Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. Quick reminder that we have our Discipline and Guidance Care Professionals training coming up on April 22nd for three hours, two to six Eastern and two to five, I beg your pardon, and on Sunday the 23rd of April. These are trainings for care professionals, educators who want to support parents to have better boundaries, better loving authority with their children at home and involve that in their education of parents or in their counseling of parents.
So that's coming right on up and it's recorded. So if you're listening to this podcast after that date, don't worry about it. You can just go right there and you can sign up on the interest list and get access in that way.
Okay, now on with the show. This week I wanted to mention something about siblings, sibling safety, how to help situations involving siblings not escalate and dig in a little bit to the reason of why some sibling situations do escalate and can get worse and can flare up. I'm leaning in a little bit here to my work for many years with social inclusion, with something called integrative student support and social inclusion, and I worked with kids and schools for decades on this theme.
And one of the pieces of research that years ago stood out for me was a piece of research by Ken Rigby from the University of South Australia and also by a gentleman called Dan Olwus as well from Norway. Both of them basically pointed towards in one way or another to that there's an escalation involved in conflict. Well, and the pattern usually is that there's a body language type of message that isn't inclusive.
A child will make a protective gesture or something or a defensive gesture or a put down gesture, an eye roll, whatever it is. There's some form of body language put down. And you've got to remember, of course, as we do that way over 70% of all our communication is body language.
So a body language put down is a big deal, actually, but that's where it begins. Now, unless an adult picks that up, and it's awfully hard to pick up, but if we do, that's great. But unless an adult picks that up and disapproves, it escalates into a verbal put down.
There's a good chance it will. Now, if an adult normalizes the verbal put down, it could be something like, yeah, that's so stupid. That's so lame.
Don't be such an idiot. You know, and that kind of thing. Now, if we normalize that, and again, we don't disrupt it, then that kind of verbal put down, verbal sort of microaggression, then escalates into a full blown aggression.
And if that goes on and on, then it starts to become habituated. And that now you've got siblings where put downs and verbal defensiveness has now becomes just what they do. It becomes normalized.
So backing that on up, if we ever hear or see a verbal or nonverbal put down, what the research of Rigby and Olweis tells us is that we've got to immediately disapprove. The figures they quote is that over 60% of all escalations will end if there is a disruption to that. Rigby uses the word disapproval.
Olweis' figures are even more. He puts it in the high 80 percentiles that if an adult moves in and actively disapproves of that put down, of that verbal taunt, of that sort of sibling stuff that can flare up or that begins to smolder, we prevent the full blown flare. So it's a little bit like the saying, a stitch in time saves nine.
You know, we stitch, we put one stitch in a small little rent in a fabric, in a social fabric amongst siblings, and we prevent a rip that's going to, that needs nine and 10 and 11 and 12 stitches to heal and repair. So this saying in America, don't sweat the small stuff is so not true when it comes to sibling put downs, is sweat the small stuff. Move in and actively disrupt it.
Now it's the kind of disruption that I want to extend a little bit on the research. The kind of disruption for me is important. It's not just disapproving.
It's okay if that's all we can do and that's all we've got time for. These researchers would tell us that's a whole lot better than nothing, because if we walk by a non-verbal or verbal put down, what these two researchers together with a slew of others actually, there's a bunch of good information out there about this, the kids presume two things. And these are a little bit, maybe a little bit surprising.
If we walk by two or three siblings putting each other down, or two or three classmates, for that matter, who are putting each other down, the kids presume two main things. Number one, is that you agree with them, that you actually agree with them calling someone stupid, or that was lame, or whatever idiot, that you actually actively agree with them, point one. And point two, that you're giving unspoken, tacit permission for them to escalate the behavior.
Now that is, even for me, I've been involved in this world and studying it for a long time, that came as like really stark. Unless we disapprove and disrupt, the kids presume we're on their side and they can do it worse. So even more reason to disapprove.
But here's the thing, it's how we disapprove. It's not just disapproving, it's how. We want to do it warmly, we want to do it kindly, but very, very clearly.
So what I'm suggesting is that when siblings or classmates put each other down like that, or there's a major put down, or there's a body language put down, there's a great big eye roll, there's a body curtaining, a protecting of toys, whatever it is, that we move in and we say to a child, first of all, we connect with them and say, Oh, Kobe, hang on, Kobe, you and your brother were playing really well this morning, you know, that was going well. And you treated your little brother really, really well. Gosh, you're a helpful and kind brother.
You really can be. But you know, what you just said or what you just did, that's not kind. It's really not.
It's not okay. No, no. We try really hard to not do that in our family.
Now, let me break that down a little bit. The first piece is connecting. Always connect before you correct.
And you know, those regular listeners, this podcast will know that that I often come up with that one. But it's so important to connect first. And the simplest way to connect is with an affirmation, but an affirmation that is true, that is practical, and not flowery and verbose.
Very true. He was treating his little brother well, that morning, or yesterday. The second one, then, is to disapprove.
So first affirm, connect, and then disapprove. But you'll notice that my words were carefully chosen, is that we try really hard to not do that in our family. Not, we don't speak like that in our family.
That's a kind of a strange thing to say, because he just did, right? He just did speak that way. And it makes a child feel like they're an outlier, that they're not a part of the family. But why not say to a child, you know, we try really hard to not speak that way in our family.
We do. Now that's the first two steps. But the second and third step, and let's focus on the third, really, step, is to say to kids who are putting each other down, a very simple question.
Hey, can you, can you girls, can you boys, can you children, sort this out yourselves? Or do you need my help? It's okay if you need my help, but maybe you can sort it out yourselves. Which will it be? And they kind of look at each other, you know, and it's like, well, we, we could, we could work it out. Or no, we need your help.
It's not working out. And just to say, oh, it's really hard when things don't work out. It really is.
You know what, I can help. And then you move in and help. But if they say, no, we can work it out, say, well done, I think you can.
You've worked out things many times. Do you remember just last week about when you were building the fort, and you didn't agree at all about, and you worked that out? Yeah, you can do it. I'm sure you can.
But, but the thing is, then stay really close. Don't go far away. Stay pretty close by.
And, and help them. And if they are struggling to work it out, then say, well, well done for trying to work it out. But it didn't quite work, did it? Okay.
I think we probably need some space. Because by then the adrenaline and cortisol is probably running high, and kids just need a little bit of time and space to deal with things. And we'll come right back and see if we can work it out.
So did you get the sequence? First of all, affirm the kids, and just tell them they can do perfectly well. Secondly, disapprove. Say, hey, that's not what our family, we really try hard.
It's not what we, we try to do much, much better in our family. Third one is, do you need my help? Or can you do it yourself? And if all that doesn't work, space, and then circle back, and see if we can figure it out. This is a wonderful formula for both working with kids, you know, our own kids and our families, for kids in classrooms, in school settings.
It's a fairly well known strategy. It comes right out of the Soul of Discipline book that I wrote. And it's just to come full circle now to round off.
Isn't it interesting that if we can do this, how our kids will feel safe, feel connected, rather than, you know, feeling that we agree with that kind of very difficult put down behavior. And really what we've got to do is so organic, it's very intuitive, is to move in, is to move in, affirm, disapprove, and then invite, invite them to sort it out. And if it all doesn't work, circle back.
Okay. That I hope it's a tool that you can remember. It's very, it's a very simple one.
I hope that's not too many steps and too complicated. But sibling safety, it's enormously important that we disrupt that kind of put down behavior. Okay, bye bye for now.
