If you’re a parent of more than one, how often do you find yourself breaking up fights between your kids? Or maybe you don’t actually break them up, you are just constantly dropping phrases such as, “Stop hitting each other”, “Give back the toy”, “Don’t call names” or maybe, “I told you to stop arguing”!

When siblings have a conflict, it’s like a parent alarm goes off in in our heads. Quick! Make it stop! Hurry! End it before someone gets hurt! Why do we do this? Our kids are just relating to each other, and like all normal relationships, there will be conflicts.

Everyone knows that sibling rivalry is as old as time. Look at Cain and Abel. Sheesh! That was some intense rivalry on Cain’s part! Or how about Jacob and Esau? First, Jacob stole his brother’s birthright and then he tricked their dad into giving him Esau’s blessing too! After that, Jacob had to run for his life, because Esau threatened to kill him. There’s also Joseph and his multitude of brothers that threw him in an old well and then sold him to a slave trader because they found him annoying. So, if fighting among siblings has been around for so long, should we continue playing referee or should we just ignore them and toss it up to being just a “normal” part of raising kids?

While no one wants a house full of chaos and constant bickering can be tiresome, I think that constantly breaking up squabbles between your kids can keep them from learning some important life skills. As they learn to deal with the reality of differences and conflicts, kids can be developing skills such as negotiation, compromise and valuing another person’s opinion. They can also begin learning how to stand their own ground while defending their point of view on a matter. Of course, they may need our help in learning to do that without physically harming the other person!

In my house, my two youngest are 6 and 8 year old boys. Their siblings are all teenagers and adults, and they pick up on every, single, dad-blasted, sarcastic or snarky comment that is said in our house. It’s not uncommon to hear them say things that would normally come out of a teenager’s mouth. In fact, just the other day, my 6 year old had a “roast battle” with his 16 year old brother. If you’re not familiar with this, allow me to give you a sample of their battle of words! It went something like this:

16 – Your ears are fat!

6 – You smell like cheese!

16- Your bangs have split ends!

6 – You have hair on your face! Oooh burn!

This was all in fun, at the dinner table, with their dad in tears because he was laughing so hard. It was also only a small portion of the “insults” hurled back and forth. The battle probably lasted a full ten minutes. So, why didn’t we stop them from saying things like this to each other? What’s going to stop them from saying these things in anger later on?

Let me answer that question with one of my own. What would you rather have your child do when they come upon a real life situation where someone says something mean to them – curl up in the fetal position and cry because someone insulted them, or be able to laugh it off and possibly diffuse the situation with a witty come back?

My youngest used to get really upset when one of his older siblings would tease him or say something he didn’t like. Instead of badgering the other kids to stop teasing, we taught him early on, that he simply cannot get angry at this and that the best way to work through it is to throw it right back at them with a comment of his own that will probably make them laugh. He’s gotten pretty good at this!

Our homes are the training ground for real life that will one day smack our kids right in the face and knock them down if we haven’t prepared them for what it will probably be like. Real life deals with real people, and real people aren’t always nice. That doesn’t mean that we should not be teaching our kids to walk in kindness and humility towards others, but they also don’t need to let others walk all over them. This is why we don’t stop every single altercation that comes up between our kids.

Instead of making our kids stop fighting with each other, I think that encouraging them to find a way to solve their differences without our interference is a much healthier approach. Taking these moments and making them teachable is actually modeling the way Jesus did things. He often repeated Himself over and over again, but, unlike us, it wasn’t with short commands desperately flung at our children. Jesus sat down and talked with people. He talked over and over again about loving God and loving people. Jesus said what needed to be said, but not in exasperated harsh orders. He spoke in calm, quiet and loving repetition. He was repetitious in His stories because we humans are slow to catch on. 

I’m not saying that we should never interfere in our kids’ rivalry with each other. There is definitely a time and a place to stop an argument or break up a fight, and our kids surely need to learn how to behave out in public. We just need to know where to draw the line between when to discipline and when to just let them work it out themselves.

Sometimes, though, words aren’t enough for our kids. We often find ourselves dealing with the same issues that we dealt with yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. We get tired of repeating the same thing over and over again to little ears that just don’t seem to get it. Instead of trying to change our kids ways just with words, we need to teach by example and we need to pray for our kids. Words simply won’t change our kids’ hearts, but God can.

So, keep correcting in love, but more than you speak, keep modeling humility and calmness. Model humility by not being too proud to apologize to your kids and asking for forgiveness when you lose your cool. Don’t just teach them to apologize to each other; teach them the importance of forgiving the other person as well. Teach them to find alternate ways to solve their differences instead of arguing. Above all, teach them to love like Jesus loves.