spend time with me? Because if you do, I'm going to be done with the show in about 20 minutes and we can play something. And I'm telling you, I've done this many times with teenagers talking about their little siblings that when they did that, the sibling was blown away. The little kid was like, what?

Kyle And Sara Wester (29:36.544)
you're gonna spend time. Okay, cool. Like all of sudden, the kid was like, I can get this. And then the kids said, Yeah, well, what do want to do? Like 20 minutes, let's play this, right? And then he's like, he didn't shoot it at me, because there was no need to do it. And it really is as simple as that, where it's about understanding the need that the little kid had, and how shooting the Nerf gun was the way he was trying to accomplish it. And all the big brother had to do was meet that need in a way that he was connected to that he liked better. And you'll find
Now they know how to communicate and that conflict doesn't need to happen anymore. From now on that little kid, I could teach him to say, Hey, are you almost done with that show? I'd like to play with you afterwards, right? He could do that, but it's hard for a little kid to do that if big brother isn't going to listen to him, right? So, so a lot of this is changing how that big brother was doing it. so that's an example of really getting in the other kid's shoes and then listening to them. And so if, if that happened, if you're a parent, you heard that happen, you could walk in and do that exact same thing I did with the teenager, you know,
But once again, I did it with him once he was regulated. He felt like I heard and understood how annoying his little brother was. And then once we delved into a specific incident, why don't you try this instead? And that started to change his whole perspective as a little brother. Yeah. And that's really neat that he was able to do that perspective taking, to be able to step into his brother's shoes. And if your child isn't there yet, then support them. You might have to help fill in those, I don't know what they were doing. They were just being annoying. You might have to come along.
But then they get to that place as they build that skill to go, Oh, what was that person really? And just think how beautiful that is. If they took that into work, if they took that into their future relationships, how helpful that would be to be able to look, take the other person's perspective and think what was going on with them and then address the conflict from that understanding. I think everybody listening to this knows the world needs more people who know how to resolve conflict that I know I came into this world without those skills.
And then throughout my childhood, I learned some healthy ways to do it, but a lot of unhealthy ways. And I think it was just through our marriage and us purposely working through this on a daily basis in a healthy way and then building the skills practice. think getting to practice it with our kids all the helped us even do it better with each other because we got to practice it with them. And it's really cool to see all of us now have those tools on our tool belt. And anytime we, we, we take the other path of just immediately blaming or dismissing, we see it and go, that's not going to happen.

Kyle And Sara Wester (32:1.730)
That's not going to resolve the conflict. And so, so I hope today in listening to this, you understand and are hopefully taking away from this, that sibling conflict, super normal, actually healthy. It's kind of- want to actually avoid it. You don't want to, you don't want a house that's completely free of conflict. Like anytime people come together, they're going to rub up against each other and there's going to be conflict. So sibling conflict is not a failure. It is a practice ground for lifelong relationship skills by shifting from referee to coach. You can start investing in connection.
and modeling healthy interactions. And we as parents set the stage for our kids to become more emotionally intelligent, empathetic, and cooperative. So really notice how you're doing that as parents and then how you're giving those skills to your kids. And you really can inevitably raise kids who are friends for life. Yes. It's beautiful. A lot of fun. the effort. Totally worth the effort. So I hope this gives you some hope and gives you some clear direction going forward.
And we thank you so much for taking the time to listen. If you haven't done this already, take a moment to pause, to leave a review, to leave a comment, and definitely share this with any families where you're like, dang, that family needs some help with siblings. Because we really hope to help every family be able to experience the joy of raising multiple kids where they're all loving each other and kind to each other and enjoying each other. And so we hope that would be something every family gets to experience throughout their life. Because man, that's a beautiful.
a lifetime once you're adults, that you can lean on those siblings and have that kind of vulnerable open, and it makes holidays so much more fun, right? So instead of dreading Thanksgiving or Christmas, you're looking forward to seeing the siblings because you're really gonna have this heartfelt connection, okay? So thank you so much for listening today. I hope you're having a wonderful day and I hope this equips you to create the family you're hoping to have. We appreciate you all.

Kyle And Sara Wester (33:55.532)
Okay, why don't you I'll do the intro so uh

Kyle And Sara Wester (34:10.222)
All right, here we go, guys. So take one on intro on siblings, OK?
Okay, take one. Here we go.
Has it always been a dream of yours as a parent to raise siblings who were deeply connected, that were kind, that genuinely loved each other and brought the best out of each other? But have you found yourself stuck, like many, many families, with kids who are constantly bickering, that they're upset with each other, they're trying to annoy each other or get back with each other? I know we see families struggling with this every day.
And it is so beautiful to help those families shift those dynamics to where those relationships become so positive, so life-giving to where you get to sit back and watch them grow up and become friends for life. And so today we're going to dive into three mistakes parents tend to make when dealing with sibling conflict that actually makes it more likely they're not going to like each other. And we teach you
the fourth skill, will help them come together and actually learn how to resolve conflict with each other. And we'll give you specific steps how to do that by the end of the episode. And we want you to be able to walk away feeling fully equipped to be able to change those dynamics within your home. So if you want to raise siblings, kids that get along fantastic with each other, a home that is not free of conflict, but we know when conflict comes up, we know exactly what to do with it.

Kyle And Sara Wester (35:49.250)
to help us create deeper, better, healthy relationships. Look forward to jump into the episode.

Kyle And Sara Wester (35:58.914)
you could cut that last part out, that sounded kind of stupid. um So anyway, look forward to jump into the episode. I like the rest of the intro. So if you could just cut that part out, we'll just jump right into it, just dive into it. All right, so anyway.