Getting Along: Sibling Fights (continued)

Don't overlook cruel behavior

Parents often will shrug off fighting and teasing between brothers and sisters with comments like "That's just the way kids are" or "Kids will be kids." However, sometimes fighting between siblings can get entirely out of hand.

Parents often ignore, deny, or overlook cruel behavior between their children. Yet thousands of adults have suffered serious emotional trauma from sibling abuse. Believe it or not, sibling violence is thought to occur more frequently than violence between parents and children or spouse abuse. Outside the home, much of this mistreatment would be considered assault. If someone else hit or abused a child, most parents would be outraged. However, between siblings, it is usually ignored.

Characteristics of sibling abuse

Physical

Physical abuse may involve hitting, biting, slapping, shoving, punching, tickling to excess, and injurious or life-threatening behavior such as choking or being shot with a BB gun.

Emotional

This includes extreme teasing, name-calling, belittling, ridiculing, intimidating, annoying, and provoking. Children also destroy personal possessions or torture and kill pets to get an emotional response from their victim.

Sexual

Sexual abuse includes unwanted touching, indecent exposure, attempted penetration, intercourse, rape, or sodomy between siblings.

How to tell when things have gone too far

Children respond to sibling abuse in different ways. Telltale signs include:

• protecting themselves,

• screaming and crying,

• constantly avoiding a sibling,

• abusing a younger sibling in turn,

• acting out an emotionally abusive message,

• telling parents,

• fighting back, and

• submitting.

When difficulties between siblings get in the way of normal living, or become harmful or dangerous, things have gone too far. If you are having trouble with sibling abuse in your family, review the parenting suggestions in this publication. You may also want to consider seeking professional help.