Siblings Without Rivalry: How To Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too, by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish. New York: Avon Books, 1987. 219 pages. $8.95.
The old cliche, “you can’t live with ’em and you can’t live without ’em” describes how we feel about our kids on those days when they are constantly at one another’s throats. It’s probably also how they feel about each other. Why oh why does it have to be this way? Why can’t they just get along? Why can’t they leave us alone?
The sibling relationship is one of the closest human bonds so it’s not surprising that siblings see-saw from love to hate and back again in minutes. While it’s not just our kids who struggle with brothers and sisters, this book focuses on how to help our children get along. The authors’ practical advice rang true as I reminisced about life in my parents’ house. It also fits with the two combatants at my house. While the dream of a family with harmonious relationships is elusive, the authors give us hope that something constructive can be done to reduce the tensions and squabbles between our kids.
Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish are protigis of the late child psychologist and parenting authority, Dr. Haim Ginott. Their detailed plan of action opens with the recommendation that we acknowledge our children’s feelings of animosity and then help them find acceptable ways of expressing their feelings. They urge us to avoid making comparisons between our kids or casting them into narrowly defined roles in the family. They interpret “equality of treatment” in terms of paying attention to individual needs and their sensible guidelines for when and when not to intervene in fights are complemented by effective strategies for encouraging our kids to sort out their own problems. In the midst of the all too frequent battles between my boys, these suggestions help me to control the impulse to scream, and pause to consider some alternatives.
The anecdotes in Siblings Without Rivalry are comforting because we see we are not alone in dealing with warring siblings. But it is disconcerting to be reminded about how easily our buttons can be pushed. The book’s many dialogues and cartoons give concrete examples of helpful and unhelpful responses and are compelling reminders of the impact of our words and actions. My only complaint is that the authors are unbalanced in recording only success stories of their approach. A mixture of accounts would have made it more credible. The book, however, is engrossing, easy to read and thought-provoking.