A mother of four male children, Mrs Martha Salako, combines her role as a parent with being the wife of a popular Pentecostal church in Lagos State.
Her first child, Andrew, who is also a preacher, would clock 39 in October. Her last child, Pete, a teenager, would be writing his West African Senior School Certificate Examination.
Raising her boys, she said, was really tasking, as she had to battle constantly with sibling rivalry and incessant fights. Her first two boys, Andrew and Olufemi, were born two years apart. According to her, as toddlers, they would fight over things as tiny as a pack of biscuits or a pair of trousers, even if the items looked exactly the same.
“They’d curse themselves and call themselves names, fighting on who has the better handwriting and who eats with better panache. Very funny things! It was really difficult but God saw us through,” she said.
Because of the nature of his work, her husband was barely around. If he was not in Kenya for a crusade, then he was in Ghana for a conference. Martha said taking care of the kids and also fulfilling her motherly role to her children and religious responsibilities to her congregation was like choosing between two odds.
When the third son came, Martha said Andrew and Femi then teamed up to always ‘fight’ their brother.
“They’d steal his toys and hide it and he’d cry and cry. I would shout at them and they would tell me that they were not the ones who were responsible. In the end, I found out that they were craving for equal attention and I was giving all of it to the third child who was still a toddler at the time,” she stated.
It has been many years and Martha’s four boys are all grown up and more responsible, but she noted that she may have to step in at intervals to settle disputes bordering on who should get what and why.
Although, she notes, that this does not happen as often as it did when they were all teenagers and young adults.
The Centre for Parenting Education, an online parenting resource, in an article, “Concerns About Sibling Rivalry” stated that as long as there was more than one child in the house, sibling rivalry was inevitable.
“The bane of many parents’ existence – sibling fighting – often leaves mums and dads feeling exhausted and worn out by all the bickering and teasing, and wondering why their kids seem to fight so much,” the resource noted.
A senior behavioural psychologist, Mrs Violet Nwokedi, in an interview with our correspondent, describes sibling rivalry as the inevitable competition and animosity that occurs between siblings.
This kind of relationship, according to her, happens most often in siblings close in age, but it can also occur when larger age gaps are present, as well as between siblings who aren’t blood-related.
Rather than a one-time dispute over who’s getting better grades or that highly coveted last piece of pizza, sibling rivalry tends to flare up often, consistently and sometimes, without any known common denominator.
“A relationship with siblings is one of the earliest and long-lasting relationships people develop.
“Siblings are a child’s first peer group where they learn critical social skills like how to share, how to manage conflict and how to communicate,” she said.
Cleveland Clinic, another online resource, noted that the first step in managing family feuds was understanding their potential causes.
“Your kids probably aren’t fighting just because one toy is better or one piece of cake is larger. Instead, the majority of fights arise due to underlying causes related to birth order and family dynamics,” it noted.
For firstborn children, the publication noted, their largest source of comfort, safety and admiration comes from their parents. But introduce another sibling, and they suddenly feel like they need to compete for your attention. This can be true even if you don’t make any intentional changes — because a sibling might perceive the slightest differences in how you talk, interact with and react to their sibling as potential threats to their comfort and well-being.
“The feeling of competition is at the root of sibling rivalry,” explains Dr Nowkedi, “Not all competition is negative. It can make you work harder. But in sibling dynamics, it can become toxic and damaging when it is taken too far or fostered by parents.”
Differences in developmental stages and competing desires for parents’ attention can lead to moments of jealousy or misunderstanding.
“When kids are young, most of the causes for sibling rivalry, like age difference or temperament, are impossible to change. That makes sibling rivalry, unfortunately, an inevitable reality.
“But if you make an intentional effort to foster cooperation, reduce favouritism and direct attention to the problems as they arise, you can help reduce the long-term effects of rivalry and the frequency with which these problems occur.
“All hope is not lost. There is no way to stop the bickering forever, but there are many ways to minimize conflict and to maximize productive resolution,” Nwokedi noted.
As adults, she stated, rivalry can even affect your kids as they get older if they develop a poor sense of self-esteem and have difficulty maintaining friendships.
In cases of older adults, Nwokedi said, behavioural therapy and identifying strategies for helpful coping mechanisms can help address aggression and conflict that can arise from strained relationships.
However, she noted that, sometimes, adults can develop sibling rivalry later on in life, too, even if they never had that kind of relationship earlier in their childhood. When this happens, it’s often a result of being unable to manage conflict in a proactive way or because of underlying mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, or stress.
She added, “Long-term sibling rivalry can wear on you emotionally and turn holidays and family get-togethers into unhappy and dreaded occasions.
“A therapist can help you identify how to cope with this ongoing relationship and assist in identifying boundaries, communication styles, trigger buttons and how to let things go.”
Parents are often amazed at the different forms that sibling rivalry can take and how creative and mean children can be to their siblings.
For a behavioural psychologist and senior researcher, Remz Research and Consultancy, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Usen Essien, name-calling, blaming, poking, stealing things, lying, challenging a belief, arguing, simply looking at each other, tattling, breaking something that belongs to the other one, hitting, throwing something at the other one, hiding something important to the other one and the like are just a few ways children display sibling rivalry.
“Some of these tactics are probably agonizingly familiar to parents, and they can probably come up with a few more ingenious ways that your children seem to torment one another.
“But, even sibling rivalry has its benefits. The kids may have life-changing skills that would aid their development and become highly healthy competitors in the outside world. Meanwhile, they have to be guided to channel the energy in the right direction,” he said.
He also noted that children may fight to get attention from parents; feel powerful; get a break from boredom; connect with their siblings, get physical contact; and become the favoured ones in their parents’ eyes by making their siblings look bad.
Annoying a sibling, according to the psychologist, may seem more exciting than anything else going on.
Essient noted that when children fight, they learn to deal with power struggles; manage conflict and resolve differences; be assertive and stand up for their position; negotiate and compromise.
He also noted that how one handles one’s children’s conflict can be influenced by how their parents dealt with the rivalry between you and your siblings.
“Sometimes parents may find themselves responding to their children in the same way that their parents responded to them. This may be because you don’t realise you are doing it, or you don’t know how else to respond.
“But when you consciously think about which responses your parents used that were effective and which were not, you can find alternative and better ways to cope with sibling rivalry with your children,” he added.
Speaking on how birth order causes sibling rivalry, the parenting centre said, the birth order of each of your children has an impact on them individually as well as on the sibling relationship. It also noted that one’s birth order in one’s family of origin also impacts you as an adult.
“Knowing the effects of birth order can help you to be more understanding about the underlying dynamics of sibling rivalries and the overall sibling relationship,” it stated.
Many studies show that different birth orders carry their characteristic response patterns because of the different experiences siblings in different birth orders have in their families.
“First-borns tend to identify closely with the parent who makes more of the decisions in the family, is more proactive, and task-oriented (traditionally the father). Firstborns are interested in results and productivity, need to feel on target and tend to be perfectionistic, reliable, responsible, well-organised, and serious.
“Second-borns or middles tend to identify closely with the more expressive and emotional parent (traditionally the mother). They are interested in the quality of performance and tend to be in tune with people’s emotions. Feeling that they ‘belong’ is very important to them.
“Third-borns tend to relate to pairs in the family (for example, two parents, two siblings, etc), are interested in maintaining balance in relationships between people, need to have choices, and tend to use humour in dealing with situations.
“The youngest often look at the whole family picture and are interested in maintaining family harmony. They tend to be tuned into the emotions of the individuals in the family and the family as a group. They can be manipulative, not take responsibility for their actions, be perceived as show-offs, use humour to get what they want, and are frequently charming, precocious, and engaging,” he said.
Nwokedi and Essien, however, stressed that the analysis may not be ‘exact or hard science’ and that not all children fit these expected characteristics. But it can be interesting to see how much or how little one’s children match the stereotype.
They also identified spacing among siblings, temperament differences, gender, physical influences, parenting style and family ambience as other causative factors.
“When parents are very strict, rigid, and use overly harsh discipline or corporal punishment, the children tend to fight more with siblings when they can get away with it because aggression has been modelled for them.
“Children raised in homes where the parents are very permissive or neglectful don’t feel that they get enough attention and don’t have rules to guide their behaviour, so they tend also to fight more,” the resource added.
It, however, urged parents to respect individual needs; treat children as unique and special people; foster cooperation rather than competition; and encourage a positive and loving connection to the family.
“This approach helps to promote high self-esteem in the children. This, in turn, has an impact on the children’s relationships with one another; there will be less need to compete or to fight for love, attention and respect, or to prove their worth by denigrating a brother or sister,” it added.
Essien, further contributing, said, “Avoid comparing your children, favouring one over the other, or encouraging competition between them. Instead, create opportunities for cooperation and compromise by empowering them to play together, explore their curiosities and share time with you.
“Don’t forget to set a good example, too. How parents interact with one another sets an example for how children should interact. If your children see that you or your partner slam doors or have loud arguments, they’re more likely to do the same and see it as a proper way of handling their issues.”
