December 08, 2025   |   Tagged Parenting,

How can I get my children to get along with their siblings?

Parenting can be challenging and one of the most difficult tasks is creating a deeply loving home for siblings. It’s rare. Having a home of kids who openly love each other and respect one another with kind words and loving acts of service is not common, sadly.

But it can be accomplished. This comes through the difficulty of careful preparation. The soil of friendship for siblings needs a lot of work to clear the rocks of temperament, generational patterns, and natural tendencies to dislike and alienate our siblings.

One of the biggest challenges for a parent is to help train the oldest child to speak with gratitude and delight about their younger siblings. Every older sibling desire to be a parent. It’s a natural propensity. However, they need continued and loving reminders with habit building consequences to create the understanding they are not the parent, but they are the best friend and loving mentor as a sibling. It is a beautiful role— that’s their role.

Creating a home of loving siblings requires certain ground rules that are nonnegotiable. Importantly, the rule to never speak badly about the sibling to anyone. Venting is off-limits. This doesn’t mean we do not voice what is hurting or harming the relationship but that we do so with great wisdom and care and above all, love.

Other important rules:

The ability to ask forgiveness with a tender heart and move on with reconciliation for minor harms

If major harms have happened between siblings, much more work and outside counseling is needed. Find a good mentor to help you bring healing to the harm committed.

Teasing, name calling, sarcasm is completely off limits especially around the table.

Build a daily routine of speaking gratitude for each other through spotlights.

Spend one on one time with each child. Favoritism is a cancer that wounds the heart and builds enmity. Ask good friends and wise family to honestly assess if they see any favoritism. Parenting requires unique methods for each student but each child should feel deeply loved and cherished not less or more than others.

There is no "mine". All the siblings should be delighted to give to the beloved other sibling. If a sibling does not care for an object well, this sibling must pay for the replacement. No hording, no misuse, no lack of deep care.

Attitude is ultimate. If siblings are "behaving" through sullen repressed anger, this is no home. Love that overflows is generous, joyful, delighted in the other, loyal to the core, willing to lay down your life for the other-- this is the love you are cultivating in your home.

Often, we choose our own challenges. We choose either the hard work of creating loving sibling friendships or the even harder work of healing from difficult family relationships.

Hey NBC Basketball Parents,

We’re thankful for you! We love that you aspire to create peaceful, kind, wise, and loving homes. Thank you for partnering with us during this amazing summer. We are excited to work with you in this beautiful dream of raising siblings who deeply love each other.

About NBC Basketball
NBC Basketball is more than a sports camp, its a space for student athletes to dream, work hard and imagine a better way of playing basketball and living life. For more information about this life changing program visit www.nbccamps.com.