"It Takes Two to Tango"

"It doesn't matter 'who started it'" advises the University of Michigan in their YourChild topic on sibling rivalry, "because it takes two to make a quarrel. Hold children equally accountable when ground rules get broken."

I'm sure you've heard a similar statement before. It is the mantra among parents, teachers and other adults when dealing with conflicts between kids. If you've ever been on the receiving end of a bully's insulting words, you know that this statement can be just as infuriating as the bully himself. What do you mean 'it doesn't matter who started it?'" You probably thought to yourself when an adult punished the two of you for fighting. OF COURSE it matters who started it! He attacked me and I stood up for myself. Shouldn't he get at least a little bit of a worse punishment than me?"

I've been critical of the "It doesn't matter who started it" line my whole life. To me, there are some cases where the culprit is clear, and any adult who claims that it took two to start the fight is either insane or being lazy. What is so aggravating for a child dealing with sibling abuse is the double bind this statement presents to them. If a sibling attacks them, and they do fight back, then a parent will claim that they were both equally responsible for fighting. If a sibling attacks them and they don't fight back, they're letting themselves get walked on. Either way, the victim sibling loses.

I decided to dissect this mantra some more.      

Certainly, there are many circumstances where "who started it" doesn't matter--perhaps because there really wasn't an instigator. This happens most often when the children are fighting over things. In that instance, you aren't dealing with a victim and an aggressor, you're dealing with two people with conflicting wants. During these fights, the children most need an adult to guide them in the process of compromising, not someone who will arbitrarily pick a child to sit in a corner for five minutes. Punishing one of them for "starting it" would be unfair and unproductive. 

That makes sense to me.

What doesn't make sense is essentially turning a blind eye in conflicts involving a bully and a victim. In these circumstances, I believe, who started it DOES matter. When a parent punishes an aggressor for what he did, that parent is not "playing the blame game" but is holding that child accountable for his actions. In fact, in a victim-aggressor situation, not blaming is unfair and unproductive. When a child teases another just for fun, it is expected that the victim will respond. Punishing them equally only further infuriates the victim and satisfies the aggressor. It is only when the aggressor is punished for his transgressions that the root cause of the fight is adequately addressed.      

I searched the Web for some insights from parents on this subject. Here are some posts from this board I found. 

Parents: does it matter which kid started the fight?

I have a brother, and as all kids do we fought now and then. As long as there was no blood or other obvious injury, we both got in trouble when we fought.

Oh, we'd try to explain that the other started the fight, but it was inevitably met with "It doesn't matter who started it - it takes two people to have a fight. You stand in this corner, you stand in that corner, and don't sit down." 

For the 15-30 minutes I faced the wall each time, I remember being rather indignant that we never were allowed to reason with them, because to me it was important how the fight started. Not only that, it seemed terribly unfair that we (okay, I. I didn't really get his side) wasn't supposed to respond to being pestered...

Now I'm not so sure that how the fight started makes any difference if you're not in the room to see it. I don't have kids, though, so I ask you folks with real, non-hypothetical, parenting experience

Do you:

A. punish them both/all for arguing and hitting if you didn't see what happened, regardless of their reporting of the situation? What if there are three or more kids and everyone else fingers one as the cultprit?

B. play detective to figure out who was at fault, and only punish the instigator if you're reasonably certain that you worked out what had happened?

C. try to find out who was at fault to make that child's punishment worse, but not spare the victim(s) because they shouldn't have responded to escalate the problem?

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I only had one child.

However, I think that it IS important to know which one started the fight, and why. Frequently all parties are at least a little bit guilty in a fight, but sometimes the provocation is just about irresistible. And sometimes the reaction is way over the top.

I think that NEVER investigating the cause of fights is just taking the easy way out, it's a sign of a lazy parent, or a lazy school system. If one kid is in the habit of just throwing punches at another kid(s), then the instigator needs to be stopped somehow. I know that there were a few kids of my acquaintance who DID just pick fights for the fun of it.

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When my boys fight, I do care who started it, but both of them get "in trouble" because if someone is starting a fight with you, the best response is not to engage in a physical fight. We do try to determine who started it and we talk about what each person should have done differently, but if you only ever punish the instigator, you're going to have a lot of pointing fingers and lying, plus, you're missing out on the lesson that everyone has control over his reactions - you can choose to talk it out, you can choose to get help from an authority, you can choose to walk away, or you can choose violence. If you choose violence, you'll face the consequences, just like in "real life."

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If I've got the time, I'll do some digging and try and determine who was the instigator, who escalated from verbal to physical, etc. Whoever got physical first usually gets the worst punishment.

If I'm cooking dinner, or doing some other job that doesn't allow for an easy break, or I'm watching something on TV I really want to see, then everyone gets punished.

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Yeah, from what I've seen, punishing both means the bigger/older one always gets to beat up the little one and pick on him and be cruel to him, and the parents never see he is only responding.

I am not a fan of this as you can see.

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Maybe, but only punishing one oftentimes allows the younger / smaller kid to figuratively and literally poke sharp sticks at the older.

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I've found that they know how to push each others buttons so well, it's hard to say who really started the ball rolling. I tended to come down harder on the one with the extreme (loud) reaction but usually encouraged them to work out their differences without appealing to parental authority. If I wouldn't intercede, they, in theory, would have less incentive to escalate.

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Yeah, this. Was it the kid who made the first physical move? Was it the kid who made the first verbal taunt? Was it the kid who tried to cheat to show up the sibling who had been winning? Was it the kid who suggested the game in the first place, knowing that the only way the sibling would win was by cheating?

You -- over there! You, over there! I don't care what he/she/they/you did. Stay there until dinner.

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Sometimes you get one purposefully building things up to a physical confrontation in order to get the other in trouble. I've caught students doing this to slower students especially. Verbally picking at them over knowing they'll get a physical response which is much more likely to be noticed by the teacher. I tend to punish the verbal aggressor worse in those cases and try to teach the other student better ways to handle the situation.

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Rule #1 -no bothering each other just for the fun of it.

Rule #2 -zero tolerance for violence.

Rule #3 -nobody likes a narc.

I didn't want them tattling on each other so I didn't get into the whole who started it thing, but our house isn't that big so I usually knew anyway.

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I don't always try to figure it out, but I do fairly often. It generally turns out that they're about equally guilty. The little one likes to push buttons, the older one likes to tease, and they both want to be the boss. So I point out where each went wrong and they have to apologize to each other.

The other day, my older kid came running in, screeching "Mooooom! She licked my tongue! Ew ew ew! It was groooooss!" All I could think to reply was "What on earth was your tongue doing out where she could lick it?"

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With two boys 10 and 14, I am now so tired of the whole thing that a) they get punished for the NOISE more than anything else, and b) if there's no blood, I don't want to know.

I am exhausted!

Not to mention if I do try to intervene they just then both gang up on me!

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Which teaches children that justice isn't important, the only thing that's important is not being noticed.

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I don't care. My words of advice to them: "I'm not fighting your battles for you. You work it out yourselves."

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When my stepkids were growing up, I sometimes watched my cousin's three kids on the weekends. There was about five years from the youngest to the oldest of the combined five kids. 

D's kids were used to doing the the pick-pick-pick-smack-tattle bit with their folks. I wasn't buying that. They quickly learned that I would begin by asking them a series of questions, starting with Is it on fire? If they couldn't answer yes to at least one of the questions, everybody involved got a time out. 

It wasn't long before they actually made attempts to settle things among themselves before trying to be the first to rat out a sib. 

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Not a parent, but as a child the few adults who would satisfy my sense of justice were those who punished us both but after investigating, so when I'm taking care of kids I try to follow their methods.

So I got punished for hitting my friend LA (which I shouldn't have) but he got punished for hitting me first and for cheating (he hit me when I pointed out that he was "miscounting" on purpose; as you can see, I still remember the specific incident very clearly 33 years later). The punishment was the same, we got sent to separate rooms to have timeout until dinner time (we both had reading materials and loved to read), but it wasn't because "I don't give a shit who hit who or why" or because "I'm the adult and you're both grounded". His mom did give a shit and she gave individual warnings on specific behaviours; the part she couldn't be bothered with unless something became a repeating problem was setting individual and specific punishments.

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My parents punished me every time my brother got in trouble, just on principle. Apparently as his older sister his every move was my responsibility.

It's not healthy. Even at this age I have a Cain-and-Abel complex.

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It is true though that I hate watching kids who are used to their parents intervening and negotiating through every childish spat. Kids of elementary age and up should be able to solve most of their disputes by themselves. 

When my kids have a geniune problem I don't mind working it out with them but I will NOT be involved with the "pick, pick, pick, THUMP, wail" type thing. The younger one to be honest is horrible to his older brother and dreadfully disrespectful. Therefore if he involves me with the "He thumped meeeee" wail, yes, I will punish the thumper but the taunter will also be punished.

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Whether it matters depends on the siblings.

With my two boys? They don't really fight, but one of them will start picking at the other, and he'll answer back in kind, so the first one ups the stakes, and it just goes from there. It's all fun and games, unless and until it gets out of hand. Most of the time they're good at stopping when one of them is close to the tipping point, but when they don't, it doesn't really matter who started it, in my opinion - the best thing I can do is put a stop to it, NOW. Once they've both cooled down, they've forgotten what started the argument in the first place, and it's all good again.

I've seen plenty of other sibling pairs and groups, though, where one sibling intentionally picks fights and doesn't mind getting punished as long as the victim gets it, too. In that sort of situation, it's vital to get to the bottom of the situation and let the young instigator know that a) a parent knows what's going on and b) no matter how much trouble Chosen Victim gets into for hitting, Instigator will be in deeper trouble for provoking the fight. Otherwise Instigator will continue to think the fun is worth it as long as Chosen Victim gets punished the same way, as my mother used to say, "so I'm sure I get the guilty party" 

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In the moment, it doesn't matter. Later, it might.

That is, if you're fuming and screaming and indignant, you're not responding rationally, and you need to go cool down, whether you started it or not. Once you're calm, we can have a discussion about what happened, where you were provoked and how you might handle it better (non-violently, quieter, whatever that means) next time. And I'll have this discussion, probably separately, with the other guy as well. But while you're still fuming is not the time for this discussion.

I don't dole out "punishments". Punishments are authoritarian bullshit that don't teach kids how to control themselves when there is no authority around. But I'm happy to talk to you, help you find your triggers in a non-triggering manner and discuss strategies for how you might handle difficult situations. Which of these strategies you choose next time is up to you, and you'll quickly find out whether they work any better than the strategy you chose this time.

A time out in our house isn't punishment, it's a cooling off period. And I've sent myself to time out to cool off when I need it!

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'Fights' in our house usually consist of one child hitting the other, the other hitting back and the first telling on the second. 

I almost always get to the bottom of it (they get time outs until they are ready to tell the truth and then they both have to agree what happened). Consequences usually involve apologizing and play acting what they could have done instead.

My kids so hate this process that the act of hitting each other seems to have lost its appeal. (Though I nearly died of laughter when my youngest said to the oldest who had called him a name, 'thanks' and just walked away like we play acted. The oldest nearly burst from being so annoyed.)

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I'd go with the quick investigation approach as there is rarely a case where one kid has up and attacked the other for no good reason. And with kids you know, you learn their patterns pretty quickly, so there is usually evidence of what happened either because you hear voices getting elevated in the other room before the punch or something (like a toy) is in the hand of the kid who shouldn't have the toy. In those circumstances, the instigator gets it worse than the person who threw the punch, but both get punished. If there is no prior evidence, everyone gets punished equally. If there is no evidence, but several kids all have the same story where one party is clearly guilty, that kid gets punished and the others are told not to play with him/her for a period of time. The "everyone gets punished equally all the time" thing doesn't work for me because one kid will often be a jerk to the other kid on purpose knowing that the 'equal punishment' hurts the victim far more than the attacker, particularly when the victim is younger where a time out is that much more harsh for them. 

  

What is Sibling Rivalry?

In families with more than one child, sibling rivalry is to be expected. But what exactly is it? The one-word answer to that question is "fighting." Sibling rivalry is the competition, fighting, jealousy, and at times, hostility between siblings.

"Sibling rivalry" is the catch-all phrase that has been used in the past to describe any aggression whatsoever between siblings, including actions that have more recently been labeled as sibling abuse. This has misled many naive parents to believe that the sibling dynamics in their homes, whatever they may be, are inherently normal. Because sibling rivalry is normal, they think, if one sibling is teasing, belittling, or otherwise torturing the other, that is also normal. 

It's not, as this blog is here to tell you. 

But before I get into a deeper definition of sibling rivalry, let me tell you a little bit more about myself. When I was growing up, my older siblings constantly picked on me (for fun), and I saw the same thing happening in many of the families around me. To me, it always seemed so obvious: the reason siblings fought with each other was because the older one started it. In my mind "sibling rivalry" consisted of the older sibling being mean and the younger one fighting back. I never understood why parents didn't see this. 

It wasn't until I came across an article on the Internet that my rigidly-held belief started to crack. This piece, written for parents struggling with sibling issues, used the following question as one of its main headlines: "How can I tell the difference between sibling abuse and sibling rivalry?" 

What?

Huh?

You mean there's a difference between fighting and abuse? No way. I don't believe you. Older siblings always start the fights. Always. 

But as the very open-minded person I am, I started to question my thinking. I accepted the possibility that I could be wrong, and I began doing more research.  

Eventually, I came across a book entitled Siblings without Rivalry by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. There is one passage in the first chapter that gives one of the best explanations I have ever seen about sibling rivalry: 

"The experts in the field seem to agree that at the root of sibling jealousy is each child's deep desire for the exclusive love of his parents. Why this craving to be the one and only? Because from Mother and Father, that wondrous source, flow all things the child needs to survive and thrive: food, shelter, warmth, caresses, a sense of identity, a sense of worth, of specialness. [. . .] Why wouldn't the presence of other siblings cast a shadow upon his life? [. . .] The mere existence of an additional child or children in the family could signify LESS. [. . .] And most frightening of all, the thought: 'if Mom and Dad are showing all that love and concern and enthusiasm for my brother and sister, maybe they're worth more than me. And if they are worth more, that must mean that I'm worth less. And if I am worth less , then I'm in serious trouble" (Faber and Mazlish, pp. xv-xvi). 

Eventually, it dawned on me that the fighting I had seen between siblings had not always been caused by an evil older sibling's desire for entertainment. In many families, the bickering between siblings was driven by their mutual resentment of one another--that the other always got the limelight, the attention, the affection, the recognition and praise. And it wasn't always the older one who started it.

Many parents are guilty of seeing "sibling abuse" actions as "sibling rivalry" actions. They think that if one kid is teasing, belittling, or name-calling the other, then this behavior is automatically normal and both siblings somehow contributed to it. Neither of these assumptions is correct, and these parents need to learn that. I, on the other hand, was guilty of seeing "sibling rivalry" as "sibling abuse." I used to think that any aggression between siblings was started by the older sibling, and was carried out with the sole intention of inflicting harm on the other child. It was almost a relief to figure out I was wrong.

However, in many families, the fighting between siblings really is caused by one sibling being mean and the other fighting back. In these cases, parents should not shy away from laying the blame where it is due, and holding the bully accountable. Sibling abuse can exacerbate the fighting between siblings. It's not always true that "it doesn't matter who started it." When parents know when a child has crossed the line, they can more effectively discipline their children and better promote peace in their home.

Understanding what sibling rivalry is and isn't will help parents do just that.