We don't have to wait until our sons and daughters are teenagers for sibling fights to start. From a young age, fights are very common and constant.

There are many situations that can produce these fights between brothers. As children: one takes a toy that the other wants, one is envious that his older brother has more time to watch TV... And when they grow up: one has not done the corresponding housework, one has taken a garment without asking permission...

As fathers and mothers, we may get exasperated with these situations, but we have to understand that in most cases arguments between siblings are natural and that they can resolve them themselves.

When should parents intervene in sibling fights?

Fights are natural and we should encourage children to resolve them themselves. The educator and author of 'Educating without losing your nerves', Tania García, indicates in her book that "we must know how to distinguish what are real conflicts between siblings from those that are not, always keeping in mind that, if we educate in the respect, there will hardly be problems, and those that exist will know how to accompany each other just as we learned with emotions". In other words, we are not going to have to act in all situations of conflict between our children, but it is vital, especially when they do not know how to self-regulate, to accompany their emotions.

The also creator of Edurespeta points out that fathers and mothers must intervene in three types of conflict situations:

Physical aggression

When our children come to blows and cannot calm the violence themselves, we parents must intervene. When they are small and between the ages of 2 and 4, during the tantrum stage, children use their impulses to make someone pay attention to them because they do not know how to do it any other way. Therefore, it is normal that if there is something that has bothered you about your brother, for example that he has taken a toy, use physical aggression to get the toy back.

How should we parents react? The most important thing is not to prioritize one child over another. "We must never distance ourselves from one and approach the other, we do not have to consider the one who hits "bad" and the one who does not, "good". What is truly important is being with everyone equally, with the same affection and the same accompaniment, so like knowing how to listen to their points of view and helping them find solutions that suit them, leaving aside the adult point of view," says García.

fights with insults

These types of fights begin to increase when children enter adolescence. Garcia points out that the use of these insults is a way of "letting out frustration." When these fights take place, we should not try to mediate between them with phrases like "if you keep saying that, I will punish you", but we should remain attentive to how the situation unfolds to try to help them find a solution themselves. Therefore, in these situations we should not:

Fights without insults or violence

So, shouldn't we intervene in discussions between our sons and daughters in which there are neither insults nor violence, but there is a tense climate? Intervene no, but accompany yes. Tania García states that we must let our children "relate, talk, resolve their conflicts... if we educate respectfully. If we don't, they will never be able to reach understandings without violence or coercion, basically because they don't have the tools to do it". One piece of advice that she provides is that from a young age we instill respect for all the members of the family and that we live in a climate of generosity. For example, instead of labeling each of the toys for one child or the other, they should belong to both of them so that they can share them. If one of us has the toy and another brother wants it, we will have to explain to him that he has to wait a little while to get it.