How to deal with sibling aggression

[Ligeia]

I have a 3 yr old dd and a 1 yr old ds. Dd is ruthless to him. She knocks him over repeatedly, pulls his hair, pushes him when he stands, squashes him, blocks him from his destination, pretty much anything she can do to make him miserable. We have tried ignoring her hurting him, rushing over to him and saying things like, "poor boy! It must hurt when your sister hits you," etc, putting her in another room until the behavior stops, putting me and the brother into another room...I am at my wits end. At this point, it just makes me furious that she will not be nice to him. He surprisingly still just adores her and crawls right up to her all the time only to be slapped or pushed over. I recently left town for 24 hours with ds for a very short visit with some relatives and now that I've returned, she has been even worse than usual. I don't even want to be around her! I have tried giving her some one on one time with me, I've been reading to her while I need to nurse him, trying to give her as much attention as possible and it does not seem to help whatsoever. Does anyone have a new idea on how to deal with this? I just feel like crying right now, I am so at a loss. Thank you for listening, mommas.

[titania8]

i wish i knew! i have twin 3.5 year olds, and an 8 mo. and the aggression (from 1 in particular) is hard to take. they push him right over, take things from him (though i can kind of understand this, but not when they are HIS things! and the kicker- yesterday one of them was knocking 2 weeble wobbles together (you know, they ones that are like ROCKS!!!) and then knocked them on the baby's head! i know that sometimes they are being too rough with their affection, and that's sweet that they love their brother, but my goodness!! its frustrating!

[mom2grrls]

I would suggest getting on the floor and playing with them until she can handle being gentler. If you need to leave the room put DS in a sling and take him with you. When does she get the most upset with him?

[Ligeia]

That is what I have done in the past but now that he is a year old, he doesn't want to be tied up anymore, he wants to get down and explore. :/

[J. Jones]

Hugs to you mom, this can be so frustrating and scary! It will mostly pass, but here's a few ideas in the meantime:

Build an allience of "big girls" with her - kind of laugh at all the babyish things (drooling, diapers, can't talk, helplessness) and reinforce how fun it is to be big together..."we're the big girls, and he's such a drooly little pooper" . I think kids get sick of hearing how wonderful babies are and how you always have to treat them so delicately. I think it's even ok to say things like "I'm tired of all this baby stuff, let's go do some big girl things", then enjoy even a brief play session of her liking. Make lots of effort to make eye-contact that says, "Me-and-you, girl" and "can you believe what that baby did?!" so she feels like she's a part of the big world and not smooshed herself somewhere in baby land.

Second strategy: When you can, scoop her up and give her a little baby-like love - I'm sure you already do this - affirming that she was your first baby, rock her and cuddle her and tell little stories about her own infancy. "I held you like this, and you loved to have me sing to you, and I'd tickle your little belly." Let her experience it happily and you don't need to follow up with "you're a big girl now" so it's not a lesson or a lecture. She'll probably remind you of her bigness though!

The strategy here is to meet her needs of both being a very very young child and also a growing strong kid.

If your allience with her gets really strong she'll even see looking out for the baby as part of her natural role.

[Jennifer Z]

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[Jennifer Z]

I think 3yos are crazy. Seriously. Mine is the younger sibling, but my oldest is Autistic, so it can be a very difficult dynamic because, even though he is older, his impulse control is more like her age.

I think the best strategy is two fold...make sure she gets lots of positive attention, and time outs for negative actions and making "bad choices".

We have a rule that she can yell and scream and hit pillows and kick the bed all she wants in her room to "get all the angry out", but when she is in the rest of the house, she has to be pleasant. Is perfectly fine to be mad/bad mood/angry, but it is not ok to lash out at others when you feel that way. You don't treat people you love like that.

If she removes herself from the situation (which sometimes involves a teenage-esque door slam) then she can choose when she can come back out, as long as she is in a decent mood. If she slams the door, then when she calms down, I go in the room and talk to her about what a better choice would have been, how to handle the situation next time, and we "practice closing doors nicely" for a bit (which actually has helped the slamming over time), and we are back on track.

If I need to help her move (i.e. carry her into her room kicking and screaming) into her room, then she has to calm down and comply with "being quiet and staying on the bed", then I set the timer and she has a few minutes time out so that she has more time to totally wind down. Then I go talk to her about her choices, etc.

It very gradually does seem to be improving. With my son I use different strategies, but he has a very different worldview and it probably wouldn't be relevent to this conversation. (what I do with her wouldn't even remotely work with him).

You also have to be VERY vigilant and catch them treating their siblings kindly. It is very easy to be so thankful that they aren't causing a riot that you forget to say something, but noticing and commenting when they are doing things right can go a long way towards improving things. (and it seriously might start with really, REALLY small things)

eta: I choose the bed as a time out place because she can kick all she wants and won't hurt herself, she can punch pillows, she can headbang, and when she is done there is no blood. Plus, it allows her to push the limits a little (rather than sitting upright on a chair or similar) because she can choose if she wants to sit or lay down, or anything in between...she still has a little bit of rebellious control. It isn't about me winning the battle of wills, it is about her learning to treat those she loves with kindness.

[littleveggiemom]

I hear you. I'm going through the same thing. 3.5 yr boy and 10 mo girl. He hits her, pushes her, hits me..... throws toys at us...

Three is very difficult.

The strangest thing. I bought a baby doll for her and he has claimed it. He carries it around. Acts like it falls, then goes over and comforts it. Then he disappears in the baby's room and say he is feeding the baby. He'll get up in the rocking chair and act like he is nursing the baby doll. Maybe I've stumbled upon some therapeutic play. You could try this.

He also want to act like the baby and I have to take him out of the crib, put him on the changing table (he is even potty trained now), and act like I'm going to change him, he even asked to me nursed...he didn't do anything, but he wants the attention. Maybe treat your older girl like the baby. Who knows...

I think it is all about perseverance and creativity. Best of luck I hope you find some answers. I hope it helps to know that you are not alone. It has helped me.

[HoneyTree]

Wow, I came here with about the same age difference to post about the exact same thing. And I hear you--you want to scream and cry and pull your hair out, and you don't even want to LOOK at your older child, who is so out-of-control aggressive toward the younger.

It is so, so, so, so hard. By far the hardest thing about parenting that I've faced so far.

Again, I am here to get ideas, too, but one little thing that has worked is to be RIGHT THERE all the time. By doing this, I've noticed there are some kind of "tells" from the older that lets me know when a push/punch/whatever is about to happen. Then I can catch it. This means that nothing else gets done in our life a lot of the time, though, so it has a limited application!

Hugs and best of luck!

[ZoraP]

I've never understood the "terrible twos" concept -- both of mine were much more difficult at age 3.

My older dd was one month away from 3 when the little one was born, so we went through this, too. She was so incredibly jealous that she acted out in every way she could think of (angry words and actions toward daddy and me as well as baby). And she's creative, so there were lots of strategies. The pp that mentioned nurturing her "big girl" side and also babying her is on to something; that helped my dd. We also had to really set rules for behavior and stick by them (sometimes this meant she had to go to her room -- lots of door banging and yelling when that happened!).

(I remember wanting to tear my hair out. One evening when I was alone with them and nothing was working I actually locked her in her room because I was afraid I'd hurt her otherwise. It ended up being quite a comedy because when I was ready to let her out the lock was stuck and I couldn't get the door open; I ended up going through the window to get her out!):

Well, now that they are nearly 10 and 7 years old, they get along really well (with occasional bouts of bickering) so at least I can attest that all our efforts when they were younger didn't do any harm and may have done some good.

Hang in there and keep trying things. Finding a playgroup or preschool group for your older dd may help, too.

[raelize]

i spend time cuddling with dd1, teling her she is my first baby and that no matter how big she gets, she will always be my first baby. she really likes that. also, i broke it down really clearly for her that dd2 was NOT a toy and that she could hurt her very badly. "how would you feel if i hurt you like that? or if Papa hurt you like that? would you like that? how do you think she feels when her big sister does that to her?" Usually she was lashing out cause she needed my attention, so i would try to catch it early, talk to her about it, and then cuddle or read a book together.

[GardenStream]

I'm with you. My boys are 3 and 16 months and it's awful! My 3 year old slaps, tackles, clothesline, pounds on, and trips the 16 month old about every 10 minutes. He tells me that he loves his brother, but that he has to hit him. I have tried everything I can think of to stop the behavior and nothing is working. The only thing I can do is keep them separate, which makes my 16 month old upset. He really wants to play with his brother, which doesn't make sense to me. I sure wouldn't want to play with someone who is constantly attacking me!

I'm beginning to think that this is something they just have to outgrow and in the meantime I will constantly be trying to protect my youngest from the attacks.