Secret #42: Raising Loving Siblings with Jonathan Caspi
In this episode, Emma Waddington and Chris McCurry welcome back Dr. Jonathan Caspi, a sibling expert and family therapist, to discuss the intricate dynamics of sibling relationships.
Dr. Caspi delves into the complexities of sibling conflict, the importance of closeness, and the impact of perceptions of favoritism. He provides actionable strategies for parents to preempt conflicts, establish rules of engagement, and reinforce positive interactions.
The conversation also highlights the critical issues of sibling abuse and the lifelong benefits of strong sibling bonds.
Highlights:
Raising Loving Siblings
Sibling Conflict and Closeness
The Importance of Sibling Relationships
Gender Differences in Sibling Relationships
Parental Influence on Sibling Dynamics
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Secret #42: Raising Loving Siblings with Jonathan Caspi
00:41 Introduction and Guest Reintroduction
01:48 Sibling Conflict and Closeness
03:32 The Importance of Sibling Relationships
12:42 Gender Differences in Sibling Relationships
23:49 Parental Influence on Sibling Dynamics
27:46 Identifying Conflict Triggers
28:37 Setting Clear Expectations
29:30 Motivated Action Plans
31:15 Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
32:06 Preemptive Discussions and Family Meetings
32:45 Rules and Rewards for Bedtime
34:24 Handling Sibling Conflicts
37:18 Parental Consistency and Favoritism
39:53 Managing Parental Guilt
42:12 Final Thoughts and Book Promotion
About Dr. Jonathan Caspi
Visit Dr. Caspi’s website
Follow @siblingexpert on X
Order Dr. Caspi’s books
Dr. Caspi is a Professor in the Department of Family Science & Human Development at Montclair State University, where he teaches about and studies sibling relationships. He has written 3 books and a host of academic articles, mostly about siblings. Dr. Caspi is also an individual, marriage and family therapist. In addition, he is a media consultant with appearances on NPR, The Brian Lehrer Show, WNYC, WHYY, the New York Times, CNN, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post & elsewhere. His 4th book, a parenting guide to learning about what exacerbates sibling conflict and how to manage it, will be out on Guilford Publishing, either later this year or early in 2025.
Follow us on Facebook @lifesdirtylittlesecretspodcast and on Instagram @lifesdirtylittlesecrets
Reach out and let us know you are listening and what you would like to hear on the show - email:lifesdirtylittlesecretspodcast@gmail.com
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Secret #42: Raising Loving Siblings with Jonathan Caspi
[00:00:00]
Introduction and Guest Reintroduction
Emma Waddington: Welcome to Life's Dirty Little Secrets. I'm Emma Waddington.
Chris McCurry: And I'm Chris McCurry. And today we are very pleased to have Jonathan Caspi return. Dr. Caspi is a full time professor at Montclair State University. He received his MSW in [00:01:00] 1992 from Hunter College in New York City and his PhD in 1997 from the State University of New York at Albany.
Dr. Caspi is an internationally recognized sibling expert, author, speaker, and family therapist. He maintains a small private practice with offices in Montclair and Hazlett, New Jersey. He has a book coming out in December titled Raising Loving Siblings published by Guilford Press. And we will have a link to this book and John's other books as well as his websites in today's show notes.
So welcome Jonathan Caspi.
Jonathan Caspi: Thank you. Thank you. It's very, it's great to be back. I really enjoyed our conversation last time. So I'm looking forward to our conversation
Chris McCurry: We did as well.
Sibling Conflict and Closeness
Chris McCurry: Just to recap for those listeners who have not listened to your previous episode, which we would encourage them to do, we were talking about sibling conflict and [00:02:00] and even now some of the terminology can be a little, a little, if not confusing. Misleading. So the difference between conflict and rivalry and such things that are bandied about in popular speech and press and what have you.
So we're going to follow up on that today. And talk about raising loving siblings, so I'm wondering where's the jumping off point between conflict And loving how do we get there?
Jonathan Caspi: That's a great question. The. You know, what's interesting in research actually is that siblings who are highly conflictual are also the closest ones. That is that closeness and conflicts are linked and it makes perfect sense, right? Because if you're close, then you spend more time with each other.
And then there's more things to sort of bump into along the way. Like, you know, everything from you [00:03:00] know, who's going to get the last slice of pizza to. Yeah. You know, you know, who's better at shooting a basketball, right? And so you have this joint time, which builds closeness, but it also lends itself to conflict.
Whereas siblings who are kind of distant from each other, they don't really get into that many fights. You know they tend to avoid each other and parents can be helpful in that by saying, you know, each of you stay away from each other. And when they do that, of course, there's less conflict, but there's also a lot less closeness.
The Importance of Sibling Relationships
Jonathan Caspi: And as we talked about last time, closeness is hugely important because it has all these amazing lifelong benefits and developmental benefits. You know, people who are closer to siblings have better friends, they report greater happiness in adulthood, they report better health, they actually it's linked to better financial success.
You know happy people tend to get promoted more and get jobs you know, hired [00:04:00] more frequently. And so you know, all of this, These benefits related to close siblings often aren't considered, but that should be the ultimate goal. Plus, you know, parents want their kids to be friends and to be close.
And so, unfortunately, it's tough to have 1 without the other. And so sometimes you're going to have conflict. All relationships do. It's just expected. And it's important to be able to 1, you know, help kids learn how to manage conflict in productive ways and then get out of their way and two to keep them safe in case the conflict starts to get out of hand.
And so it kind of leaves parents in this difficult territory of knowing when to intervene
Emma Waddington: That's really reassuring, actually. Sorry, Chris, go
Chris McCurry: I was just going to say, and when not to intervene,
Jonathan Caspi: and what, yeah,
Emma Waddington: I was just thinking, as a parent of three children, and I desperately want them to have a great [00:05:00] relationship, especially after our previous conversation talking about all these wonderful benefits it's a relief to hear that inevitably, building closeness will lead to conflict. Like, you can't have one without the other. It's impossible to have one without the other, potentially. That's what I'm hearing, which is quite validating of my personal experience, to be honest.
Jonathan Caspi: It's true. I mean, you don't want the conflict to happen a lot. I mean, it's just like, you know, marriages and other relationships, you're going to have conflicts, you're going to bump into things, but you want it to generally be a fairly peaceful, you know, supportive, loving relationship. And that can happen with siblings too, where the conflict can be greatly lessened.
It doesn't have to be, you know this what's the word I'm looking for? Like a chaotic environment where you're like, Oh, is it going to be close and happy today? Or are they going to, is something going to set the two of them off Would imagine that, [00:06:00] learning to deal with conflict, you know, it would be such an important life skill. And it would be predictive of success in the future, because of all the other conflicted relationships or, you know, the conflicts that we're going to encounter in our relationships, future and future relationships.
Chris McCurry: And it makes me think about the marshmallow study and which has been criticized. I know recently, but still the idea of self control as being such an important skill to take into life with you to delay gratification and all that. And when you have siblings. You have to learn a lot of self control because you just can't get whatever you want all the time.
Jonathan Caspi: a hundred percent emotional regulation is so key to being successful in life. Although there is a confounding piece of information and I don't want to send this conversation in a different direction. But, you know, who does the best on pretty [00:07:00] much all measures in this regard is only children. So, and they don't, you know they actually do very well academically and socially and and income and everything else.
And yet they don't have kids. Typically deal with the sibling conflict. However, there's a really important you know piece to that, which is that's only true if they grow up in a happy, low conflict household. If they grow up in a high stress, high conflict household then they do worse than everybody because they don't have the benefit of sibling support.
They're alone to, yeah. Okay, so I'm sorry.
Chris McCurry: No. But, you know, I think that is an important thing to point out because, you know, it seems like there's always and yes, but there's this element to all of these things. But it is important to note that there are children out there, such as my own, who, you know, did not grow up with siblings and yet he had to deal with conflict between himself and his [00:08:00] parents.
Jonathan Caspi: But that's what happens. I, so, you know, three, three, a three legged stool is always interesting to sit on. We but that said your point earlier, Chris was super important, which is that, you know, the siblings do provide an important training ground for life and one of them is, you know, you. You can't just do whatever you want to other people.
You have to take them into consideration and engage in perspective, taking and emotionally regulate yourself and learn how to, you know, compliment and provide support and, you know, express anger and frustration, productive ways. So it's a great, it's a great place for siblings to learn for children to learn is in the sibling context.
Chris McCurry: It's gladiator school,
Jonathan Caspi: Yes, that's true.
Emma Waddington: I was reading a, an article about siblings and it was saying how, you know, there really is no other relationship, like our sibling relationship. In as much as you know, siblings are there for, [00:09:00] well, if, unless something horrible happens for all of our lives, whilst, you know, our partner comes in later in life and our parents perhaps die early in life, our siblings are there the whole time and they get to sort of experiment with us.
They get to, to learn about the world with us. And it is such a, Long relationship that I can see that it, why it can be so beneficial to our well being because they are there all the time and they have our back in conflicts. They are our training ground, you know, to learn about conflicts, they can get us out of trouble, you know.
With our parents you know, they really can be our companion in so much of our lives. So it does, thinking of it like that, I can see how special it really is. There's no other relationship like it. Percent and the, you know, all those things you said are true. Plus there are [00:10:00] eyewitnesses to life. Right. You know they're there in our greatest moments and in our worst moments and you know, they know us in ways that most people will never and they have memories of early childhood that you won't be able to share with anybody else.
Jonathan Caspi: And in fact, when you talk to older people who have lost a sibling, frequently say that was the hardest loss, that it was terrible losing their parents. And You know, even losing a spouse you know, as painful as it is, there's something about that lifelong witness that it's, you know, when your sibling goes, so does your history, your shared history.
And that's very reassuring to have you know, especially as we age to have people who, you know and we get increasingly isolated, unfortunately. That we have people that we feel like there's a common language in history.
Chris McCurry: and yet I've noticed amongst my siblings that our histories tend to be a little [00:11:00] different. We'll be having these conversations, they'll say. Oh, remember when this happened and it's like, I don't think it happened that way, but that's their memory of, you know, X, Y, or Z situation. It's really interesting that you know, we all have these different angles on the same event.
Sometimes radically different.
Jonathan Caspi: Oh, And that but, you know, even in that disagreement, there's a connection. Right? Because you're still talking about a shared event with your different perspectives. But part of the reason you have different perspectives is that you know, you're not just different people, but you grew up in different families. Like you're in the same family, but your experience of your parents is different. It's different being a second born than a fourth born. My memory is that you had was there six of you?
Chris McCurry: Yes.
Jonathan Caspi: Yeah. And so you all kind of carry your own special set of glasses through your whole life where You know [00:12:00] you have the shared experience, but such a different experience at the same time.
Chris McCurry: Oh, yeah. Our parents were very different parents for my eldest sister versus my youngest sister.
Jonathan Caspi: Yeah. And in many ways, right. I mean, one, they were much more relaxed. Your younger sister was able to get away with a lot more. But but also probably other things too. You may have, you know, there may be financial differences. Families tend to get more stable as they get older. You know and then of course your younger sister had the benefit of Being parented by your oldest sister. Yeah. And I don't know your family. I'm just thinking. It's very accurate and very accurate.
Gender Differences in Sibling Relationships
Emma Waddington: Out of curiosity, is there a difference in terms of the quality of the sibling relationship? If the different genders, like do boys get on better with boys and girls get on better with girls as in, is the power of the relationship better if you're the same gender or does it not matter? Does gender not [00:13:00] play a part
Jonathan Caspi: Having a sister makes everything better.
Emma Waddington: as in, sis, my sisters would agree with that.
Oh wow. So versus brothers, two boys or three boys. Oh, interesting.
Jonathan Caspi: Yep.
No, fascinating. Interesting.
yeah, it's just sister relationships are fairly unique that way. They tend to be closer and having a sister tends to make relationships with brothers closer to you know, part of that is just the way we're socialized you know, women generally towards relationships and men towards independence.
And so and also about what you know, how we communicate and other kinds of things. So if you, when you look at research on closeness, for example, it goes, you know, sisters, bring everything up.
Emma Waddington: Wow, that's really interesting because I've always wondered about the gender piece because you see brothers sort of, yeah, they do have a different relationship. I'm one of three sisters. My husband's one of [00:14:00] three brothers and I see it very different. I mean, it's. Very different. How often we speak versus how often they speak, what we speak about fascinating.
So what you speak about is that's a big one, right? Like,
Jonathan Caspi: you know, yeah you know I'll talk to my brother for an hour on the phone and my wife will say, what did you talk about? And I'll say, I don't know. We talked about soccer, this and that. And she's like, well did you find out about, you know, his girlfriend or whatever?
I'm like, no, why
would I ask that?
Chris McCurry: My wife always says men never ask the right questions.
Emma Waddington: I'm with her. I'm with her. I'll do the same. My husband will come off the phone. I'll be like, so what about this No idea? I'm like, what? What? How's that possible? How could you not ask about this
Jonathan Caspi: It's funny how this sibling conversation became about how men don't know how to ask questions.
Emma Waddington: It is. It it's never far from the surface, but so [00:15:00] I know Emma is eager to hear. Your wisdom around how to raise loving sibling. So well, first of all, how did you get into deciding to write about that particular topic?
Jonathan Caspi: Well As we've talked about in the prior podcast my interest really in siblings came in a very academic way. Where I was in the PhD program and I came across this research study, which said two research studies, actually, that said two different things. One said that the most common form of child maltreatment and violence in families is sibling violence.
And, you know, at that point, I'd already been a practitioner or gone to grad school. And I was like, how could that be? And I never heard of it. And in fact, you know it the numbers are so crazy because it, you know, it's more prevalent [00:16:00] than parent abuse of children, peer bullying and domestic violence or partner violence combined.
And yet, right. And so, and then, and I'm like how do I not know this? You know, I've done many workshops over the years where I've talked to, you know, therapists from a variety of backgrounds and I'll start by saying, you know, how many of you heard, have heard the term sibling abuse? And when I started doing this in the 1990s, out of a room of 100 people, you might get two hands up that now it's, people are more familiar with the term, but the prevalence is probably not.
Still kind of catches people by surprise. So that was the first one. And I said, I have to learn more about that. And then the second piece was and I may, we may have talked about this in the prior podcast too. Which is that a study came out it was called why are siblings so different you know, written from mostly from a genetic, you know perspective, [00:17:00] which is you know, if we share the same genes, we should really be alike, but if you and we also grew up in the same house, eat the same food, go to the same playgrounds, you know, everything is same, right?
Okay. And so, but that when you look at personality tests and psychological adjustment tests were as different as random pairs of strangers on the street. And so, if you take just two strict people randomly and you give them a you know, a depression inventory, an anxiety inventory, a personality test the way they score, It's similar to the way siblings would score.
So how could siblings be so different when they're same, right? Same genetics, typically, not always, but and then you know, same household. And the answer is in large part, well, so at the end of the study, it said, you know, maybe somebody is not a geneticist. That's they didn't write it this way, but that's basically what they were saying can explain how this happens.
[00:18:00] And I thought, well, I'd like to try to explain how that happens. I want to give that a shot. So you know, I started kind of delving into siblings and that really was the motivation for getting into the field. And then, you know, you start to discover other things along the way, like how incredibly powerful sibling relationships are in terms of it's their protective effects.
You know I mentioned this last time too, that when. You know, you look at siblings of divorce, children of divorce they often fall temporarily, but fall behind academically and they have behavior issues and things like that. Not if they have a good sibling relationship, though, that it can buffer the effects of very difficult life events and it's, and there's a number of examples of where siblings can buffer.
Those harsh events. And so I thought, well, it's really important that we help siblings become close and there really aren't [00:19:00] books that target that direction. There's a lot of, you know, self help books that are about stopping sibling fighting, but not about building closeness. And so, you know, both things need to happen simultaneously.
Emma Waddington: that's one of the things that struck me from our previous conversation as well as the sort of sibling abuse. It's absolutely floored me. And that, like we discussed it's, there's a certain acceptance that somehow that will just be the case. But the other piece is how important siblings are and how little we think about that.
Like, even from a clinical perspective when, you know, like, Young people going through a divorce as clinicians. We don't think about working on the sibling relationship, but it sounds like that should be exactly what we're focusing on and targeting. And even when we're doing parenting work, thinking about the siblings, it just doesn't seem to be such a something that people, you know, refer to or reflect on as much as we really [00:20:00] should.
And even the study of that, you talked about the Harvard study and how sibling relationships are predictive of well being and happiness. Again, that's not even, that's not something I've heard and having, you know, watched lots of TED Talks about the study. I don't remember that being such a big piece of it and yet, wow, how important.
So I love that we're having this conversation because it seems like one of the key pieces for parents to have in mind is how to nurture these really important. important relationship, the most important they'll ever have. And and as a parent of three, I'm particularly interested to hear about it because I feel outnumbered fairly regularly.
And and I think it is, it's quite complicated because of all those tensions that we talked about last time that, you know, sibling conflict The inevitable comparison will make that relationship quite, at times, [00:21:00] quite difficult. So,
Jonathan Caspi: It's true. I mean, being a parent is it's kind of a lose proposition with siblings. But, and we can get into that in a second and sort of set up, like, how do we make relationships better relationships. But the you know, what you were just saying about you know, once you put on the sibling glasses it's two things happen.
One is it's everywhere, right? You just see it everywhere. You know, you see, you see it show up in the dynamics of their growing up with siblings show up in the, in their marital relationships. You know, you see it in playground, you see it everywhere, right? And and then the other piece of it is that it, as a researcher or as a clinician, it makes you think about how you approach things very differently. Right. Like you're spot on it. What you said is exactly what [00:22:00] I said to my classes. And maybe this was covered in the last podcast too. I don't remember, but you know, clinicians typically, when kids are going through divorce often talk about, you know, the emotional pain of it and the transitions and you know the divided loyalty feelings and all those kinds of things.
Where building positive sibling relationships may be the best move, you know, not to not talk about those other things, but it provides a direction that's a positive direction and treatment. So it's not just focused on, like, how do you manage this adversity? It's, you know how can you do this with the benefit of becoming closer to a sibling?
Emma Waddington: and I think. Like, as you're sharing about it, I'm thinking at every stage of life, like when you're recovering from, like, like you mentioned, you know, older adults, or, you know, if you're going through a divorce if you're going through a health [00:23:00] issue, any stage of life, if we can help, or if you can even reflect on how's my sibling relationship going and should I nurture that?
Because we often think about turning to friends And as clinicians, I often think about that, and I must admit that it's a blind spot. It's been a blind spot for me to think about siblings.
Jonathan Caspi: Oh, I write about this and think about it all the time and it's still a blind spot sometimes.
Emma Waddington: It's
Jonathan Caspi: Just so you know, sometimes I'll be, I'll be sitting at the dinner table and my kids are fighting with each other and I'll say I have to interrupt you because I just want you to know that I'm one of the foremost people in dealing with sibling conflict. I just make them aware, please continue,
Chris McCurry: They roll their eyes.
Jonathan Caspi: they just look, they just chuckle at me. they roll their eyes at everything I say, Chris. So
Parental Influence on Sibling Dynamics
Jonathan Caspi: But, you know, so to kind of get to this piece that I think you're talking about here, Emma, a little bit is that, you know, part of the reason [00:24:00] why it's tough raising siblings is because One, they're with each other a lot and anytime people are in the same room with somebody for a long period of time, they're going to bump into conflicts and disagreements and people are going to have their bad days and be grumpy and come home from school, you know, irritated about something that happened there and take it out on a sibling.
And so, you know, you're, it's just a lot of this is just this living together. You know, business plus, you know, again, who gets to eat the last piece of pizza or, you know, who gets to choose what show you're going to watch or what video game you're going to play. And so there's a lot of that that needs to be sorted out in the life of siblings.
And then you add on top of it that siblings also pay children pay very close attention to how their parents treat them and then their siblings and then they're making lots of comparisons around parenting. And, you know, am I a favorite? Am I not a [00:25:00] favorite? Am I being comparing? Well, am I not? Why do you yell at them, but you don't, why do you yell at me, but not at my brother or sister?
And so, you know it's not just living together, like when two adults cohabitate, it's living together with you know, these supervisors who may treat people unequally. And even if they try to treat them equally, it's, that's an impossibility and and there's also an audience, right? You're, if you're getting disciplined by your parent, your sibling is watching it.
So you have all these kinds of things that contribute to fostering competition and comparison. And then perceptions of favoritism, and it's these the living together, the combination of one living together and two perceptions of favoritism, are, Kind of the biggies. There's lots of other reasons why siblings get into, you know, [00:26:00] fighting with each other and and that also can sometimes get in the way of them being close, right?
Because, you know, we, the conflict. Close relationships tend to have more conflict. Those two things are linked because when you live with some, when you're close with somebody and you spend a lot of time with them, you're more likely to get into fights with people than those people that you don't communicate with very often or don't hang with very often that are more distant in your relationships.
So yeah, so, you know, what do you do about all this? Well, one is you have to kind of come up with a plan for daily life, right? Living together, and then you have to address the perceptions of favoritism. And I keep saying perceptions of favoritism rather than favoritism. Because it has more to do with the way the kids see things than it does the way the parents see things, ultimately, in terms of the nature of the sibling relationship. So, you know, so what do you do? [00:27:00] Well first is you know, when we were kind of chatting pre recording, we were talking about, you know not, You know, not knowing what the rules and families are, right? Just the parents have to wing it a lot. And that this sort of trying to like did I say the right thing that I do the right thing?
You know, and the more we wing it, the more likely we are to, you know, mess things up. And we can, you know, even inadvertently create more conflict between our kids by the way that we try to intervene, which I'll come back to that later. But you know, the first thing is to actually try to have, you know, rules of engagement for sibling relationships.
Identifying Conflict Triggers
Jonathan Caspi: So, you know identify those kind of areas where siblings sort of bump into each other and get into fights and then come up with rules for what happens.
Emma Waddington: preempt it, I think we [00:28:00] touched on that briefly last time. So, you know the, instead of being reactive, which inevitably we end up being, it's actually preempting, starting to see the pattern and like Chris refers to the dance, like they, there is something quite predictive, predictable about conflict, isn't there?
We know that the. Especially in this household, it's often around bedtime and everybody's a bit irritable and overtired, especially me. That's when things start to get out of hand I find.
Setting Clear Expectations
Emma Waddington: So sort of having quite clear expectations and almost, I think, yeah, expectations for me too. It's like, what am I going to do?
Give myself an expectation. What am I going to do if conflict arises? What am I going to do if I feel like, you know, shouting and getting really frustrated? [00:29:00] I think those rules of engagement are really important for everybody, but especially I get very triggered by conflict between my children and and not physical, they don't hurt each other now and again, they play fight to a degree that I don't like.
But, you know, they'll have arguments and I don't I find myself getting quite upset and That's a big trigger for me. And so having something in my mind about what do I do when that happens is really helpful.
Motivated Action Plans
Chris McCurry: I mean, one of the authors that I like is a gentleman, Gene Dumas, who came out of University of Tennessee, Knoxville, worked with Robert Waller a lot. And he talks about maps, motivated action plans. And these are little scripts that the parent, you know, sometimes in collaboration with, you know, consultation with the therapist will come up with.
And, When this happens, I'm going to do these, you know, three [00:30:00] steps to try to steer this in a better direction and I think even just being able to step back and go, oh, yeah, bedtime and label it and see it as a thing, stepping back from that a little bit, as opposed to, you know, being in the middle of the chaos to go, oh, yeah, bedtime.
Oh, yeah. Is a shift from just feeling like you're, you know, completely out of control, but oh, yeah, one of these and that that can be enough of a shift to allow the parent to, you know, I mean, I remember one time I was in yoga and I was doing some yoga. Pose and I was the only guy in the room as usual and I looked around and I'm like, like, about to fall over and I'm just one of the warrior poses and I'm like, you know, about to fall over and all the women around me are serenely doing this pose and the yoga instructor said to no one in particular.
Settle into your [00:31:00] wobbliness. And I thought, what the heck does that mean? But I said, okay, you know, and I kind of settled into my wobbliness and it shifted things and I was still wobbly, but not quite so much, but it made all the difference in the world. And in the kind of therapy that.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Chris McCurry: M and I do acceptance and commitment therapy.
That's part of the acceptance piece of like, Oh, yeah, this is just the way things are right now. And you stop fighting it so much. And you start looking for some possible solutions. And you can be creative in those situations sometimes. If you're not fighting it,
Jonathan Caspi: That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. You deal with the reality of your situation rather than the fantasy. Of what it should be, you know, it's just that's the acceptance. Right? So that's a great. I love the yoga metaphor. That's a really good one. Yeah, but it's to come back to your point about bedtime to is that and, you know, Emily, you kind of said it, you can't come up with the rules [00:32:00] and the expectations in the moment.
Because you're already frazzled and heated and it's a terror.
Preemptive Discussions and Family Meetings
Jonathan Caspi: So these kind of preemptive discussions first have to happen with a spouse or whoever a co caregiver is, if there is one, so that you're a team and you're not undermining each other. And that, so it requires a whole conversation of how are we going to approach this?
And then, To have a family meeting of sorts doesn't have to be labeled that, but you know, a sit down when things are sort of calm and nice. And maybe when you're sitting around dinner, say, by the way, let's talk about bedtime. And then you come up with the, you know, sometimes with your kids, depending on how old they are, you come up with the rules for what bedtime is going to look like.
Rules and Rewards for Bedtime
Jonathan Caspi: And these are the behaviors we expect you to see, like you're going to get in your bed and you're going to stay in your bed, or you're going to read a book for 15 minutes or whatever your nighttime routine is and then you can lay out at the time both rewards and [00:33:00] consequences. And so, you know if the child then gets out of the bed, and we're not talking about siblings, this is just, you know, rules in general.
But when, if the child gets out of the bed, then you say, Hey, remember what we talked about earlier? And you can do it in a calm way. And you can say, you know, you're the rule is that once you're in bed, you stay in bed and you read your book. And you know, if you do that, you get X reward, whatever it is, you know, 10 more minutes on your iPod pad or whatever.
And if you don't then you will, you know, lose 10 minutes off of your iPad. It doesn't always have to have the negative in there, but you know, the rewards are usually powerful enough. But you know, it usually, it, what it does is it puts the decision making back on the child and says, You know here's the rule.
You can follow it and things will go really nicely for you. You'll get a reward. And if you don't, then things won't go so nicely. Now it's on you, [00:34:00] but parents have to stick to it and they have to stick to it consistently, but it gives them a very clear you know, step by step, like here's the rule. And then you have a chance to have them try it again.
So you don't get mad and the kid doesn't get frustrated. It's like, okay, you got out of bed. We talked about how that wasn't something that you're supposed to do. Let's try it again. And you still have an opportunity to get that reward.
Handling Sibling Conflicts
Jonathan Caspi: And then that applies for sibling fighting too. Like I have to take an important phone call for work.
The two of you are going to be in a room together, right? What are the rules for shared time? And if they're little, you you decide what the rules are for them and you can rehearse it and practice it with them. And then if they're bigger, you can have them sort of come up with What they think the rules should be.
And that can be a mutual shared discussion. And then once that's, once you have them you can even formalize them. You can write them down. You can put them on the refrigerator. You could do whatever, you know, but they become, you know, those are the rules [00:35:00] for living together. And and the parents follow the same set of rules.
Now, they don't, they're not completely rigid. You can, you know, modify them as you need to. But you don't you don't modify them on the fly. You have to have another family meeting first with your partner and then and then with the children to kind of come up with this action plan to use the kind of words that Chris was using. And this way you can remain calm. You know, I remember when when my son was very little, like he was like four, he would come into the kitchen and he would go give me water, get me water, something like that. And, you know, in my head, I was like, who do you think you are commanding me or you're, I'm way bigger than you.
And and so instead of, you know, I would take a deep breath, bite my tongue and I would say, just go out, come back in and try that again because you know how you're supposed to have water, right? We've been over this. And then he would [00:36:00] come in and he would say, can I please have some water? And I was like, yes.
And I make a big deal of it and high five and all that kind of stuff. Right? But that's the idea is you give, you know, you give yourself and you give the child an opportunity to learn the right behavior rather than just expect it. So you have to teach it and then you have to reinforce it, but that's it's a lot of work up front sometimes, but it makes life so much easier on the back end.
Emma Waddington: it reminds me of a conversation we had on the podcast with Emily Edlin on. Autonomy supported parenting and exactly the same, right? We have to sometimes teach these skills and expectations up front, but then it does make life easier in the long run. But there, there is a quite a bit of intentionality and self regulation.
That is involved and the planning with your co parent, like making sure that you're both aligned. Cause one of the things that I find really useful about having a co parent is being able to do tag team. Like if at some point, something's, you know, going [00:37:00] off with the kids, I can go, you know what, I'm checking out, you take over and knowing that, you know, taking over doesn't mean a complete new set of roles and, you know, we're off to ice cream.
It's actually, you're going to take over from whatever it is that we were meant to be doing together.
Parental Consistency and Favoritism
Emma Waddington: So, yeah, co parenting does require an ally
Jonathan Caspi: Yeah and having this, not just an ally which is, you know, a shared plan, because if one parent is like, you have to be in bed at like eight o'clock every night, right? That's the rule. And the other parent's like what's the big deal? Why can't they be up to 830? Like, we're so comfortable on the couch and we're watching a show.
Why do you have to be so rigid and And, you know, just kind of let them say now what has happened is that the child learns that they can pretty much do whatever they want, right? Because the parent, the parents are undermining each other. And and so those rules, like if [00:38:00] it's 8 o'clock, it's 8 o'clock for both parents, regardless of what's going on, right?
Even if you're enjoying a show together, if that's, you know, and so. You know, it does bring a little bit more rigidity to families, but it also brings more predictability because, you know the big problem is that most of Parenting in general, at least in my observation, and particularly around siblings, is that we tend to only parent the bad. So, you know, two siblings are in a room playing with each other very nicely for a half an hour that's like the expectation. And then if they all of a sudden start fighting, that's when the parents get involved. And they, you know, they're like, you two cut it out and stop yelling. And meanwhile, there was a half hour where they were sharing and complimenting and playing and doing things nicely, and that's the part that really should receive the attention and be parented, because the negative moments they attract the kind of attention that reinforces that.
And then, of course, the way the parents come in makes a big difference, [00:39:00] because if the parent says something like, you know, you're older, you should let your younger sibling play with the blocks. They've just taken sides, and now you have perceptions of favoritism, like you always do that, you always, you know, let them play with the blocks, and I never get to and so, you know the, this only parenting in the moment, and in the bad stuff, almost always makes it worse, so you want to, you know, you want to set things up when things are not in the moment, and then to recognize the good Things as they happen and parent those, you know, so every time siblings compliment each other in my house, when if somebody says something nice to each other, I make a big deal out of it.
Right. Or if they, if one says to the other, Hey, do you want to go outside and kick a ball? I'm like, Oh my God, you two are going to play together. That's so awesome. Right. Because you know, that stuff rarely gets attention by parents.
Emma Waddington: true. It's so true.
Managing Parental Guilt
Emma Waddington: And, I mean, I already feel the guilt because I'm often feeling quite busy. [00:40:00] And obviously, what draws my attention is when there is conflict, and that's when I'll come sort of crashing into the room and go, what is going on? Can't leave you one minute, blah, blah, blah, right? And I put my hand up, guilty. I find that very stressful, like I don't want them to be fighting, I want them to be the best of friends. But of course, I'm busy doing something else when they're quiet, I'm thinking, great, I have a minute to do X, Y, Z. And the reality is That if that has been happening and there may be more conflict as a result, I need to invest some time in addressing that balance and that it will take time and I have to be compassionate and forgiving that, you know, I'm doing the best I can.
And as we sort of talked about in the previous, you know, podcast, and you mentioned it's a lose, it's really, you know, it's tough sometimes and just do the work, make sure I am attending to when they are connecting and they're being really lovely to each other and have those plans in place when conflict happens so that it's not.
You [00:41:00] know, reactive to the situation and that I don't sort of make matters worse by over intervening. I'm guilty of that. Yeah.
Jonathan Caspi: Well, that's that, that my, I've reached I've attained my objective in the podcast, which is to create guilt. All the listeners. We all do that. We all do that. We all do this. The stuff you're talking about, which is, you asked me why did I wanna write a book on this? And that's precisely the reason because this kind of winging it approach is really tough.
And it, and then it makes us feel like, like we're failing in places when we're not
Emma Waddington: so
Chris McCurry: we we talked in a recent podcast about parental guilt and how, you know, when you leave the hospital, you have to have a car seat for your child. And it's you know, here's your car seat. Here's your guilt and enjoy this for the next, you know, for the rest of your life. but because this is a sibling podcast, it's worse for the first born than it is for the later borns.
oh yeah, definitely. Definitely. [00:42:00] Cause you make all the mistakes. Well, you actually care about what the car seat is. by the time you get to number six, you're like, it's kind of buckled in close enough. Let's go.
Yeah. Yeah. There's always the roof rack.
Final Thoughts and Book Promotion
Chris McCurry: But it, it is that, it is time for me to say, in the interest of time
How should we leave our listeners?
Emma Waddington: so what I would love, so here's pure, purely selfishly to improve my own parenting of siblings. I've been thinking about this a lot in preparation for the podcast and one of the very selfish reasons why I wanted you back is because I wanted to make sure that I had some tips. I realized that And you can bill her for this.
Yeah, absolutely.
This is, I'm delighted. I noticed that sort of conflict is very triggering for me as it is for many parents and that what I used to do with the boys. So when I had two boys and then my daughter's a bit younger, I used to say to them, you know, if there was conflict, I'd [00:43:00] often say to them, I trust that you can figure this out. I trust that you've got this, and I'd leave the room, and I remember my eldest, I asked him the other day, do you remember that, and he'd come back and go, you always say that, but we don't. But then they'd figure something out and off they would go. And I noticed that I've stopped doing that as much since my daughter came. And there was something about when she came that I don't use those words as much anymore. I get, I've been intervening more and it got me thinking, I wonder why I've now started to intervene more. And I think it's because her being the youngest, I worry about. Them hurting her in some way, even though I haven't got necessarily, thankfully much evidence of that.
That's when a conflict happens. I think, Oh no, they're bigger. Something might go wrong. And so then I get much more involved, but as a result, we've had many a conversation about favoritism, about them feeling, and I was thinking, why is this happening? We had that conversation with Katie Parmenon. Why are they doing that?
And I think it's [00:44:00] because I've stopped. Using the phrase of, I trust you guys can sort this out and I've been more involved, I've been intervening more. And so I, I know how hard it is not to intervene. Basically, I know how difficult it is not to feel like I've got to try and fix it. So maybe finally just thinking about what are some of those preemptive things that we can do as parents.
When it comes to conflict and what do we do when conflict actually happens, you know, how little do we intervene and when to intervene, because that seems quite,
Jonathan Caspi: I
thought she said this was in the interest of time.
Uh,
Emma Waddington: I'm I was just gonna say, oh, that might be too big.
Jonathan Caspi: It's a pretty big topic, but I'll give you this. All right. First of all, just this, you know, when people use the word trigger I teach a class on anxiety to now because it's such so widespread, especially with [00:45:00] the college age population. But when people use the word trigger, what they're really saying is that it's a word that it makes me very anxious.
And why do people get anxious? Because they don't feel like they have the tools or the confidence to handle the situation.
So when it comes, because something dangerous is about to happen, and I don't know if I can, if I have it right. So it's if you have a plan, then you'll feel more confident because you feel like you have the tools and it won't be as triggering anymore.
So you can, you know, if you do this kind of preemptive work and then siblings fight, it's just, this is a situation that to use your language, I have to accept and just kind of manage. Yeah. And not have a fantasy that it's going to go in a different way, or why do I have to do this? I shouldn't have to, you know, you know, you guys fight with each other.
And now I have to be responsible for something. And so, you know, what you can [00:46:00] do, the rules of engagement, just like we talked about for you know, bedtime are the same for sibling fighting. You know, if you to disagree, yeah. You know, what's the, how are you supposed to manage that? Like, what do you do?
And, you know it, you can, you know, teach. If you have to you know you walk away and come back to it, right? You can teach if they're little, that they might need to call a parent to help them. You can, you know, you can teach you know, self regulation kind of behaviors. Like, you know, you don't yell and you don't punch and those become, and then, but you have to give the substitute behavior instead.
Like, you know, what do you do instead of that? You know you. You know, make a request using the word, please, you know you kind of give the rules for how you want them to manage when conflict arrives and then if they follow it, then you can again, reward [00:47:00] it and call attention to it and high five and praise it.
And if they don't, you can give them another shot and say, remember what we talked about here's what you're supposed to do in that moment. And then and say, try it again. Okay. And then you're, and then you can step out because when you intervene there's always going to be perceptions of favoritism.
I mean, you know, we've, you know, it's the classic example of cutting the birthday cake. You can cut it exactly the same, but still one person thinks they, the other one got more. And it's the same thing with when you apply discipline, you know, you can do it exactly the same, but it may not be perceived the same.
And then the other thing that I would suggest is that the favoritism is really corrosive to relationships. It's a sibling relationships. It really, it makes them fight more. It makes them not like each other. It gets in the way of closeness. It's layered with things. Most parents don't believe that they are engaging in favoritism, right?
But it doesn't really [00:48:00] matter so much as what the parent believes is what the kids believe. And so often what happens is the kid will say you're playing favorites or, you know, it's unfair. And the parent goes no, I treat all of you the same. I love you the same. And, you know, it's all, and they dismiss it.
Which only then confirms in the mind of the child that they really are disfavored. Because here they are saying, hey, mom or dad, take this seriously. And you're like, I'm not. And so if you're not, that means that. That they're being disregarded. And so it just reinforces that whole thing. And it's a very tricky kind of thing because parents may actually be playing favorites without knowing it.
You know, for example, protecting, you know your daughter because she's smaller and it seems so legitimate, but at the same time it does it, it does put her in a position of a privilege. The other thing is that, you know, favoritism is a very [00:49:00] fuzzy concept because one, most kids, you probably are familiar with this research, but parents when they're asked about favoritism and they're not asked, they don't use the word favoritism, they use words like, you know, do you spend more time with one than the other?
Do you feel closer? Do you have more conflict? Do you have more disappointment with one or someone that you feel more proud of? You know, they ask those kind of questions and they kind of, you know, I mean, there is some favoritism research, but most of it asks these sort of around, you know, side questions because asking favoritism is too taboo.
And most parents say, yes, there is a child that, you know, I feel more, I express more pride about or. There is a child that I feel more connected to or, you know, that we just kind of click or we get along and those kinds of things and you know, it's, that's just natural. That's just what's going to happen in relationships.
And so, you know, how does it show up in the minds of our [00:50:00] Children? You know, it doesn't show up as favoritism or is this just show up as, You know, the relationships are kind of fluid and they change and you know, sometimes, you know, you're going to be clicking with one kid and other times you might be clicking with another.
Although there is some stability to favoritism in research, but you know, it's if a kid has more shared interests. Like if you're really into dance and your kid's really into dance, you're probably going to click more than, you know, if you don't like dance. And you're like, why are you doing that?
Emma Waddington: Yeah.
Chris McCurry: Well,
we need to we need to wrap up, but I just wanted to say, John, that I'm really glad that you said, accept and manage these situations. Because a lot of times when people hear the word acceptance, they think, well, I should just like. Let this go or, you know, not do anything about it, but we're not talking about some sort of passive resigned [00:51:00] acceptance.
We're talking about steely eyed. You know, this is the way things are right now. So, okay, what do I need to do and managing the situation, coping, dealing with it effectively from that stance of. This is the way things are right now, rather than fighting with these things. It shouldn't be this way right now. So thank you for mentioning that.
Jonathan Caspi: Well, we probably operate somewhat similarly in our work then, because I have a very similar approach. Yeah.
Chris McCurry: Yes, sounds like very much. So, so you know, once again, your book is coming out. It's already up on Amazon raising loving siblings, how to stop the fighting and help your kids connect I'll be getting it. I still have more questions.
Emma Waddington: More to talk about.
Jonathan Caspi: great. I'd love to, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. It's coming. I think the date it's coming at is December 27th, which is perfect because we'll have just gone through the holidays and everybody who wants to kill each other [00:52:00] after it's over. So uh, there you go, January, happy reading for January
Emma Waddington: That's wonderful.
Chris McCurry: Wonderful. Well, You can preorder it now. Yeah.
Emma Waddington: exciting. Well, thank you. I feel a little bit wiser, a little bit more in my toolbox and a little less anxious. I love what you said about anxiety. You're absolutely right. It's about having, being able to cope. I'm feeling that we're capable. And I
Jonathan Caspi: and you certainly are, you know, I mean, the truth of the matter is, and you probably both know this very well, is that the more people think about and worry about these things, the better they are as parents
typically. Yeah. So the ones who are, you know, don't ask these questions typically or not. So yeah.
Emma Waddington: Yeah.
Chris McCurry: Yeah, but it's a fine line.
Emma Waddington: Yes.
Jonathan Caspi: good way to put it. Yeah. No, I'm confident you're doing well.
Emma Waddington: Thank you.
Chris McCurry: All right. Well, Thank you.
so much. Yes. Yeah.
Jonathan Caspi: Bring one. Bring them next [00:53:00] time.
Emma Waddington: Yeah.
Chris McCurry: We'll do a group session.
Emma Waddington: Awesome. This is amazing. Thank you so much.
Jonathan Caspi: Thank you for having me again. Yeah. Enjoyed it.
Thanks so much for tuning into the life's dirty little secrets podcast. If you have any feedback for us or secrets for future episodes, you can email us at life's dirty little secrets podcast at gmail. com. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at life's dirty little secrets or on Facebook at life's dirty little secrets podcast.
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