Sibling friendships

How I'm raising siblings to be life long friends

What I'm doing now, to raise children who hopefully remain friends for life and reflecting on how my own mother managed to achieve exactly this.

One of the things I have always strived for when raising my kids is to raise brothers and sisters who WANT to choose each other, always.

Why?

I am 33 years old and if I want to see a friend, I usually always choose my sister first.

Me and my sister most days

We love to hang out as adults, my brother too. (My youngest sister is currently off travelling the world)

My siblings are my friends, and yet I speak to so many people who rarely, if ever, see their siblings and that honestly terrifies me. I can’t bear the thought of raising these 4 amazing children, spending years doing everything together for them to grow up and only keep in touch via a Christmas card. Or even worse, a Christmas WhatsApp message!

In all seriousness, that COULD happen. My husband can go an entire year speaking to his brother only once. I have friends who only see their brother/sister once in a blue moon. My children could end up all over the world, live very different lives, lose touch, even fall out.

But I hope not.

And I try my hardest to foster a strong sibling friendship between them now that I will hope will last a lifetime.

I read a quote once that said your sibling is the only person who will know every stage of you. From a baby, to a child, adult and beyond. They will see you find a partner,
become a parent, mature, grow old. Even your parents will never see every part of you the way a sibling can. That's why its so so important to foster a friendship between them, because imagine having a best friend for 80 years who also shares your DNA. How special!

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So how?

It may sound painfully obvious, but spending time together is the best possible way to strengthen any relationship. You may be thinking well of course my kids spend time together, they live together? But how much time are they actually interacting, talking, playing or exploring together?

You would be surprised sometimes how little siblings can actually have with each other. Teenagers especially can fall into this trap if they are either out with friends or shut up in their room, when are they spending quality time with their brother or sister? They may pass each other in the house 100 times but are they talking to each other? are they laughing, joking, getting up to mischief, are they knowing each other? Or are they simply roommates who live in the same house and share a bathroom.

Of course it’s wonderful when our children are popular and have an abundance of friends, my children have days out with their mates, go for tea and hang out, but its also important that siblings get to have experiences just them together too.

And this can start from the very beginning. A baby and a toddler, a toddler and a child, all siblings can spend time together; if there is the time for it. We schedule a lot of our children’s lives these days; organised sports, dance classes, gymnastics, they have extra curricular activities coming out of their ears. But my advice would be to slow down, really think whether the toddler ballet class is worth your children being apart for another morning? Siblings can spend so much time separated during the week at school or day care, do they really need to be separated every weekend too?

I recently wrote a note telling the story of how when the fair came to town, instead of choosing to visit with their friends, my eldest 2 sons chose to go together. We dropped them off and they came back hours later, their arms full of sweets and had some great stories about the rides they went on and the fun they had had together. It made my heart that given the choice, they chose each other. If I want to do something or go somewhere as an adult I will usually invite my sister to come with me. I want that for my children, I want them to grow up and still choose each other. Not every time of course, its healthy for them have friends and live their own life, but I want them to always have each other too.

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Shared experiences

I hear a lot about the importance of spending 1:1 time with your children. Of course its great, we know this. But I also think, particularly in larger families, having sibling time with mum or dad is just as special. Because we have big kids AND little kids, its lovely when I can make time just for the bigs. They cherish this time where we can go and do something more grown up or later at night. They don't care that its not 1:1 because they love having a shared experience with me. We go swimming in the sea, or to the cinema or local games café and they have a great shared memory of this time, that they enjoy together. The boys are really getting into pool at the moment, so they enjoy going off with their dad to the pub or the bowling alley in search of a pool table to all play together.

I think that’s the trick to creating lasting friendships; by creating lasting memories. Memories you can cry with laughter about, places you can revisit, hobbies or activities you can enjoy together.

Shared experiences create deeper relationships.

This is why so many companies today send their staff on team building exercises. My friend actually climbed a mountain with her company! She made some fantastic friendships on that work trip and they have incredible memories they now share together both in and out the workplace.

Children spending time together should include time where they can be as free range as possible, so they can tailor make their own memories. Sure two brothers competing in football matches on a weekend can be a great bonding moment, but those times they spend together with no planned activity, no adult direction, no distractions; just pure uninterrupted quality time to play are so so important too. My children spend huge amounts of time playing hide and seek, building Lego or magnatiles, making dens or wrestling (i have three sons, there is a lot of wrestling). Take your children outside in the garden or on a walk, a walk with no particular destination, no fixed time. Let them simply be together in each others company, they will make their own fun, their own games, and these are often the ones we cherish the most. I have such fond memories of playing barbie salons with my sister, or playing in the paddling pool with my brother. Simple unscheduled moments where the bonds can flourish between them.

You can live with someone 24/7 and still not really know them. Its the physical act of doing things and living a life together that creates the bonds that last a lifetime.

My oldest sons are 11 and 13, a way I’ve tried to avoid them isolating themselves from each other is by keeping everything communal. I’m very fortunate that we have a ‘play room’. This is actually the dining room straight off the kitchen and it’s full of my big kids life. They have a shared bedroom with a bed, clothes, books and Lego but EVERYTHING else is downstairs in the play room.

They have one TV, so if they want to watch a film, they watch it together. If they want to go on their scooter, they will go for a ride together. They have their nerf guns, their RC cars, their basket ball hoop, so whatever they want to play, they usually play with together. By having all of this downstairs it means A. I can handily keep an eye on their tech usage, which I like to keep to a minimum, but B. It keeps them included in the family. They will invite their little siblings in to spend time with them, which they adore! But because of the age gap, they also have a private space to watch a big kids film without small eyes watching too.

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Age Gaps

You may be reading this thinking 'well that's all great if you have similar aged children but what about a larger age gap?' Well, I have this too! My eldest is 13, but my youngest is only 3. Fostering friendships between children of different ages, looks a lot different of course, but the concept is the same. Whilst my 5 year old cannot physically always do the same things as his big brothers, they can have shared memories and experiences.

We live in a part of the world where there are fossils, 100’s of fossils just waiting to be found and my teenager loves taking his little brother on fossil hunts.

I do not go. At 13, I entrust in him the responsibility of his younger brother and its 'their thing'. If my teen suggests a fossil hunt one day, his little brother will run and gather the backpack, a drink ect and almost explode with excitement. He knows he has to listen and behave or he will not be invited again and off they go. They have special games they play and routes they take that even I am not privy too.

I don't need to know. It 'their time', its 'their experience'. (don’t worry he takes a mobile phone just incase and is within walking distance of our house)

Sometimes its good for siblings to have memories that DON’T involve us parents. It makes them more special somehow, more exclusive to just them and it ties them together.

I really believe it’s important for us as parents to ensure we make time for siblings to be together. It doesn't have to be a big day out; a trip to the park and a picnic will do. If I took just my teenager to a park, he would be horrified and declare everything too babyish. But if he’s there with his toddler siblings he will happily take them down the slide, play in the sand and make up games for them to all play. He has a great time and the little ones adore this! A big brother is a far more exciting, and energetic, experience for them than mum and dad. It can be just an hour of them being siblings together but it all adds to the memory bank of them being together and strengthens that bond.

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Friends forever

You may have reached this point and think my kids lives together is all sunshine and roses, that they never argue or dislike each other and are BFFS every day. Let me tell you now, this is NOT the case. They fight and bicker and fall out just like all siblings. Its actually healthy for siblings to argue to learn how to resolve conflicts and disagreements with each other. My big kids have had some whopper fall outs over the years. Earlier this year I had to shout across the garden “DO NOT HIT YOUR BROTHER WITH A CRICKET BAT” and once my 3 year old stabbed a fork into his brothers forehead. They fight. That’s guaranteed with siblings, with a partner or a work colleague even. But they are also friends, and the older they get, the more I see this friendship bloom.

As an adult who is close to her siblings i found myself looking towards my own mother to see how she managed to achieved this. One thing i have noticed she does is create lots of opportunities for us to be together as adults, just like she did as children.

Me and my siblings out for lunch

If my mum has me and my children over for the day, 99% of the time she will also invite my brother or sister with their children to come over too. She will invite us all to beach days, birthdays, mothers day, a Saturday, Any event; my mum invites us siblings to all be together. And this is something I have learned; sometimes a child, or adult, may not initiate spending time together themselves; but if an event or a time is planned for them to be together, then great memories often end up being made. And this can start from childhood;

if we as parents carve out these times, days, moments for our children to be together, that's when the precious bonds and memories can flourish. Whatever their ages, whatever the gap, if there is allocated time for them to simply be together, then the foundation is there for a friendship to be made.

This is why i regularly ensure we have weekends with just family plans, no one else, because I want my children to have a lifetime of memories together, and not just with friends who will come and go. A friend may only be there for a season, but your brother will be with you for life.