Building Family Relationships: Helping Siblings Bond
We all desire (or should!) to help our children tie heart strings with each other. ”Sibling rivalry” is so common in our day that many parents just accept it. I suggest to you that though sibling strife is common, and some would say normal, it should not be accepted in a Christian home as such.
It is possible and appropriate that siblings should share some of the tenderest, sweetest and most protective relationships of all. But unless we, as parents, understand this and are willing to do the hard work to cultivate it, we can expect nothing less than what comes naturally.
“It ought to make a young man’s heart exult to have a beautiful and noble sister to lean upon his arm and look up to him for protection, for counsel, for strong, holy friendship. And a sister ought to be proud and happy to have a brother growing into manly strength, to stand by her side, to bear her upon his arm and to shelter her from life’s storms. Between brother and sister there should be a friendship deep, strong, close, confiding and faithful.” JR Miller
If you have children, I don’t have to tell you that they don’t have to learn how to sin. Forget the pop-psychology junk of “we’re all born basically good”, ’cause we’re not. We’re born sinners and we must spend a lifetime, with God’s grace, being transformed into His image. A big part of a parent’s job is working daily to help their children as they become new creatures, conquering the old man.
It’s a choice we make…we can accept the status quo because it’s easier, or we can roll up our sleeves and commit to the hard work of daily toil amid this “garden” of home life, trusting the Lord for a fruitful harvest in His time.
As you work through some of the following ideas, remind your children that they are a gift to each other, put in the same home to enjoy each other, and to live in a way that brings a pleasantness to their home and to those around them.
Set the standard and start early.
Children first need to understand what the standard for relationships is. We can hold up nothing less than God’s Word here, working it out each day and showing them its practical application in their dealings with each other.
“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” Philippians 2:3
When my 18 month old squeals because she doesn’t like something, I can’t expect her to know that isn’t the right response. (But the Bible says that one who can’t control his spirit is worse than a city with broken down walls. So that’s our starting point as we begin even to teach our littlest ones.)
I must tell her–a lot. “No, don’t scream. Say, ‘please’.” Get what I’m saying though–she doesn’t know, but that does NOT mean I just let it go. This is a BIG, common mistake. Don’t wait until they “understand” because it’s earlier than you think. Address it. Begin early, showing them where they must restrain and how to replace their natural reactions with right ones.
As they get older, they still need nudging all along. We try to catch even the little things (a look, a gesture, etc.) But again, the standard must be set. God’s Word, not “you’re driving me crazy”, though that may be true.
Friendship is a given.
We often tell our children that they are not allowed to indulge in friendships outside of our home until they are friends with each other–and we enforce it. We emphasize (and remind ourselves!) that it is hypocritical to backbite your siblings and then demonstrate kindness to everyone else.
I often remind my children, “He who desires friends must himself be friendly”.
The habit of kindness.
When unkind words are spoken, address it. ”Was that kind? Are you preferring others better than yourself? Are you treating your brother the way you want to be treated?” Always pointing back to the Standard.
We ask our children to repeat wrong tones or harsh words in a kinder way. This helps them develop the habit. Even in times of anger–especially in those times, we need to help them develop self-control and express their feelings in a way that is not damaging to the other person.
Equipping them with appropriate verses they can repeat can be a great reminder: “Pleasant words are a honeycomb…” Showing them, in their own behavior, what is not acceptable, and then helping them learn means for rightly coping with their frustration is the stuff of parenting.
Urge them to pray and ask the Lord to empower them. Pray with them. While there is human effort involved in developing self-control and conquering the flesh, we have not been given a task that is too hard, without the promise of Christ’s power.
Power of Praise.
And don’t forget to praise the right responses when you see them–I mean REALLY praise them!
“Yes!!! That is how the Lord would have us speak. Thank you for being so kind. He sees it! You were preferring your sister just now!”
Sometimes if an older one voluntarily plays with a younger sibling, I will pull him aside, throw my arm around his shoulder and just tell him what a blessing it is to see him maturing and how much it meant to that younger sibling. The encouragement is probably the secret. Once you can get them to start planting the seeds of kindness, and then you weed out wrong attitudes and nurture the right ones, those seeds will grow and bloom.
“A full and complete family is one in which there are both brothers and sisters, and where all dwell together in tender love.” JR Miller
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family/parenting | Word Warrior | 
January 23, 2011 10:47 pm
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I so completely agree with you. This is my heart. I need to remember that it is a daily training and not to give up
The rewards are so worth it!!
Thank you!
Cathy
Beautiful post. Thank you.
GREAT post full of wonderful Biblical advice and encouragement. I especially grabbed on to the importance of being friends to each other at home before being friends to others…. so KEY!!!!!
Blessings!!
I’ll have to re-read this better later. I don’t have a lot of time right now. My oldest two(out of 3 so far) are not very good together. They fight a lot and my daughter screams and screams. Basically, due to a difficult pregnancy and longer recovery after giving birth to my 3rd and hubby being sent away for his job, I allowed the pop psychology of “age appropriate behavior” to rule. Instead of training my children up, especially my daughter, I just let her go figuring she’d grow out of it. Ummmm…..what could have been excused before is now inexcusable behavior. It didn’t diminish. It escalated and now I have quite a task set before me.
Thank you for this article
This is beautifully explained. And you are so very right, we must be intentional and we need to start early. There is a good teaching from Vision Forum on this principle that blessed us. I let my older ones listen and then we discussed it together. (http://www.visionforum.com/browse/product/?productid=58785)
We must be diligently training our children from early on, this is the key.
Children can learn to prefer one another and love each other!
You spoke the truth in this post Kelly. Thank you.
Thank you for this exhortation!
Very good!
I have two girls, they are one year apart. and they play together all day long, I pray that this continues easily because I want them to be the best of friends.
My best friend has a little girl the same age and when all three little girls play together my youngest one always gets left out. What do i do? Not let them play together? They don’t see each-other often, maybe twice a month.
Thankfully, my brother and I are the best of friends. I want this for my girls too.
Natasha,
Since your girls love to play together, I would start praising how your older daughter ‘looks out’ for her younger sister. Tell her how proud it makes you that she would not let someone be mean to her sister, or leave her out. Eph 4:32 is really good for this, as I am sure there are many others. Start planting the seeds of love and protectiveness preferring one another over other playmates.
Praise what she already does (play well with her sister) and encourage it using examples of what she could do when you are with others.
Disclaimer, I only have one child. But, she is so deferential to others that no one has ever believed she was an only child. Really. (To God be the glory!!)
Beautiful post, Kelly! My daughter laments how her friends sometimes shut out their siblings. So much so, that she refuses to play with them anymore because she feels badly for the other kids.
thank you kelly,
I need to praise my eldest for being a good big sister more often.
Thank you for this. Loved this post. One of the fantastic aspects of homeschooling is that my girls are “forced” to be together and learn together and play together.
To see my girls loving one another, serving one another brings me such joy!
Thank you for speaking such Truth!
THANK YOU!!!! I so needed this! We have an adult child whenever they come home they treat their younger sibling with such meanness. When the younger sibling reacts in sin towards the older we discipline. The other day they younger said it wasn’t fair that the older sibling did not get disciplined. How do you deal with that? We are talking about an adult who does not know the Lord. We could really use some help with this. Thank you so much for this post!!!
Love the idea of not pursuing outside friendships until your are friends at home first. So how do you incorrporate that in our situation when the younger is the only one at home? So appreciate the wisdom!
Wow, thanks so much for this post. Really made me think of on exhorting my children to get along better. My two oldest boys often bicker with each other. I’m going to work with them more and see if we can end the conflict. Thanks again!
The heart of your writing whilst appearing agreeable originally, did not really sit well with me personally after some time. Somewhere throughout the sentences you were able to make me a believer but only for a short while. I however have a problem with your jumps in assumptions and you might do well to help fill in all those gaps. In the event that you can accomplish that, I will certainly be amazed.