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General Safety Issues

TEN COMMON REASONS WHY SIBLINGS FIGHT (GUEST POST)

Ten Common Reasons Why Teen Siblings Fight

by Meghan Walker of babysitting.net

eNannySource has been helping families find quality caregivers for over 15 years. They have thousands of jobs and active caregivers daily. In addition they offer the most thorough background checks in the industry. 

If you have teenagers, then you know that there are a lot of ups and downs with raising them.  They are pushing the boundaries and getting ready to leave the nest.  They are often rebellious and will fight with you and their siblings over the silliest of things.  But in a time when you think that your teenagers should be getting closer, why do they still have such big fights?  Check out 10 common reasons why teen siblings fight.

  1. Inequality: Often sibling fights start because one sibling doesn’t feel they are being treated fairly by the parents.  The oldest usually gets more privileges and can stay out later than the younger.  Maybe the oldest is involved in sports while the youngest isn’t so they feel like the world revolves around the schedule of the older child.
  2. Jealousy: One sibling might be jealous of what the other sibling has.  Maybe one teen has a phone and the other doesn’t have one yet.  Or maybe one got a car when they turned 16 and the other didn’t because the car was meant to be shared between the teens when the time came that they could both drive.
  3. Hormones: Everyone knows that teenagers have raging hormones and not just the kind that are aimed at members of the opposite sex.  Hormone imbalances can cause irritability and just make them short tempered so any perceived slight will set them off on a rant.
  4. Unmet expectations: Sometimes teens think that they have each other’s back, but then the sibling will rat the other one out if they broke the rules.  Expectations are a big deal, but are often assumed and teens need to realize that no one reads minds and that if they don’t express their expectations then theirs sibling won’t be able to meet them.
  5. Frustration: Being a teen is frustrating enough.  School is harder and more stressful.  Members of the opposite sex enter into the picture and cause their own drama.  Teens can be frustrated with each other for nothing more than eating something too loudly.  If things don’t go their way in one aspect of their world they may take it out on their sibling.
  6. Feeling of betrayal: This is more likely to happen when there are teens of the same sex in the household.  One sister dates the boy the other sister liked and now she feels betrayed by her own sister.  Or one brother gets into an argument with another guy and his brother sides with the other guy instead of him.  Siblings feel like even though they fight that they should stick together on the important stuff and that just doesn’t always happen.
  7. Competition: Who’s the biggest, skinniest, prettiest, fastest or most talented?  Siblings will compete with each other and results of the competitions most always cause a fight.  The other person had to have cheated or somehow rigged the contest.  Maybe it’s not a looks contest, but a contest to see who’s smartest?  Who gets better grades?
  8. Need for space: Teenagers seem to do a lot of deep thinking and they need their space.  When a younger teen interrupts an older sibling’s private time or invades their space there is likely going to be fireworks and not the good kind.  This also includes sitting too closely to them in the car.  The whole fight about who’s touching whom will ensue and you’ll want to pull your hair out, but keep in mind this too shall pass.  
  9. Touching or taking their stuff: Another thing that teenagers are is possessive of their things.  They don’t want their sibling to use, touch or take anything that belongs to them.  If their sister borrowed their favorite shirt without asking and now it’s dirty and they wanted to wear it to the game there’s going to be a lot of fighting.  As soon as kids get something they consider to be their own, these kinds of fights start and it doesn’t stop when they become older teenagers.  It just gets louder and the stuff gets more expensive.

Insults flying: Sometimes teenagers just fight because they can.  Perhaps they get bored and just feel like picking a fight, but it’s often just stupid stuff that they fight about.  Siblings know how to push each other’s buttons and they will do it just to get a rise out of their sibling.  There’s just something about irritating each other that’s part of the growing up process.

Hope these tips will help us all understand that kids fighting is a very common part of life. It’s up the parents to handle them in the best way possible. Cases like this may really show the need for keeping a first aid kit!

 

General Safety Issues

WHY WE LOSE OUR TEMPER!

First, let me thank Carol Fredrickson, CEO and Founder of Violence Free.  She and her partner are workplace violence experts who conduct seminars, workshops, and more, on Managing Angry Clients, Customers, Employees, and Patients.  People have benefitted since 1993 from her powerful messages.  Carol extended permission to me to pass on some valuable information on the understanding of anger and the part our brains play under stress.  With increasing workplace violence and violence in schools, much of the following is her insight explaining why our brains take completely over in times of stress or anger.  

Have you ever experienced so much anger, stress, or frustration that you become very emotional when someone triggers your “hot buttons?”  According to Ms. Fredrickson, the cerebral cortex is the thinking part of the brain where logic and judgment reside; the emotional center of the brain is the limbic system, which is more primitive than the cerebral cortex.  She then introduces us to the amygdala, a part of the limbic system of the brain, which acts like a fire alarm for our brain.  It reacts only to previously stored patterns.  

The reason this is so fascinating to me is that a few years ago, I had what Ms. Fredrickson calls an “amygdala hijacking” – where I had no cognitive thought such as judging, evaluating, or thinking a situation through, without regard for consequence.  I was attending a town hall meeting concerning our hospital (where I had previously worked, in administration).  The person doing all the talking was continually belittling things that I found offensive, until I exploded into stepping onto my “soapbox” to let him know how insulting the things he was saying were to many people.  I was on a roll until my head began to feel as though it were going to split wide open, so I stopped talking. A physician friend took me to the clinic adjoining the hospital, where my blood pressure was at stroke level.  

According to Carol, again, here is what the “hijack” looks like within the brain – and what it looks like on the outside:

  •          The person is usually out of control and will say or do things they later regret. (However, I didn’t regret what I said.)
  •          This state lasts an average of 20 minutes.
  •          Although the adrenaline clears the body fairly quickly, longer lasting hormones and their impact can last several hours or even a couple  of  days.   (In  my case, just talking to another doctor and nurse calmed me down, and I was able to go home.)

The lesson I learned from this experience was to stay away from situations that are that upsetting.  We know it is impossible to stay away from stress and conflict in the workplace.  This lesson, though, does teach us that when someone is having one of these “hijacks”, the person must be allowed to vent and then wait until their thoughts move from the emotional area to the thinking area of the brain before we try to reason with them.  Self-awareness of our own responses to anger will help us manage our own, and can be the key to de-escalating anger in others. 

Sometimes our brain makes us act like a bully, but if we know what our hot buttons are, and understand not to trigger someone else’s temper, we can manage to work with others in a better manner.  There are stressful situations that everyone works under, but allowing them to reach a boiling point, resulting in violence, must be prevented at all costs.  If you are aware of conflicts in the workplace, consult your supervisor.  Leaders cannot fix things if they don’t know about them. 

Thank you again, Carol Fredrickson, for the advice on understanding what can cause us to do things we shouldn’t, in public, at home, or work, by letting our tempers fly.  More good tips on safety and reducing liability can be found at the website, http://www.violence-free.com.