I walked into the playroom the other day to find my 9-year-old daughter, Hazel, at a white-erase board teaching her 4-year-old brother about punctuation. Believe me, I was as shocked as you are. She would say a sentence out loud and Teddy would come to the board and circle either a period, a question mark, or an exclamation point, and then she’d tell him if he had gotten it right or wrong. So what did I do? I watched for a split second and left.
I’m an only child, but I’ve seen enough adult sibling relationships to know that often the way grown brothers and sisters relate has a lot to do with the relationship rules set up when they were kids. Older siblings never stop feeling as if they are supposed to take care of little brothers and sisters. Younger siblings yearn to be treated like equals. Sometimes these roles set up a family dynamic that keeps people close, but it seems that just as often the roles are a source of friction.
So what can a parent do to ensure their kids end up choosing the Donnie and Marie path instead of the Cain and Abel route? For my wife and me, it starts with demanding they treat each other with respect, and intervening to steer things only when it’s absolutely necessary.
When Teddy is hounding Hazel, for example, we intercede. If Hazel is using Jedi mind tricks to talk Teddy into doing her bidding, it’s time to step in. But when they’re annoying each other equally, we try and let them work it out, or simply tell them to take a break from each other. And on those occasions when they are like two angels working over a dry-erase board, we take a mental picture and back away.
We know their interactions will change drastically as they grow – including a big shift in the near future. We’re only a few years away from Hazel being deputized as occasional baby sitter and Teddy cast in the role of angry insurgent. We hope that letting them build their relationship with a minimum of parental policing makes a difference, but acknowledge that when it comes to guessing how they’ll relate to each other in the future, all the sentences end with a question mark.
Send comments to magazine@globe.com. How can parents help kids have better sibling relationships? 
