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Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
Welcome back, Jessica.
Oh, thanks.
Today's episode is sponsored by, no, just kidding, not sponsored by.
Uh we had another
Email sent it.
What?
What's so funny?
Keep going.
This is a really good intro.
We had an uh yeah, you said the last time the intros are boring.
Okay, go
Okay.
Welcome to Robot Unicorn, hosted by my parents.
Jess and
Scott.
I hope you enjoyed the episode.
We have received an email from someone named Ashley.
Who's a new listener and a mother of two sets of twins, four-year-olds and two-year-olds.
And Ashley wrote in about the challenges of sibling play, which I'm gonna imagine are slightly amplified just because of the fact that
She has four kids at the same two of them at the same ages, yeah.
That's a lot.
Four kids under five.
Yeah.
And she was just saying while she understands the importance of play, she finds it frustrating and seemingly impossible to manage with her four children.
Her main struggles are finding activities that engage both the toddlers and the preschoolers at the same time and managing the dynamic where the two-year-olds often destroy.
that's the word she used, destroy, the older children's crafts and toys.
And this leads to constant fighting and frustration for everyone, making independent play difficult to achieve.
So Ashley was just asking for tips or an episode on the topic of sibling play between different ages and more specifically the unique dynamics of
Twin play.
Which I think we can touch on a little bit, but I mean that there's just gonna be challenges with that many children of those eight.
Yeah, I think we'll we'll talk about siblings and the play because
As soon as you have that many children with immature brains in a room together, it is kind of a recipe for fighting.
Everything we've talked about on this podcast, which listen to our impulse control episode if you haven't already, that would be a really nice
episode to listen to to kind of give you a framework for what we're going to talk about when we talk about siblings.
I think the impulse control one would pair really nice with this one.
Mm-hmm.
So some of the things I was thinking about for this episode were related to sharing and if it's even possible for
kids of those ages to get along consistently yet.
And I was just finding that research actually strongly advocates against forcing two year olds to share.
Yeah.
Which I found interesting.
I feel like you've said that before, but it didn't click until now.
And the research was suggesting it's actually developmentally inappropriate to expect a two-year-old to share.
However a lot of I think a lot of parents emphasize early sharing as being very important to them.
So I guess my question is what difference would there be in showing children to share earlier versus not pushing children until they're developmentally
quote unquote ready.
I mean, yeah, the idea of sharing, basically what you're asking a child to do is say, this thing that you love, that your brain is gonna get stuck on, that's the most important thing in the world to you at this moment, because that's how it's all their brain works or child's brain works.
I want you to give that up to this other person who also wants this thing and it's gonna love it as much as you do in this exact moment.
without knowing when you're gonna get it back.
Well what happens to a child?
Like imagine the thing you love most.
You had to give it up.
You might be like, well the child doesn't love this most and don't care about this item.
In this moment, that's all they can think about, right?
So we have to understand a toddler's brain, it's stuck
This is the only thing I can think about.
And now this tiny kitty cat that I got in a kinder egg toy is the most important thing in the world to me.
Nothing else matters.
That is true to them.
Even though we know that that's not actually true.
In that moment that's true to them
So what we're asking a child to do when we're asking them to share is asking them to be logical and reasonable, which we know toddlers can't be.
They don't have that skill set yet.
And we're asking them to be calm and to give this thing up without knowing when they're gonna get it back, which also
is not something that they have the ability to do.
So just from a developmental perspective, we need to understand what we're truly asking a child to do when we're asking them to share.
So it's a bigger deal than just
Share.
Just share the toy, because you're gonna get it back in a few minutes anyway.
Don't worry about it.
You're saying it's a much bigger deal.
Yeah, you're asking them to do something that's very logical and makes a lot of sense when their brain is not logical and doesn't make sense of these things very easily, right?
That's not to say they shouldn't share their toys.
They shouldn't be able to take turns.
It's just to say that if you're just yelling across the room
Hey, share that toy.
Your sister had it first.
It's just not gonna work for you.
It's gonna backfire.
You're gonna get frustrated.
You're gonna then send them to timeout.
Then they're you know
It goes back to all these unrealistic expectations that we have on our kids.
Well, and there was actually a strong emphasis in some of the research and articles that I was reading on providing special toys.
for kids actually that don't need to be shared with anyone.
Now in families with limited resources or space, do you think
That's practical.
And I think more importantly, does this approach actually teach children that some positions are more important than relationships and potentially starting to foster a materialism or entitlement like they're owed
Here's how I'd set up a sharing system in your house.
And again, this is not going to be perfect.
But basically what I would say is all toys are shared, except for, yeah, each child maybe has their special stuffy.
You know, our kids all have their special stuffies
Those are yours.
Like it's your one thing, you sleep with it, maybe a couple things, something they got for their birthday.
It can be in their room or in their dresser and they get to play with it when they want.
And their siblings are not allowed to just grab it and play with it without permission
And if they do, the parent intervenes.
We don't say, oh, share it.
No.
The parent intervenes, takes the toy away from like the two year old who's now grabbed their sister's special toy, gives it back to the person whose special toy it is, and that person has control over it.
Right?
Because the child needs to know.
What's the structure here?
What's the rules?
The rest of the toys are for sharing.
And what happens is the person who has the toy first gets to have their turn with it.
Until they're done with it.
And then they can share it with someone else.
Right.
And often what I find is when we take the pressure away to really quickly share things, kids will just be naturally done with a toy and then their sibling will come and play with it.
it and then if they're done with it, aka they've left it on the floor, they're not playing with it, they're on to the next thing.
Their sibling comes and takes it, then it's the siblings turn with the toy.
And they get to play with it until they're done with it.
And so it's actually not about like timed turns.
Like you get it for one minute, then you get it for one minute.
And this sounds really counterintuitive to people because they're like, well, my kid's gonna hold on to it all day.
Maybe like the first day they hold on to it all day.
But eventually what I do find with a turn-taking system like this is that eventually it doesn't feel as frantic to hold on to it.
Because they know a turn will come back up.
And if the child does play with it all day, then in the morning it's the next person's turn.
So sorry, when does it make sense to have turn taking where it's time?
Right, because I mean last night you literally set uh time for the kids to use that little cart outside.
Like we have this little Right.
That's a little different than I
Yeah, okay.
So we have this little it's like like a car.
Yeah, a car whatever, I don't know.
One of those little cars that you put you just play with in your driveway.
It's different.
We only have one of them and it's very novel.
It's brand new.
The kids all want to play with it
So I a timed approach can be okay.
But what I'm not doing is expecting the kids to just share.
I'm not just saying, okay, share it.
No, maybe I misunderstood what you were saying, because I thought you were saying not to do
Time turns.
I think a timed turn taking can work if the parents in charge of it.
But if you're expecting your kids to know what five minutes is and then give it to the next sibling and you're not a part of that process.
Even if you use, I don't know, like a your phone timer, they're not necessarily going to want to give it up after two minutes of playing with it.
Yeah.
Well and that's okay.
Right?
I don't know.
I feel like I like the turn taking for just basic everyday things, right?
Like everyday toys that are in your house.
Nothing's novel.
It's all been there forever.
The kids know, okay, I had it first, therefore I get to play with it.
When I'm over it, my sibling will play with it.
That's what I implemented very early on and actually has been really effective.
Now, sometimes the kids will come to me and they both want the same toy.
The first question I ask them is, okay, do you think you guys can figure this out on your own?
Sometimes they
talk amongst themselves and they will decide.
I think I'll have it for two minutes, then she'll have it for two minutes and we'll switch.
The older two can do that.
The older two kids will do that.
We know how to set timers on our home pod, so all of a sudden we hear them yelling at Siri to
start a timer or something like that.
So I actually liked it if they're a little bit older, throw it back on the kids and be like, well what do you think the solution could be?
Our girls actually, yeah, they'll figure that out and they'll set the timer for themselves
They're both also at the age where they're developing their logical brains, like they're five and eight.
And we've done this so many times with them and they figure it out.
And I say, okay, that's fine.
Do whatever you want to do.
You guys make your decision about how you want to share the toy.
They'll set the timer up on the home pod.
And they'll do it themselves, which people are complaining to me after if it doesn't work.
Yeah, well kind of is the vibe.
I really but I like to not be a referee for my kids
And so anytime I can, I try and help them solve their own issues.
Like the amount of times when they were little that I would say, okay, I see two kids in front of me.
You're both crying over the same toy
Let's try and figure out what a solution could be.
And I try and get them to come up with the solution.
I've done that countless times and now they can pretty much figure it out on their own.
We'll have friends over there like, what have you done?
Like how do your kids just figure that out?
But it's been repeated exposures to me saying I have two kids in front of me, they're both having a hard time, they both want the same toy.
I want you guys to try and figure it out
So I like to step out of the role of referee as much as I possibly can.
Okay.
So in the research I was reading, and I'm gonna go back to the original email from Ashley.
the two-year-old and four year old.
And we'll just even start out with just one of each.
The research seemed at least to suggest that parents should act as interpreters for the siblings, translating the two year old's needs to the four year old and vice versa.
So is that not kind of like acting like a ref like you're saying you're just verbalizing what each of them needs and what they're feeling, but you're not as a referee, you mean instead you would be
Like okay I'm gonna set the timer and I'm gonna do this and you're trying to say that I mean at two and four they're probably not able to actually referee
their own issue that they're facing.
So I'll tell you what I do.
Okay, so this has happened to me.
Let's say I have one two year old and one four year old
And they come to me and they're fighting over a Barbie.
Let's just say what I do is I slow my reaction down, right?
So I'm not in there, like when I'm picturing referee, I'm picturing like
I'm racing over to the living room, like blowing the whistle, being like, Urch, stop, no more fighting, you get the toy and you don't get the toy and it's done, you know
For the most part, I kinda wait, unless they're like really at each other, for them to come to me to tell me what's been going on.
'Cause sometimes if you just wait long enough and they're not physically hurting each other
It's very different.
Sometimes they'll sort it out on their own.
Like I think sometimes parents race in way too quick and we don't actually give our kids time to figure it out on their own.
And sometimes figuring it out is just like
Okay, well, you know, I'm over it and move on to the next toy, right?
So first off, I never race in.
Second, when they do come to me, I just give them both a chance to say exactly what they're feeling
You know, I usually put my hand on like both of the kids and like, okay, you start, tell me exactly what happened, what you're thinking.
Oh, she took my toy and I had it first.
Okay, she took your toy, you had it first.
Totally get it
You.
I actually had it first.
Okay, you think you actually had it first.
And then I'll just narrate what happened.
She thinks she had it first.
You think you had it first.
At the end of the day, you both want the same toy.
What can we do?
And I always find that just narrating and being really slow about it kind of slows the kids down a little bit.
And then I throw it back to them.
And then sometimes they're like, well, I want it.
Like, okay, well, what we know is both kids can't have it at the same time.
Unless, let's say, to go back to the turntaking, unless it truly is like so-and-so had it first, the other kid just wants it
Then I reiterate the rule.
Well, you know the rules.
Whoever had it first is the one who gets to play with it.
So give it back to your sister.
When she's done, it'll be your turn.
Done, because that's the rule.
But if it's murky, then it's like, okay, so what do you think we can do next
try and get some ideas going.
Maybe I'll throw out a couple ideas and then we'll land on something and then that's what we do next.
But what I try really hard not to do is just come in and
get them both in trouble and get mad at them both and tell them to just share it and like Yeah yeah.
I get that part of it.
My issue with what you're saying though is that doesn't seem realistic for maybe partially for a four year old.
For a two year old.
Depending on what stage of development they're at in the four year range.
But the two year old is not gonna understand that and they're gonna be crying no matter what.
They're gonna be clinging for dear life onto this
thing that they want so badly.
Like even our three-year-old, she still kind of does that.
That sounds like a great idea in theory, but what about in practice?
Like what are you still doing that even though the two-year-old is
Bowling?
Well again, so it goes back to and and you can totally tell me if you don't think this is realistic.
This is what I do with the girls.
If the rule is whoever had it first gets to play.
A lot of the time that just resolves it right then and there, right?
No, I know that.
Like that's what I would I would hold that as okay, our middle daughter had it.
Our youngest is trying to get it from her.
We have to take the youngest away.
She's very upset, but that's okay.
That's how it goes in our family.
Eventually she'll get it.
most of the time she f completely forgets that she even wanted that toy.
Two seconds later she's on to the next thing.
I don't know.
Like I can understand potentially being an interpreter for them, just helping them understand each other's needs and kind of narrating the situation a bit to them to help them understand.
But I definitely doubt that a two-year-old and kind of doubt that a four-year-old, when they're emotional, are going to be able to
Comprehend any of what you're saying.
Yeah, I think it's a good point.
But I still think it's a good foundation for understanding
the thought process behind the emotions that they're feeling.
Right.
I think with anything we're always narrating, you're crying right now.
Your sister took your toy.
It's really hard.
Because we're trying to give them the words to eventually say so that they don't just both come to us crying.
Yeah.
So I think whether or not they fully comprehend it, I still think it's good practice.
And it's not over talking.
It's just saying like a simple sentence or something like that, right?
I still think it's good practice, even if they don't fully comprehend it yet.
And I do think it's in terms of our own children.
significantly help them now have the words to communicate what they feel to each other.
Now do you think this narrating ever
ends up becoming problematic enabling of, let's say, the young like, I can see it being sort of the default for our youngest child.
Like she's the one that has
the tantrums now.
So kind of defaulting to just being like, okay, why don't you why don't you girls just give the toy to her?
She's gonna forget about it in a minute and then I mean we've definitely said that.
Yeah I know we we have said that.
But I do think it's enabling.
Yes, I agree that it's enabling.
And we've definitely done that.
Yeah.
That's why I ask.
Because sometimes our three year olds in a stage right now.
So a lot of meltdowns happening
And sometimes we just know, okay, well, if you just give her the Barbie in two seconds she'll be over it and then you can play with it, and that's pretty much always what happens.
But what we are doing
is actually reinforcing the bigger meltdown that I have over it, the more likely mom and dad are just to give me the thing.
So we're actually not really doing something healthy when we do that.
It's better for us to be like, you know what
The rule is that whoever had it first gets to play with it.
So we're gonna give it to your sister and when the time comes, then it'll be your turn.
And just help her with that disappointment.
That would be healthier.
I don't know if this is right or wrong, but with our oldest, I've sort of tried to help her with uh strategic thinking a bit in terms of like your youngest sister gets upset if she's desperate and
just absolutely pissed off.
Just give it to her.
But then find something else and just be really interested in playing with that and she'll probably want that instead and you'd be like, oh I'll trade you.
So I've been
I don't know if that's a great thing to teach her, but it's uh I don't know how I feel about that, but I I understand the logic.
I'm trying to teach her to be a problem solver and strategic, right?
I I don't like
I don't know.
I just don't know.
I have to think about it.
I don't want to say yes or no.
But you know, and again, this is where like literally at the end of the day, I I get kind of exhausted by these discussions sometimes because I feel like it's just like
We feel like we need this so specific plan and we do it every time.
It's just like yeah.
You need a script, you need a script step-by-step plan.
I don't know.
I just like to think in my kids' perspectives, try and imagine being them.
Okay, what would make sense and what feels like the fairest thing for both of these kids in this moment?
And then I just do that thing.
I really try to not over analyze the siblings' struggles.
And I know at the end of the day
sibling relationships are healthiest when we have the healthiest relationships with each child individually, right?
They're not competing for our love, they're not competing with our attention.
Sorry.
I was actually planning on skipping that question anyway, because I figured that's in every episode about relationship is important.
I like why are my kids fighting so much?
But we forget that actually a lot of the time they're just competing for our attention.
Yeah.
And the sibling fights actually have more to do with
the unique relationship we have with each child and the jealousy that they have over their siblings' relationships with us versus like the problems with each other.
Okay, well I'll ask that question anyway.
So you said and the research shows that one-on-one time is essential for reducing sibling rivalry.
That's just research seemed to suggest that.
throughout.
But what about single parents, families with multiple children, or those with limited time resources, so busy parents?
shift work, whatever.
Are we then creating guilt for parents who can't achieve this ideal and what evidence do we have that brief focused attention is actually better than quality family time altogether
I mean, there's always the ideal.
I feel like we've talked about this too.
There's always the ideal and then we do what we can, you know, within it.
There's seasons where you can't have
special dates with each child and that's fine.
But like even the way I'm describing it to you where you have two children coming to you and they're both crying and you take time to hear both of their stories.
That helps.
I look both of them in the eyes, I hold both of their hands and let them both tell me their story.
Because often what happens is like you have your one
quote unquote trouble child who's always like stirring the pod a little bit.
They just get in trouble every time and the other two kids look like saints or whatever.
So then the troubled child just ends up stirring up more conflict in order to get
more attention or connection, right?
So even in the way you're responding, letting everyone have a chance to talk, not labeling one kid as the bad kid.
You know, even if you are a working parent and you only have a couple hours with your kids every night
Can you give them a smile, a special wink while they're playing?
Can you give them a quick little shoulder rub or a kiss on the cheek or say, hey, I thought of you at work today?
Right?
It doesn't have to be this crazy long time.
It's just intention and trying to split that intentional time between the kids in a way that's fair.
Even if the one kid is being a little more troubled than the others, that kid probably actually needs that time a little bit more even.
Right
Hey friends, so at pickup last week our daughter asked Scott a truly kind of tricky question in front of her younger siblings.
Scott was telling me that when he heard a question like this, he used to panic, but this time he had a plan.
And he said to our daughter, thank you for asking.
Let's talk tonight when we've got privacy.
And that's a line that he learned straight from our new body safety and consent course at Nurtur.
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So you work with many families, or you have worked with many families as a therapist.
I was reading that encouraging four-year-olds, because we're again going back to Ashley's situation here, it suggests encouraging four-year-olds to be big helpers with their younger siblings.
And apparently that helps them at least have a bit more patience.
But in your experience, how do you distinguish between fostering these healthy leadership skills?
And inadvertently creating parentification that can burden the older children.
I know, it's such a balance, right?
Because even with our oldest.
I worry about that with her sometimes.
Well, I sh yeah, I think about it with her because she is just like such a big sister, right?
And she loves being a big sister now.
And
I never want her to feel like she's the parent.
It's good to give kids responsibility within the home.
And actually I found for her, she was getting so annoyed with her sisters.
She said she didn't like like or feel connected with her one sister for a while.
But
explaining to her how her sister's brain worked and how she's only little and this is what little kids do and they have these tantrums and you're older so you don't act
like that anymore.
You know, explaining all that to her actually really helped her, I think, bond with her sister in a deeper way.
And at the same time, she's never in charge of discipline.
She's never in charge of co-regulating with her sister, right?
So we have to make sure that we aren't giving them parent responsibilities, but we can give them a little bit of responsibility.
Like if you have a baby, hey, could you bring me the diapers
Right?
What would you define as a parent responsibility?
Co-regulating.
Let's say a four-year-old helping a two-year-old with their tantrum.
Okay.
Right?
You might have a really caring four-year-old who just wants to give their sibling a hug, and if the sibling agrees to the hug, great
But it's never, hey, I'm cooking dinner.
Can you please give your sister hugs and and help her feel better so that I can finish cooking dinner?
Sure, once in a while, again, this is why I don't love
getting like caught up on rules here, but if that's consistently you're making your older child do that work, that can lead to yeah, making them a mini
parents and that is not what we're going for.
That's not healthy for kids.
Or like, hey, your sisters are fighting.
Can you go in there and tell them that so-and-so gets the toy because they had it first?
And doing that constantly, making them act as the parent is not really a fair responsibility, especially when they're still kids too, right?
They should be able to be kids
themselves.
So we just want to tow that line.
But some responsibility, like, hey, can you bring me a blanket for the baby?
Aw, look at the baby.
She loved how you brought the blanket.
Like she's looking up at you.
She just loves her big sister so much.
That's different to me
Okay, what about the situation?
Like this morning I asked our oldest to pour cereal for herself and her two sisters.
Is that too much?
I don't know.
I'm not that worried about it.
Okay.
Like if every morning her job is to make her sister cereal and breakfast and then we never make our kids breakfast, then no.
But
Pretty much every single morning I have her breakfast exactly what she wants, laid out on the mouth.
So yeah, one morning every three weeks she has to make the kids breakfast.
It's not gonna make or break well.
Make isn't bit strong.
It was poor.
I was trying to look for
research that focused on temperament differences, but I couldn't really find much.
So I don't know if I was just looking in the wrong spots.
Between siblings specifically.
So while the research focused more heavily on developmental stages, it largely from what I could find ignored.
temperament differences.
So in your work as a therapist, how much of sibling conflict do you think stems from children just having different temperaments and that mismatching versus just developmental gaps?
So much.
Yeah.
It's a huge gap in the research.
It's really interesting.
Like we haven't Well, and again, this is potentially just my own
Ability to research it.
I have also found this when I've tried to research this in the past, because I did try and research temperament not that long ago in terms of siblings and just couldn't find much.
But
From my experience as a therapist and as a mom of kids with different temperaments, it's huge.
Even narrow diversity within a home.
Right, you have one kid who's neurodiverse and the other kid isn't.
And it can be really hard for the sibling of a neurodivergent children to understand, oh, my brother's brain actually works different than mine.
And so he's having these huge meltdowns over things that like totally don't bother me whatsoever.
It can build frustration if children aren't understanding that their siblings' brains work a little bit different, right?
Right
So I actually think if you do have a neurodivergent child or a sensitive child, helping kids understand their brains and how every brain thinks a little different, experiences the world a little different really helps build compassion in in the home.
Yeah, I mean by saying that though, essentially what we're saying is parents have to understand it first.
Yeah.
They have to understand a bit more about their kids so that they can actually explain it to the siblings.
Much of
The practical advice from all of this research was essentially based on developmental theory, which we like because it
is very logical.
But there were very few longitudinal outcome studies that I could find, so following siblings over the course of their whole life, or longer terms at least.
So how do we know
that doing all this work as a parent now is gonna help our children and the siblings and our families.
How do we know it's gonna help them have better relationships?
in the future.
Because I feel like that's a part of what we're trying to do is we're trying to help them have a good relationship with their siblings now and that's sort of a part of
I don't know, training them to be good at developing relationships later down the line.
But how do we know that that actually works
I think first we've already talked about this, but the first indicator of a relationship down the line would be the relationship that they have with you, right?
And the relationship they have with you and how you treat them and all the siblings
teaches kids how to treat each other.
The second thing I think that we f forget sometimes parents are really hands off with the siblings and like they let them attack each other and say mean things to each other and we just pass it off as like, oh, they're just brothers.
I do think parents have to be
quite involved, not in terms of like what I was saying before, jumping in and resolving every issue for their kids, but actually helping and being the coach a little bit, right?
So instead of like coming in like you sit over there and you sit over there and you go to timeout
It's more so coaching them through, guiding them through how to actually be in relationship with each other.
And that's where I'm talking about.
Like when they come to me and they let both kids talk and then I narrate out exactly what happened
helping them understand the dynamics at play in the relationship, right?
And then coaching them through and now what would be an acceptable way.
I think we also need to coach kids through things like
sibling touch.
I I've said this to our kids and they're getting really good at it, but like, hey, your sister doesn't want to hug right now.
So notice her face.
See how she's pulling away from you.
I need you to stop hugging her.
Like there are certain things that we have to coach our kids through and they learn that within the sibling relationship so that that now they know
They can't go and hug their friend if their friend doesn't want it and they know what the look might be that signals I don't want to hug, right?
So I do think that there is a level of involvement in the sibling relationship
and a level of like even fostering.
Like I like to get our kids on the same team as much as I can.
So it's like the two of them in competition against me or something like that.
Like even on the way to school.
Okay, let's see who can spot the dogs
first like we'll see how many dogs we can spot on the way to school and like you two see if you can spot them before I see them or something like that.
Right?
So getting them on the same team, getting them to work together.
as much as possible so that they learn how to be in relationship with each other.
But we can't just expect two kids with immature brains to figure that out without some coaching and guidance.
Yeah, I actually like that.
The idea of you were talking about you don't want to be the referee before.
I was saying the research was talking about being an interpreter, but I like the concept of
The coach.
The coach.
That makes sense because we're on the same team and you're trying to hear the perspectives of two different players on your team.
Yeah.
And trying to help them.
through the conflict that they have.
I think that makes sense.
Yeah, I think that's a good thing.
And trying to get them on the same team like you're say I think that works.
Yeah, trying to get them on the same team.
We're not working against each other here.
We're not in competition.
We're a family.
We all work together
Although some families are in competition too.
I would say my family, although they try to be on the same team, they're also very competitive with each other.
One thing that I like to say to our kids though, when they're fighting or they're disagreeing with each other
This sounds kind of woo-woo, but I like to speak their love over them.
I know you love your sister and I know you don't want to hurt her, yet you're hurting her right now.
So help me understand what's happening.
Instead of
You're so mean.
You're always so mean to your sister.
Like you act like you hate her.
It's just flipping the script a little bit to just always start with reminding them that they love each other, that they're on the same team, and then help me understand how we got here
Yeah.
And I have said that about a zillion times.
And I'll always speak about how the siblings love each other.
Like when they were babies, be like, look at her.
She's looking at you with like a smile in her eyes.
She's so happy that you're here
And then as they get older, it's like, oh, I noticed the way like the littlest sister, she misses you when you go on the bus.
Like she always waves to you and she says how much she's gonna miss you when you go to school today.
I'm always finding these little ways to s
tell our kids how much the other siblings love each other and it it builds this internal story that I love my siblings, my siblings love me.
And I think that has helped our girls immensely
Yeah, no.
I think they started calling each other their sweethearts.
Yeah, no they all call each other sweethearts.
But again, it starts with that coaching and that being intentional.
of the way that we talk to our kids about each other.
So I think to end this episode, I just want to hear from you, based on that message we received from Ashley originally, what advice would you specifically give to her?
in this situation.
She has two sets of twins, two two-year-olds, two four-year-olds.
How maybe can she set her expectations differently or do things differently in their house that
Help 'em build that sibling bond and Yeah, I think the the same team advice so when you can, can you get them to work together as a team
Kids love to work against you, like if it's like a competition or something like that, right?
Like how many sticks can you find and I'll find sticks too and you two work against me or whatever.
Do some team building activities, see if there's like games that they can play to get like
What time is a Mr.
Wolf, like that kind of game.
Sometimes it is about setting up the house where people can have their own little stations.
Like I do find if the kids are all together, like crammed in one space, it's it's
easier to fight, but sometimes we all need some space and time away from each other.
So maybe it's like one kid's at the table coloring, one's in the bedroom, one's in the living room.
Like there's some space there
having the turntaking system I talked about where it's harder at first because you're implementing a new way of doing it, it becomes easy.
It's a rule.
You're not trying to
like make up a different scenario every single time your kids are sharing.
So having some structure around the rules and around playing and then yeah
Trying to do those winks, those nods, those smiles to make sure that your kids also feel like they have that special attention from you.
And then yeah, the expectation of just knowing
It's gonna be a bit of a chaotic house for a while with kids this age.
And as you narrate and coach them through it, eventually they will start to get along and things do get easier.
But in this stage it is chaotic because you have four kids under five.
And so give yourself some grace too and know that it's not that your kids are just like so terrible and hate each other.
It's just that you have four kids under five.
And this is how their brains work.
Yeah.
And of course there's so much more advice if I was like actually seeing her in session, but those are just some ideas.
Okay.
Well I think this episode was great.
It was short but sweet.
Short and sweet.
That's how we like it.
Thanks for listening today.
We have one more episode that we're gonna do with a listener's email.
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Talk soon.
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