"Stay Out of It"

Parents have been exposed to many pieces of advice about dealing with sibling squabbles. One bit of wisdom is "stay out of it." Don't intervene. Let the children work out their problems themselves. For if you intervene, one of a number of bad things will occur: You'll pick sides. Or you'll shut down their fight and not give them a chance to express their frustrations. Or you'll settle things for them and they'll never learn to settle things themselves.  

But just like with "it doesn't matter who started it," there are certain situations where "don't intervene" doesn't apply. 

If there's a recurring conflict that the children have not been able to resolve themselves, parents must get involved. If the children skip compromising and move right to a screaming match, parents must get involved. If the children are very young and have no idea how compromise works, parents must get involved. If a child begins abusing another, or the fight is escalating towards abuse, a parent must ABSOLUTELY get involved. All that's basic common sense, right? You'd be surprised by how many parents and child-rearing experts think otherwise. 

I once read online somewhere that parents should only intervene if someone is about to get hurt. No way. If there is even a chance that a fight will get physical, the children have skipped two or three important conflict-resolution steps. Steps where a parent should have said, "okay, it's time to intervene." If someone's about to get hurt, you've waited way too long.

Here's the thing about intervening: It's not all that important when you get involved, but why and how you go about doing it. The goal of intervening should never be to pick sides, shut down a fight, or resolve the kids' problems for them. The goal should always be to help the children communicate better so the problem can be resolved. As long as you have the right goal in mind, you don't need to worry about whether or not to intervene. 

Here's something more about intervening: It's not only "okay" to do so in certain situations, but absolutely crucial that a parent do so. I'm talking about families where one sibling experiences emotional, physical or sexual abuse at the hands of another. 

When I was going to therapy, my therapist had an interesting approach to getting me out of depression: he'd tell me my problems were all my fault. The reason my older siblings picked on me, he'd say, was because my personality invited it. (His exact words.) Because I was so passive, so compliant, my siblings saw this weakness in me and took advantage of it. My therapist was so convinced that I was the root cause of my family problems that he told me, "I think that no matter who your siblings were, no matter their personalities, this [the abuse] would have been the outcome." So it didn't matter that one of my good friends, who was just as unassertive as I, had an older sibling who treated her just fine. It didn't matter that my parents never did anything to correct the abuse when they saw it happen. It didn't matter that I saw plenty of families where the abused sibling did fight back, to no avail. It didn't matter that I fought back now and again, to no avail. According to my therapist, I was the only one to blame in my problems with my siblings.

Unfortunately, I have seen this attitude expressed in many different sources. Even in Siblings without Rivalry, the book I have given nothing but glowing reviews about until now, heavily implies in some parts that a child's personality influences whether he or she will be victimized. 

I disagree.

I have seen families where a passive, gentle child is pushed around by a domineering, insensitive one. But I have seen just as many where the victim is not at all passive. I've seen families where sibling abuse has greatly exacerbated the fighting between siblings. Usually, the sibling in the "victim role" is unsuccessful in stopping the attacks. 

I've observed families that have stopped sibling abuse, and from these observations, I believe that the key is not in the victim's response. It's in the parents' actions. Families that have successfully ended sibling abuse are usually headed by assertive parents who have clear expectations for behavior. And then hold children accountable for breaking the rules. That type of intervention is crucial. In fact, I believe that ending sibling abuse is impossible without the parents' intervention.

This shouldn't come as a surprise. Parents have a job. Their job is to protect, and that means deciding when it's time to intervene.