Sibling rivalry

[BelleDameSansMerci]

<<Forgive the OT-ness of this post, but I'm at my wits end.
> The fighting between my three offspring has reached an all time
> high.
> As an only child, I know not of fighting amongst my blood
relatives.
> And I don't know what to do. My DH, who has two sisters, just
laughs
> at me.
> Any child psychologists out there (or those of you who have been
> through this already), willing to give out advice>>

Well, I am twenty-two now, but in grade school and highschool my 
brother and I would fight relentlessly. It got so bad that at one 
point a neighbour called the police because we were being so loud. We 
are only separated by two years, which I think is a major factor in 
sibling disputes. 

In all honesty, things only got better once I moved 6 hours away to 
attend university. Now, although you definitely wouldn't classify us 
as the best of friends, we certainly respect each other enough to 
stay out of one another's way.

I think what made us fight even more was people trying to 'force' us 
to get along/do activities together, no matter how good their 
intentions were. When I would be angry and say "I hate my brother!", 
and get the response of "no you don't, you love him", it would 
totally infuriate me and make me want to fight with him more. To have 
someone totally invalidate my opinion/feelings and try to enforce 
what they thought a sibling relationship should be did not help the 
situation at all, in fact I believe it accomplished the direct 
opposite.

Personally, I would have preferred it if my parents enforced the idea 
that I didn't have to like my brother (because, let's face it, I 
didn't), but I did have to respect him, and he me. I think it would 
have also helped if my parents made an effort to do things with each 
of us individually, rather than forcing us to be together. I would 
have loved it for my dad to go out of his way to do something with me 
by myself, and I'm sure my brother would have liked my mother to do 
the same. 

Oryomai- Once you are a bit older and out of the house, things will 
improve, I guarantee it. It's really hard to fight with someone you 
only see a handful of times in a year. Of course, you might just 
ignore each other when you do get together, but at least that's 
better than name-calling or physical fights.

Amber (who decided that if she ever has children, they will be at 
least 10 years apart)