BATTLE OF THE SIBLINGS

Kids are a blessing, but when the scream fest starts and slamming doors join the choir in your home, ALISON SIFUMA shows you ways to calm the storm.

- ALISON SIFUMA

Part of my childhood can easily pass as a boxing match. Slamming doors, clicking sounds, stomping feet and the screaming competition between my sister and I was on another level. And of course, mom was the referee. We fought all the time. Over what channel to watch, who was to have the window seat when travelling or just whose turn it was to clean the table and wash dishes.

The fact is, siblings will get on each other’s necks especially now that they are being confined to the house. They will be in endless competition as they try to outdo each other and prove who is mommy’s favourite, or what they want to eat for lunch.

Sibling rivalry manifests in several ways; physical fights, stealing, name-calling, tattling, breaking and hiding things or even that stare that just gives you the creeps.

The reasons for this rivalry is attention and power according to Judith Dunn, author of From One Child to Two and professor of developmental psychology at Kings College London.

Kids know outbursts tend to invoke a quick reaction from adults. And because they are bored they will try to seek it out.

They may also need to gain dominance over the other, whether it is through playing ‘I’m the older one card’ or the ‘I am the sensible lastborn.’

Of course in my childhood, we did not have get-along shirts, corner time, or being grounded. We had a healthy, robust African way of being dealt with: uncle bamboo was contacted and Mr belt was consulted, sometimes aunty ‘red’ slippers chipped in her ideas. That held us together like glue until the very next day when we forgot and turned the house into a WWE ring yet again.