Sibling Rivalry

What do these 6 ladies have in common? Well, parents for one thing, 4 brothers for another. Yep, we're sisters (with 1 missing from the photo). Crazy huh? Sometimes we wonder how in the world such different people came to one family. We are each so different, but we're bound by that funny thing called family. Yes, we are all smiling in this picture, but don't think it's always that way. We ARE very different, and have our share of "disagreements", and we all have our battle wounds from the growing up years, some physical, some (probably more) emotional. But man oh man do we have some fun stories and memories!

I was pondering on the subject of sibling rivalry the other day. I was teaching siblings, and one started criticizing the other, mostly joking, but still... so I told him it was my rule that for every mean thing you say about someone you have to say 3 nice things about them. You know what? He did it and I saw an immediate change in BOTH siblings. After thinking about it for a bit, I added the rule that you have to start with one nice thing about yourself. I think a lot of teenagers (or kids in general, but especially that awkward pre-teen/teen stage) criticize others because they aren't feeling good about themselves. Maybe they feel that if they put someone else down they'll feel like they themselves aren't so bad? Problem is, putting someone down NEVER makes you feel better about yourself. If we can replace the negative with positive (and then some) I wonder if we can prevent broken relationships? And not just prevent broken relationships, but build positive ones?

I'm definitely going to apply my 3 compliment rule to my own kids, but even more than that, I'm going to make an effort to compliment them all the time. I don't want the compliments to come only after something negative, and there's no better way of teaching than by example. So let's all start sincerely complimenting every one we come into contact with! Remember what our mothers said, "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

What else do you do to "fix" sibling rivalry?