# How to Stop Sibling Squabbles \[a listener Q&A\]

An episode of [Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1082244480), 10 Aug 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://mgln.ai/e/187/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/b69b2795-5503-4de1-ac91-af460017906e/2595e0b9-ac21-4161-8f52-b4900186aa5d/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=a05f1702-0c0e-4b0f-8014-af460017907c

The constant bickering is exhausting. One child is breathing too loudly. Someone looked at someone the wrong way. Another toy has been touched. If you're breaking up the same tiny arguments every day, this episode will change the way you respond. Justin and Kylie explain why stepping in too quickly often makes sibling conflict worse, and share a simple strategy that helps children solve problems themselves. It's practical, realistic, and designed for the everyday squabbles that slowly wear parents down. KEY POINTS • Why low level sibling conflict is completely normal. • The hidden reason refereeing arguments often backfires. • How parents accidentally train children to depend on them to solve every disagreement. • Why family meetings work better than punishment and reward charts. • The importance of teaching relationship skills when everyone is calm. • Simple questions that help children find their own solutions. • How celebrating small wins builds lasting family change. • The surprising power of noticing and naming positive interactions between siblings. QUOTE OF THE EPISODE "Teach relationship skills in peacetime, not wartime." RESOURCES MENTIONED • 10 Things Every Parent Needs to Know by Dr Justin Coulson • happyfamilies.com.au ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS • Resist the urge to referee every small disagreement. • Set aside a calm family meeting to talk about what's been happening. • Ask your children how they want your family to feel. • Help each child choose one practical action they will try this week. • Meet again a week later to celebrate progress, reflect honestly, and make a new plan. • Look for moments when siblings treat each other well and point them out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: Hello, this is The Happy Family's podcast. You've heard it before.
[0:09] Speaker 1: He touched my staff, she's looking at me. He's breathing
[0:14] Speaker 1: too loud. If your house has a soundtrack, it's probably
[0:19] Speaker 1: something like this. If you have lots of kids running
[0:22] Speaker 1: around at least or more than one. Amy from Canberra
[0:25] Speaker 1: wants to know how to handle the low level sibling squabbles,
[0:27] Speaker 1: not the big ones, the low level sibling squabbles that
[0:30] Speaker 1: aren't quite big enough for you to have to step in,
[0:34] Speaker 1: but they're definitely big enough to drive you mad. Today
[0:37] Speaker 1: a tricky question, why refereeing makes it worse, what the
[0:39] Speaker 1: bickerings all about, and the counterintuitive move that will reduce
[0:44] Speaker 1: it without a sticker chart in sight, Stay with us.
[0:47] Speaker 1: That's next. Welcome to The Happy Family's podcast, Real Parenting
[0:52] Speaker 1: Solutions every Day. It's Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We
[0:56] Speaker 1: are Justin and Kylie Coulson, and today on the pod,
[0:58] Speaker 1: we answer your tricky question. One of the most challenging
[1:01] Speaker 1: things about being in a family is sibling squabbles. If
[1:05] Speaker 1: you've got a tricky question you'd like to submit, We've
[1:07] Speaker 1: got a super simple system at Happy families dot com
[1:09] Speaker 1: dot You just scroll down a podcast, click the record button,
[1:12] Speaker 1: then start talking, or send us a voice note to
[1:14] Speaker 1: podcasts at happy Families dot com dot au. This is
[1:19] Speaker 1: the latest one that's come through to the inbox.
[1:21] Speaker 2: Hi, Justin and Kylie. My name's Amy and I'm from Canberra.
[1:24] Speaker 2: I'm just wondering if you have any tips on how
[1:27] Speaker 2: to manage sibling squabbles, things like he said this, or
[1:32] Speaker 2: she looked at me, or he touched my things, or
[1:35] Speaker 2: she's too close to me. For context, I have a
[1:38] Speaker 2: ten year old daughter and a seven year old son.
[1:41] Speaker 2: I notice step in when things start to get it
[1:43] Speaker 2: much more heated and when they can't solve their problems.
[1:48] Speaker 2: But it's just the little squabbles, the little annoyances that
[1:51] Speaker 2: they do to each other. How do my husband and
[1:55] Speaker 2: I manage that? Thank you?
[1:57] Speaker 1: I love this question, Kylie. How old you reckon person
[2:00] Speaker 1: needs to be before they start getting along with their
[2:02] Speaker 1: siblings and they stop needling each other.
[2:06] Speaker 3: I think that some siblings might never outgrow that.
[2:08] Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to go. I was going to
[2:09] Speaker 1: go with forty. I've got siblings overseas. I've got siblings
[2:14] Speaker 1: in a state a thousand kilometers like thousands of kilometers
[2:18] Speaker 1: and we still get on each other's nerves, and when
[2:20] Speaker 1: we get together in person, it's like, oh, my goodness,
[2:22] Speaker 1: really is still doing that. But I found that once
[2:25] Speaker 1: they get into their mid to late thirties, maybe early forties,
[2:28] Speaker 1: everyone finally grows up enough to say, we can get
[2:30] Speaker 1: along for this weekend, we can get along for this event,
[2:33] Speaker 1: this party. If you do not want siblings squabbles, there's
[2:36] Speaker 1: only one way to do it, and the answer is
[2:40] Speaker 1: don't have siblings. I'm serious, because.
[2:44] Speaker 3: Once you've gotten well, it's a bit late now.
[2:47] Speaker 1: So Amy, there's our answer. Sorry, thanks for that. No,
[2:50] Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. We've we've got more, We've got more.
[2:52] Speaker 3: So to help Amy out, why don't we just discussed
[2:57] Speaker 3: a little bit why this is actually happening. She's got
[2:59] Speaker 3: a ten year old do they've just got a seven
[3:00] Speaker 3: year old son, And it's fair to say that this
[3:03] Speaker 3: is extremely normal behavior. Yeah, if they weren't doing that,
[3:08] Speaker 3: you'd kind of wonder what's going on.
[3:09] Speaker 1: But it's normal because it's developmentally appropriate. Right, Like, you
[3:12] Speaker 1: haven't learned to regulate your emotions, you haven't learned to
[3:15] Speaker 1: regulate your behaviors, you haven't learned to bite your tongue.
[3:19] Speaker 3: We've also got three years difference in developmental age as well.
[3:22] Speaker 1: Right, So the big ones look at the little one,
[3:24] Speaker 1: going they're so immature. The little one's look at the
[3:26] Speaker 1: big one is saying it's not fair. How come they
[3:27] Speaker 1: can do that? Or they're being means because they know
[3:29] Speaker 1: how I.
[3:29] Speaker 3: Want to be just like them.
[3:30] Speaker 1: I know how to manipulate the environment. There's all of
[3:33] Speaker 1: that going on, and a whole lot more. They just
[3:36] Speaker 1: they haven't learned the social skills. So the job here
[3:38] Speaker 1: really is to teach social skills. And unfortunately, most of
[3:42] Speaker 1: our standard responses to sibling challenges sibling rivalry are exactly
[3:47] Speaker 1: the opposite.
[3:47] Speaker 3: So you might be studying the obvious, but what are
[3:49] Speaker 3: our standard responses and why do they not work?
[3:52] Speaker 1: Refereeing every dispute would be the first mistake. We see
[3:56] Speaker 1: the kids and we feel like this cannot be fixed,
[3:59] Speaker 1: and we step in and own the problem and fix
[4:02] Speaker 1: the problem, and we don't give the kids credit for
[4:04] Speaker 1: being able to get things right.
[4:07] Speaker 3: And not only that, we usually step in we don't
[4:10] Speaker 3: know the whole story. We've just picked up on the
[4:12] Speaker 3: emotion in the room. We've seen something, but we haven't
[4:15] Speaker 3: seen everything, and all of a sudden, we're pouncing on
[4:18] Speaker 3: one child when we don't really understand. That child gets upset,
[4:21] Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, everything is elevated.
[4:24] Speaker 1: There are a couple of other things that go wrong
[4:25] Speaker 1: here in addition to what you've said. The first is this,
[4:28] Speaker 1: the kids start to believe that no conflict can be
[4:32] Speaker 1: reconciled and repaired without parential intervention, and that leads to
[4:36] Speaker 1: the second problem, which is that when they escalate, they
[4:39] Speaker 1: escalate towards you. Yes, yes, it starts to blow up,
[4:44] Speaker 1: and then they just gravitate in your direction. And now
[4:46] Speaker 1: you are supposed to be the judge and jury, you're
[4:49] Speaker 1: the police, You're the one that's got Not.
[4:51] Speaker 3: Only that, sometimes you become part of the problem.
[4:53] Speaker 1: Yeah, by doing the things that you've highlighted.
[4:55] Speaker 3: Yeah, and then the kids are both angry at you
[4:58] Speaker 3: on top of everything.
[4:59] Speaker 1: I want to pick up up on what you said
[5:00] Speaker 1: as well. This is something that happens all too often.
[5:03] Speaker 1: We end up stepping in thinking we know everything, and
[5:06] Speaker 1: then we punish the kid that we're pretty sure is
[5:09] Speaker 1: the instigator, the aggressor. We decide with what the person
[5:13] Speaker 1: that we perceive.
[5:14] Speaker 3: And often that's the bigger one. I see, it's the eldest. Yeah,
[5:17] Speaker 3: you kind of expect more from them.
[5:19] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. And even if they're not the instigator,
[5:21] Speaker 1: we're like, well, you're bigger and you should be able
[5:22] Speaker 1: to regulate and solve this anyway. So they're in a
[5:25] Speaker 1: lose lose situation. They just can't get it right, and
[5:28] Speaker 1: we as you said, I know that you've said it,
[5:31] Speaker 1: but it deserves underlining and circling and highlighting. We don't
[5:36] Speaker 1: know the details. We didn't see the start. We didn't
[5:38] Speaker 1: see We also didn't see what happened ten minutes ago
[5:40] Speaker 1: that set one of them off.
[5:41] Speaker 3: Oh what's been happening all day under the table?
[5:44] Speaker 1: Yeah. Another really common mistake that we make is that
[5:48] Speaker 1: we just set up reward charts and that sort of thing, like, well,
[5:50] Speaker 1: if you can get along, here's what I'm going to do.
[5:53] Speaker 1: And so we we turn the family room into a
[5:58] Speaker 1: game show, see each other as not as siblings and companions,
[6:03] Speaker 1: but just as either an impediment or a transaction to
[6:07] Speaker 1: get them to something that they want. It just doesn't work,
[6:10] Speaker 1: and you get complients when you're watching, but once you're
[6:12] Speaker 1: not watching, it just it's Beblum, and we've talked about
[6:15] Speaker 1: this a lot in the pod. When you intervene in
[6:17] Speaker 1: your forse apologies, it doesn't teach anything except that your
[6:20] Speaker 1: children should lie. So they're the biggest mistakes that we make.
[6:23] Speaker 1: There's probably others, but they're the main ones. After break,
[6:26] Speaker 1: let's talk about what to do, Amy, because we want
[6:28] Speaker 1: to help you. We want to help every family with
[6:30] Speaker 1: these sibling squabbles are happening. That's next day with us.
[6:40] Speaker 1: We're back. It's the Happy Families podcast. Siblings squabbles and rivalry.
[6:43] Speaker 1: It is so much hardship for parents, just the low
[6:48] Speaker 1: level annoyingness. I have one key theme and it ties
[6:53] Speaker 1: in with Kylie what you're going to talk about, because
[6:55] Speaker 1: this is your favorite thing to talk about when it
[6:57] Speaker 1: comes to resolving these kinds of challenges, and that is
[7:00] Speaker 1: that we need to do the teaching in peacetime, not wartime. Yes,
[7:05] Speaker 1: you can't step in in the middle of the battle
[7:06] Speaker 1: and say, oh, here's an opportunity for us to have
[7:08] Speaker 1: a teaching moment. No child ever looks at you and says,
[7:11] Speaker 1: stay right, let's do it. So, Kylie, where are you
[7:15] Speaker 1: going with this?
[7:16] Speaker 3: If you've been listening to us for a while. You
[7:18] Speaker 3: will have heard this and it will not be new
[7:20] Speaker 3: to you. But whenever there is any challenges, the more
[7:23] Speaker 3: we can have our children buy in to the resolution,
[7:27] Speaker 3: the better, and the best way that we can do
[7:29] Speaker 3: that is by having those regular family connection moments, family meetings.
[7:35] Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is this is another way of saying,
[7:37] Speaker 1: facilitate rather than dictate, Rather than dictate, Yeah, facilitate, we've
[7:45] Speaker 1: got a problem to solve kids.
[7:46] Speaker 3: Let's see, so we've noticed that for the last week
[7:48] Speaker 3: our kids are just bickering and they're just at each other.
[7:51] Speaker 3: Nothing serious, but it's just ongoing. So we sit down,
[7:54] Speaker 3: whatever day it is, and we say, hey, kids, notice
[7:57] Speaker 3: that family doesn't feel great at the moment.
[8:00] Speaker 1: Been a bit of tension.
[8:01] Speaker 3: Anyone else has been a bit of bickering. What do
[8:05] Speaker 3: you think is going on? They're each going to have
[8:07] Speaker 3: their version of the story.
[8:09] Speaker 1: The good thing about it, though, is if you do
[8:11] Speaker 1: it in peace time, that wartime. Like, if you do
[8:12] Speaker 1: it in wartime, you say, notice there's some tension here,
[8:14] Speaker 1: what's going on? They're cann say she started it, he
[8:17] Speaker 1: did it. But if you do it in peace time,
[8:18] Speaker 1: you can say, notice it's going on and the kids like, yeah,
[8:21] Speaker 1: we seem to just be really at each other a lot,
[8:24] Speaker 1: Like they're less likely to point fingers and assign blame.
[8:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, And as parents, you can also acknowledge the part
[8:33] Speaker 3: that you've played in it as well. It's not there's
[8:35] Speaker 3: no blame game here, right. And then the thing that
[8:38] Speaker 3: I love about this opportunity because it is peaceful, is
[8:42] Speaker 3: I want you to think about a time where our
[8:44] Speaker 3: family felt amazing when it was just you did not
[8:48] Speaker 3: want that moment to stop.
[8:49] Speaker 1: What were we doing?
[8:50] Speaker 3: What were we doing? How are we feeling? How are
[8:53] Speaker 3: we treating each other? Oh? Okay, so how much of
[8:57] Speaker 3: that have we been doing lately? And it's not about
[9:00] Speaker 3: the activity, it's about the feeling. How do we want
[9:03] Speaker 3: our family to feel? So I haven't liked how we
[9:05] Speaker 3: felt this week, but I would love to have more
[9:08] Speaker 3: of that feeling that we've talked about, that we've acknowledged
[9:13] Speaker 3: moving forward. What are some tangible things, practical things that
[9:17] Speaker 3: we can do, each of us individually. What's one thing
[9:19] Speaker 3: you're going to do Tommy, Yes, you know this week And.
[9:22] Speaker 1: That's the critical that's the critical element. Let's work out
[9:25] Speaker 1: the action plan. Because you can always say, oh, we
[9:27] Speaker 1: want to be nice and we want to have a
[9:29] Speaker 1: family that feels good, and then everyone walks away and
[9:31] Speaker 1: nothing happens, nothing changes. But when you say, Okay, I'm
[9:33] Speaker 1: going to be kind by sharing my toys, or I'm
[9:36] Speaker 1: going to help out in the kitchen when I'm asked,
[9:38] Speaker 1: or the kids come up with these ideas themselves, it's
[9:41] Speaker 1: like all right. And the research evidence shows that when
[9:45] Speaker 1: you teach siblings social competencies, it improves the relationship quality,
[9:52] Speaker 1: and parent mediation leads to more constructive child owned resolutions
[9:59] Speaker 1: than parental adjudication. So that's what the research shows. You
[10:04] Speaker 1: can step in and adjudicate and dictate, or you can
[10:08] Speaker 1: step in and mediate and facilitate. But when you do
[10:11] Speaker 1: that mediation, asking the questions and letting them find the solutions,
[10:14] Speaker 1: like you've talked about, Kylie, that's where you start to
[10:17] Speaker 1: have the win.
[10:18] Speaker 3: But the real wins actually come when you come together
[10:20] Speaker 3: again next week and you celebrate the wins and you
[10:26] Speaker 3: create space for accountability. Hey, we talked about last week
[10:30] Speaker 3: we were going to make some changes. Tommy, how did
[10:32] Speaker 3: you go?
[10:32] Speaker 2: You know?
[10:33] Speaker 3: How did you notice things changed this week as a
[10:35] Speaker 3: result of you doing your things? Sometimes the answer is
[10:38] Speaker 3: going to be, you know what, mum, I actually didn't
[10:41] Speaker 3: do a very good job. I could do better. We've
[10:43] Speaker 3: had plenty of conversations.
[10:45] Speaker 1: With our kids like that, but that's accountability.
[10:47] Speaker 3: There's no punishment and there's no anger or frustration.
[10:50] Speaker 1: Thanks for your honest thing. Yeah, what are we going
[10:52] Speaker 1: to do this week too?
[10:52] Speaker 3: Okay, so let's move forward. How do we build on
[10:54] Speaker 3: the small success that we've had. There's so much power
[10:58] Speaker 3: in coming together and helping your children, facilitating a space
[11:02] Speaker 3: where they can come up with the solutions themselves.
[11:05] Speaker 1: Amy, you're not going to end it. The reality is
[11:08] Speaker 1: you're just not going to end it. It's pretty rare
[11:10] Speaker 1: that you come across families where everyone says, you know what,
[11:13] Speaker 1: we all get along all the time. It's kind of
[11:16] Speaker 1: not real. But what you can do is have these
[11:21] Speaker 1: conversations where the kids identify the values that are important
[11:25] Speaker 1: to you, and once they've identified that, they'll start to
[11:27] Speaker 1: regulate themselves because they'll integrate it, which means that all
[11:32] Speaker 1: you're really doing now is teaching these social skills, these
[11:34] Speaker 1: regulation skills, and when things go wrong, you're teaching repair skills,
[11:41] Speaker 1: which leads to a much happier more respectful home environment.
[11:45] Speaker 3: There was one other thing that I thought was really important.
[11:47] Speaker 3: I remember you telling me a story where you were
[11:51] Speaker 3: in a situation where you're working with someone and you
[11:54] Speaker 3: just did not get on with this person at all,
[11:57] Speaker 3: and you went to your boss, and your boss you
[12:01] Speaker 3: were ready to tell them you just I can't do
[12:03] Speaker 3: it anymore, I can't work with this person. Before you
[12:05] Speaker 3: even got out how you were feeling, your boss wanted
[12:09] Speaker 3: to commend you on the work that you were doing
[12:11] Speaker 3: with your colleague because he personally had told your boss
[12:15] Speaker 3: that he had never been so happy.
[12:18] Speaker 1: Yeah, he enjoyed working with me more than anybody ever
[12:20] Speaker 1: worked with And.
[12:21] Speaker 3: In that moment, you swallowed everything that you wanted to
[12:24] Speaker 3: say and you walked out.
[12:26] Speaker 1: I thought about two centatys tall, I mean, here to complain.
[12:29] Speaker 3: And so when I think about that and I think
[12:31] Speaker 3: about our kids, there's these beautiful opportunities for us to
[12:34] Speaker 3: have these one on ones where we build our children
[12:36] Speaker 3: up and we acknowledge the moments where we've seen that
[12:39] Speaker 3: they've done something you know, beautiful with their sister, or
[12:42] Speaker 3: where they've noticed the way their sister has treated them.
[12:45] Speaker 3: I think it's really important for us to help kids
[12:47] Speaker 3: recognize things because sometimes we just see the bad. Yep,
[12:50] Speaker 3: we we're so focused on I can't believe she did that.
[12:53] Speaker 3: But if you remind them, remember when Sarah did this
[12:56] Speaker 3: the other day with you. How cool was that?
[12:58] Speaker 1: Amy. We really hope that there's some ideas in here
[13:00] Speaker 1: that will be helpful. There's also a whole chapter about
[13:02] Speaker 1: it in my book Ten Things Every Parent Needs to Know,
[13:05] Speaker 1: and we haven't even touched on and a tenth of
[13:09] Speaker 1: what's in that chapter, so you might want to check
[13:11] Speaker 1: that out as well. That's the Happy Families Podcaster Today,
[13:14] Speaker 1: audio production by Justin Roland for Bridge Media Admin and
[13:17] Speaker 1: other support from Mimhammond's. For more info about making your
[13:19] Speaker 1: family happier, visit happyfamilies dot com dot au

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