When I became pregnant with my second child, I had visions of my children growing up together and happily getting along. It never crossed my mind that there would be sibling fights.
Being an only child, it was easy for me to imagine such an ideal home life. I never had the experience of getting into fights with a brother or sister.
Never had to share my toys with a sibling.
Never had a sibling stealing my toys.
Or pissing me off on purpose.
I suppose I should be thankful for that one.
Whenever I experience any feelings of sadness at being an only child, I glance at my kids arguing over who’s got the most sofa space (on a massive sofa) and instantly feel better.
To start with, everything was lovely. Child number one adored child number two and doted on him, wanting to get involved and even feeding him his bottle.
Fast forward a few months later and the sibling rivalry started kicking in (perfectly normal – it’s a huge thing for children when a new baby arrives!). Any visions of my two kids playing happily together disappeared the moment that the husband and I came downstairs and discovered that our daughter, then three, had somehow managed to tip her baby brother’s bouncer upside down – with him in it.
“Wait until he gets a bit older,” my mum said at the time. “She won’t get away with doing those things then.”
Mum was right.
Four years later, my son is getting his own back and I’m dealing with sibling fights almost every day.
And so, here are seven things my 4-year-old does to annoy his sister (according to her):
1. Looks at her with “that face”
I’m not exactly sure what “that face” is, but whatever it is, it annoys the hell out of his sister.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said “Please stop doing “that face”, it annoys your sister”, whenever we’re on a car journey.
2. Sits too close to her on the sofa
As mentioned above, our sofa is one of those big corner ones, with room for at least four people. Despite this, the 4-year-old insists on sitting as closely as he can to his sister, just to annoy her.
Sometimes, she’ll do the same thing to him, even prodding him to annoy him.
And sometimes he’ll prod her back and stick his feet in her face.
And they both laugh.
While I sit there shaking my head, unable to understand this sibling love/hate thing!
3. Farts
I honestly don’t blame her for complaining about this one. At least he owns up to it though!
4. Turns the television over
A three-year age gap between our children means quite a few arguments over the television.
He wants Supertato, she wants Lankybox.
And I want neither.
Both are incredibly headache-inducing.
5. Takes one of her toys
To be fair to him, she did say that he could have it. Then decided that she wanted it back ten minutes later because she saw that he was having far too much fun with it.
I’m glad I never had to deal with this shit from a brother or sister when I was growing up.
6. Sings too loudly
Like the farting, this is one of the complaints I agree with.
7. Walks into her room
Everyone needs their personal space, so this is a fair complaint. The problem is though, she’ll invite him in and then get fed up with him five minutes later.
And so he goes back to his own room.
And then minutes later she follows him in there and they start playing together again.
A true example of sibling love maybe…until another sibling fight breaks out and I have to resist the urge to shout “JUST STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM EACH OTHER FOR GOD’S SAKE!!!”
As someone who hates conflict, it’s sometimes hard to see my children fighting so much. We’re working on helping both of them to respect each other’s personal space. Not for the first time, I’ve found myself looking for some expert parenting advice to help me deal with the situation.
It has got a bit better. The deafening screams of “Get out!” or “Give me that back!!” that used to travel downstairs whenever they went up to play together have died down a bit. Only a tiny bit though. There are still sibling fights almost every day.
But they do have plenty of lovely moments together too, which I try to soak up as much as I can!
