How Siblings Can Get Along!

Stefan Molyneux

Stefan Molyneux examines the complexities of sibling relationships, informed by personal experiences and insights from others. Addressing a subscriber's question, he discusses the emotional challenges that can arise, particularly focusing on how parental empathy influences sibling dynamics and competition for attention. He explores the impact of developmental differences and strategies parents can use to foster harmony, especially with the arrival of a new sibling. Stefan highlights the importance of open communication and conclude with a reminder of the lasting value of sibling bonds, encouraging families to nurture these unique relationships despite inevitable challenges.  SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux  Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1  GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK! https://peacefulparenting.com/  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!  You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon! https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025

Transcript

00:00All right. Great question from a subscriber on Locals. Every now and then I ask subscribers for

00:07particular questions that are near and dear to their heart. And so this one is near and dear to

00:13my heart. And I will put the caveat up front that I do have, in fact, a brother, but I do not have

00:21a relationship with said brother. And we have not talked in, gosh, I guess it's somewhere between

00:2820 and 25 years. I could get it in more detail or something like that. I will also put the caveat

00:35in that I have only one child. And so I have not had a successful sibling relationship of my own.

00:47And I have not managed a sibling relationship in my family, just so you know. Now, I do have

00:55good friends who have many multiple children, four, five, six. And so I have seen a lot of

01:04stuff in action. And the parents, I'm thinking of one family in particular that I know, have three

01:12boys who all get along famously well, and a daughter, and they are the peaceful parenting

01:18people. They peacefully parent. So I've sort of had conversations with them and observed that family,

01:23you know, kind of up close. So just be aware of the caveats that I will speak with some theoretical

01:32beliefs, but I do not have tangible, personal experience of successful sibling relationships.

01:42And so just be aware of that. And I put that sort of caveat up front. So you can put what I'm saying

01:48in context. So before we can talk about how to have good sibling relationships, one thing I can tell

01:56you is how sibling relationships go wrong. And I only laugh, of course, because it's been many years

02:03long ago resolved for me. But you can, a lot of us, if you've had difficult sibling relationships,

02:10we know what goes wrong with sibling relationships. And the typical thing that goes wrong with sibling

02:15relationships is that the older sibling often perceives himself to be, I'm going to say older

02:23sibling male, younger sibling female, just because his, her makes it easier. I don't have to say oldest

02:27and youngest all the time. So we've got an older sibling, Bob, and a younger sibling, Sue. So let's

02:35take a sibling relationship, Bob and Doug. Bob is the older, let's say by a couple of years, Doug is the

02:42younger. So where do these relationships typically go wrong? Well, they go wrong, if empathy is not shown

02:51from the older to the younger. If the older child is not being treated with empathy by the parents, then the

03:01older child, Bob, in this case, Bob, the older child, doesn't know how to show empathy to the younger

03:07child to Doug. And if there's a competition for parental time, attention, and resources,

03:14then Bob is going to resent Doug. And Doug, being younger and smaller and weaker, is going to have

03:22a tough time, or it's going to be kind of impossible for him to resist that. So let's say they're three

03:25years apart, right? So when Bob is six, Doug is three, which is a massive difference, a massive difference

03:34in abilities, in reasoning, in size, in strength, in weight, you name it, in development, and so on,

03:41right? So it's almost like a different species at that point, sort of between six and eight. And even

03:47if you look at, sort of, say, puberty, when Bob is 12, and Doug, the younger boy, is nine, that is a

03:55world of difference. Nine is a child, and 12 is, you know, on the path to, or perhaps already has

04:03achieved, you know, the beginnings of manhood, of puberty, and so on. And his voice went drop down

04:09low, and things started to grow. So that is a huge gap. 15, you're dating, 12, you're not, 18, you're an

04:20adult, 15, you're dating. I mean, there's, there's just not that much that they're going to have in

04:27common. Now, from the older sibling standpoint, the question is, how does my younger sibling benefit

04:34me? Is my younger sibling an imposition? Is my younger sibling in the way? Is my younger sibling

04:40something, someone that I have to be responsible for? Am I sort of roped in as a substitute or

04:47surrogate parent? And is there resentment? And, you know, the sort of famous tag along, my younger

04:55brother looks up to me, and my younger brother wants to tag along with my friends, right? So you're

05:0110, and you want to go biking with your friends who are also 10, and your seven-year-old brother

05:07wants to come along, and I can't do anything without him. He's always tagging along. And of course, the

05:11parents are wanting to appease the younger brother by saying, oh, take him along. He really looks up to

05:17you. He really respects you. And then what happens, of course, even the difference between a 10-year-old

05:22and a seven-year-old in terms of stamina and balance and all of that. So maybe the younger

05:27sibling, he certainly wouldn't have the stamina and the strength. So maybe he goes out, he gets

05:33tired, he wants to go home, and then the elder sibling is nonplussed, let us say. Or if there is

05:43going to be a sport, right? There's a sort of pickup soccer game or a pickup baseball game, and there's a

05:4912-year-old and a nine-year-old, well, that's a big difference in size, strength, and athletic

05:54ability. And so the older sibling likes to win, wants to win, and the younger sibling is going to

06:02impede that winning. And so that's negative as well. There isn't much benefit to being the younger.

06:12It's sort of a famous story for me, and I've said this a bunch of times before, but I remember

06:16being nonplussed that I was the younger brother. And even in boarding school, we would line up

06:23in front to back, and it was by last name alphabetically and then first name alphabetically,

06:28and my brother's first name comes ahead of mine in the alphabet. So even in that alphabetical lineup,

06:33he was ahead of me. But yeah, he got to stay up later. He got more pocket money and more

06:41privileges and so on. And yeah, it bothered me. I mean, I shouldn't laugh, but it's so long ago now,

06:50right? But I remember my brother was supposed to be up five minutes later than I was. And I knew that

06:56that was counting to 300. So I would count to 300, and then I would say, bedtime. You know,

07:03it wasn't ideal. And I'm not, you know, I'm not blaming anybody but myself for that. I mean,

07:10the family structure wasn't great. But I was very competitive and very concerned with my brother

07:19having even more privileges, because it feels unjust when you're the younger sibling. You're

07:24existing in the same time continuum, right? And, you know, why did they get extra privileges

07:29there, more pocket money, more privileges, and so on, right? That's negative. And there's nothing

07:35good in that sense about being the younger sibling. So I remember being at my aunt's house when I was

07:41very young, and said, you know, when people said, the conversation was about being younger versus

07:47older. And I said, well, I may be younger, but I get to live two and a half years longer. And of

07:54course, I was informed that this was not at all certain I could be hit by a bus tomorrow. And the

07:58fundamental injustice of the universe rolled against my bowling ball pins of belief and faith

08:04and hope with, well, I suppose the only thing I can say is a giant bowling ball of factual truth.

08:12So the older sibling is just bigger, better, stronger, taller, and more competent as a whole.

08:21And there's not much of a plus for the younger sibling. What do you get as a benefit for the

08:26younger sibling? You get hand-me-down clothes, you get left behind. I remember walking, again,

08:34as very, very young, but it's an early memory of mine, of everybody, my mom and my brother and

08:41other people walking down a street in London very fast, or at least too fast for me, right? And I

08:47was like, wait, you know, it was like half whining, half complaining, because I'm like, they're getting

08:52swallowed up by people ahead. And I'm like, y'all need to wait? Like, I can't keep up, right?

08:57There's a little toddler legs. So as far as good quality sibling relationships go, it's tough.

09:05I mean, I'll be straight up. I mean, my family might have been obviously a bit more dysfunctional

09:09than your average bear, but it is tough to figure out what the younger sibling has to offer

09:17the elder sibling. Now, one of the great challenges, of course, of being the elder sibling is the almost

09:25inevitable feeling of superiority, because you are taller, stronger, faster, smarter, you know,

09:31more developed, and so on. And your younger sibling looks up to you and wants to hang out with you and

09:39wants to hang out with your friends and so on. And being in an accidental or artificial

09:45position of superiority, obviously, through no hard work of your own, being in an accidental

09:53position of superiority by simply happening to have exited the maternal vagina before, it's not

10:04like something you earn, it's just a premogenitor, it's something that happened to you. And so the big

10:09tough thing with the elder sibling is to try to instill a sense of humility, to push back and

10:17fight back against the vanity of the accidental birth order. That's pretty important. Now, in the same

10:27problem or in the same vein, the younger sibling has to be cured somehow of worship and resentment,

10:37of envy and resentment. To look up at the older sibling as taller, cooler, stronger, more developed

10:44is natural. And there is resentment as well, because children exist in a time contemporaneous to each

10:53other. So for me, the fact that my brother got to stay up later and have more pocket money,

10:57more allowance, seemed unfair, because we exist in the same time frame. Well, he's older, it's like,

11:03but you know, you kind of get that as a kid, but you kind of don't get that. I mean, when you're very

11:06little, I'm talking like, I don't know, five or so, right? So that's a challenge. Saying to the older

11:15sibling, you exist to help your younger sibling is not ideal. It's not ideal. The older sibling

11:24has more resources, certainly has more parental resources, right? So let's say that, again, we're

11:30sort of talking about Bob and Doug, the older sibling is three years older. So he gets three

11:36years of direct and focused parental attention, no distractions, no substitutes, no split focus or

11:43anything like that. And then the baby comes along, and the parental attention is significantly withdrawn

11:51from the elder child and devoted to the baby. Is there resentment in that? Absolutely. Often. Not always.

12:01Not always. I've seen it not happen. And that takes a particular amount of management on the part of the

12:07parents. Parents will often take the path of least resistance, which is to say that if the kid is three

12:13and there's a new baby, well, the three-year-old can amuse himself for a certain amount of time.

12:20That's just a sort of fact, right? You can leave them with some building blocks or puzzles or something

12:24like that. And the three-year-old is walking around and so on. And if they're in a sort of safe room,

12:30it's sort of childproofed, and they can have toys, and you can leave them alone for a certain amount of

12:34time. Not much, but you know, a certain amount of time. And so what parents do is they say,

12:39well, a lot of parents, they say, well, the baby is not someone who can defer gratification. The baby

12:45is someone who has to have his needs met now, whereas the older child is more self-sufficient

12:52and can wait. This is, of course, true in particular if the baby has any health issues. I'm not necessarily

13:01talking serious health issues, but if the baby has health issues, then the fact that the parental

13:07time and attention is taken away is tough, right? So the parents are just learning how to rest better

13:13because the older kid is sleeping hopefully through the night at that age or before, sort of two,

13:1718 months too. And so the parents are now tired again. They have no time and no energy. And what

13:23they do is they follow the path of least resistance and they focus on the child who needs them the most

13:29and they, to some degree, ignore the child who needs them less. Now, of course, what this teaches

13:35the older child is, the way that you get parental resources is you demand them, you need them,

13:41you require them, you make it an absolute. Because, of course, the older child sees that every time

13:49the baby cries, the parents go. Every time the baby needs something, the parents go. And then he's left

13:54to play with his blocks for, you know, what feels like a long time as a little kid. So he learns that

14:03you have to make a lot of noise and you have to have tantrums and you have to fuss and you have

14:07to be difficult in order to get parental resources because the parents are taking the path of least

14:12resistance. And what that tells the older kid a lot of times is that if I don't kick up a fuss,

14:17I get bupkis. I get nothing. I get nothing. And that's why you end up with older siblings who become

14:26difficult and who become, have tantrums and become obstructive. If the parents, you know, sort of

14:33explain, well, the baby does need some resources, but we're going to make sure to carve time out for

14:38you, it's one of these things where it feels like it's not a good use of your time because the older

14:46child is more self-sufficient and you want to spend your time on the younger child. But, of course,

14:50if ignoring your older child and only responding to the absolute needs of the younger child of the

14:57baby, then you're training the older child to be more intrusive and to kick and scream until he gets

15:02what he wants, which is going to cost you more time in the long run. I mean, not only is it not

15:06particularly nice to ignore your older child for the sake of appeasing the baby, but it also is not

15:11efficient in terms of time. And because if you can get the kids to play together in a relatively

15:21positive way, that frees up a staggering amount of time as a parent, right? Because if your kids are

15:30fighting all the time or they don't want to play with each other or they're fussing or kicking each

15:34other's blocks over or whatever it is, right? Then you end up losing a massive amount of time.

15:42So, of course, the goal of parenting from a morality standpoint, of course, but also from just a general

15:49practical standpoint, is to have the kids enjoy each other's company as much as possible. But to do that,

15:58you have to have the elder sibling not resent the younger sibling. And in order to do that,

16:03you have to find some way in which the older sibling perceives the addition of the younger

16:11sibling not as a net negative. Not as a net negative. Now, it's kind of tough to say to the

16:22older sibling or to give the older sibling the impression that, hey, yay, the younger sibling has

16:30come along. You get Bob to say, yay, I'm glad Doug is here, the baby, whatever, right? It's possible

16:35to do it, which of course means to involve the elder sibling in the care of the baby, and also to make

16:41sure that quality time, solo time, single time is still spent with the older, with Bob. Sorry,

16:51Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, I'm back, I'm back. So, having one-on-one time, going to the park just with Bob and

17:00talking to Bob about the baby, listening to Bob's thoughts about the baby, and so on, right? All of

17:06that is there to, it's really tough to sell the baby as a positive to the elder sibling, but at least

17:16don't have it be a negative, and don't have it be like night and day when the baby comes along.

17:23Like, you're just kind of tossed out into the outer, the outer wilds or into the outer wilderness,

17:28and good luck. You now go from, you know, close intimate cuddle time with mom and dad to kind of

17:35sitting alone with your blocks for what feels like an eternity while everyone takes care of the baby,

17:41right? So, the best way to ensure that you're going to have the most productive and harmonious

17:48and peaceful time as a parent is to make sure that the elder sibling is not massively losing out

17:57as a whole with the younger sibling, right? To make sure that you stay connected and you still

18:02have that quality time, and, you know, to make sure that you still get that one-on-one time with

18:07the elder sibling, even if you've got a sort of hot potato with parenting. Make sure that you still

18:12get that one-on-one time, because, of course, otherwise, the elder sibling looks at the younger

18:16sibling and says, well, this is just a net negative. I hate that baby because it took away mom and dad,

18:21and they're always tired. They've got no time for me. And, of course, as a kid, you can't just be mad

18:27at your parents. You can't just dislike your parents. So, what you do is, instead of blaming your

18:33parents' choices, taking the path of least resistance in the short term while causing

18:38massive problems in the long term, you can't just get mad at your parents. So, what do you do? Well,

18:44you get mad at the baby, and you resent the baby. You don't sit there and say, well, my parents are

18:50making bad decisions. It's not the baby's fault, right? That's not how kids' brains works. Kids' brains

18:54are also taking the path of least resistance, and it's way easier for the kid and way safer for the kid

19:00to blame the baby rather than blame the parents for bad decisions, right? So, you lack maturity and

19:05lack understanding, and the baby can't do you any harm, right? So, your parents can do you harm,

19:11right? They can get mad at you, yell at you, hit you, abandon you, whatever, right? The baby can't do

19:15you any harm, and as we all know, it's a whole lot easier, in general, to hate the person who can do

19:23you the least harm and conform to those who can do you the most harm, and that means hating the baby

19:27and conforming with the parents. So, then, of course, the baby is fascinated with the older

19:32brother. The younger baby is fascinated by the older brother because it's cool. It's kind of

19:38neat, right? And not a kid. I mean, not a baby, not a parent, right? It's kind of fascinating,

19:42right? Closer in size to the baby, and so the baby becomes fascinated by the brother, and the baby wants

19:48to spend time with the brother and wants to engage with and interact with the brother, but the brother,

19:53well, you know, in functional families, there'll be some level of interest and all of that,

19:58but, you know, the older brother's going to get bored. That's kind of inevitable. He's going to

20:03get bored. You know, I can only do this so many times, and so on, right? And that's natural,

20:09and that's healthy, in fact. That's healthy. They should get bored, right? If the four-year-old is

20:17not bored with the one-year-old after a while, the four-year-old might not be developing in quite the

20:21right way as a whole. So then, how do you deal with the boredom? It's always a big question,

20:26right? How do you deal with the boredom? Well, one of your kids is going to be bored,

20:31and, of course, it makes sense to do some appeasement to the baby or the toddler,

20:39the one-year-old versus the four-year-old, because the one-year-old has less capacity

20:44to engage with himself, right? One-year-old isn't going to have a whole lot of luck with a bunch

20:50of blocks and creating things. Lego is just going to be stepped on and howled about, and so there's

20:56just not that much. You know, the four-year-old might be reading a little, or at least can have

21:01more interest in sort of paging through a book and so on, and so you have to find something that

21:07they can all do together, right? So you go to the park, and it's tough, right? Because the,

21:14well, you got to push the, what can a one-year-old do? You put him in the swing,

21:17and that's about it. And then how can you play with the four-year-old when you're just pushing

21:25the one-year-old on the swing? Well, the four-year-old is resentful, because, of course,

21:29the four-year-old remembers when you would play with him, or at least has sort of basic body memory

21:33when you would play. But you can't now, and you can't, and it's a negative and a problem and so

21:37on, right? So it's tough to sell the baby to the older sibling. You can do, and it has some,

21:47because I did work in a daycare for a while, so I have some sense of this, and there were siblings,

21:51of course, in the daycare I worked in. You can do some of the, look, you happen to be older. Like,

21:56it's just an accident. You just happen to be older. And I get that it's a drag. Empathize

22:03with, and understand the elder sibling's issue, that the baby's kind of a drag. I mean, I totally

22:11understand that for my brother, I was somewhat of a drag. And if the competitive stuff kicks in,

22:20it gets really brutal. So we don't sort of have to get into all of that, because that was really

22:25a mess in my family. But to sort of understand and ask, you know, what's the pluses, what's good

22:34and bad about having your brother around, right? And don't take it personally, right? Because it's

22:39not like the older brother, I mean, maybe the older brother begged the parents for a younger brother,

22:45but probably not. Maybe. It does happen, right? But even if the older brother begged for a younger

22:52sibling, there's still things to be adjusted. So, you know, point out the plus and the minus,

22:57and be honest about the plus and the minus for you. I love having the new baby. I'm a lot more tired.

23:03And, you know, I have to feed the baby, which sometimes can hurt my body. And I miss time with

23:12you. I love having a baby. I loved having you as a baby. I love having the new baby. But there's

23:19negatives too. And here are my negatives, what are yours? And just have that, you know, what is spoken

23:25loses its power. It's just an amazing thing. What is spoken loses its power. And just have

23:33having the kid verbalize the negatives takes the pressure off. Whereas, of course, a lot of

23:40parents would be like, oh, you can't have any problems with your brother. It's not the love.

23:45It's positive. Well, you know, I loved becoming a father. I wouldn't trade it for the world. But

23:51there were times where I was a little tired. There were times when I was a little bored. I'm not inhuman.

23:56It would be crazy to think otherwise, right? So, you have to find a way to reduce the competitive

24:02element. So, with your sibling a couple of years apart, there's neither competition nor

24:08cooperation. They can't cooperate. I mean, unless they're twins, right? But there can't really be

24:14competition because it's kind of unfair. Because the physical abilities are just so different. It's

24:19like having a competition between the 16-year-old and the 13-year-old on who can get a date first,

24:26right? I mean, it's just not particularly fair, right? So, understand that there's not going to

24:33be cooperation. There can be play together, right? But there's not going to be cooperation. I mean,

24:38I remember my brother, you know, nicely teaching me how to play chess. And I was a bit of a,

24:46well, I was a bit of a, I mean, I was a sucky loser. I was not a good or graceful loser until into

24:52my teens. That was, I was a, I threw tennis rackets. And, you know, I remember one of the

24:59early games of chess my brother and I played. I was staking my entire game because I thought that

25:05the king could move two squares. And it turns out the king could only move one square. I didn't

25:12understand that. And we had an old encyclopedia. So, my brother took it down and we looked it up and

25:17he was right. And it was, but it was the, you know, Smuggins Triumphal stuff that was sort of

25:21annoying to me. But, you know, so, but it wasn't a huge amount of fun for my brother to play chess

25:28with me when I was, you know, kind of confused about the rules, right? So, I, you know, there's

25:35some, you know, it's kind of cool to teach a kid something new, but it's really not super fun

25:41because I can't really compete with him in terms of playing, playing chess. Like, when I was young,

25:48what could I do better than my brother? When, and younger siblings, what can you do better

25:54than your brother? Well, you can't. And that's going to feed your brother's vanity

25:57and it's going to feed your frustration. And if, if the competition thing kicks in,

26:03it's really brutal. Uh, it's really, I tell you, that's really brutal. You just cannot

26:08get along. And that stuff with my brother lasted into, into my teens for sure. Uh, he was better

26:15at me than most things. I mean, the stuff that I was better at was hived off from him completely.

26:21Like I wrote stories and he didn't, and I programmed computers and he didn't. And so there was no

26:27particular competition there, but athletically, he's very athletic and athletically, he was better

26:33than me in most things. I think the only thing that I could do was I could run faster in some

26:39circumstances. I had a short, a short term speed burst that could outpace his, uh, but that was

26:46about it. I mean, honestly, that was pretty limited, but in everything else, he was better,

26:50very athletic guy, you know, very good tennis player, very, um, uh, very, very good at soccer.

26:56I mean, the only thing I could do in soccer was goalie compared to my brother. Very good at soccer,

27:00very good at tennis and just athletic as a whole, highly competent. And so it just wasn't that much,

27:07much fun for him. We did end up kind of even matched in tennis. I think he was a little better

27:13than me in tennis. The only thing that was even was that I was a more cautious player, whereas,

27:18so he'd be a bit wilder. He called it wibbly tennis, where you just kind of cautiously hitting

27:22the ball back over and waiting for the other person to make a mistake. Uh, he preferred to sort of

27:26hound it. And so I would sort of win by attrition. It was not the most honorable win, obviously,

27:30to be honest. Like, ding, ding, ding, wham. Oh, it's out. Ding, ding, ding, wham. Oh, it's out.

27:35And so, um, that wasn't, uh, that much fun for him either because he wanted to, uh, hit harder

27:40and faster and improve his skills. Whereas I was just like, ding, ding, ding, very cautious,

27:44very cautious. I may have lost some of my caution as I ate. Maybe I should add more. It's entirely

27:49possible. But, so you, you have to find something. It's not going to be cooperation until they get

27:54older. And it is, the competition stuff is really toxic because it's unfair, right? The competition

28:01stuff breeds frustration and anger on the part of the younger sibling who often can't compete in any

28:06meaningful way and breeds vanity and superiority on the part of the older sibling because it's

28:13relatively easy for them to, uh, win. And this can escalate to, like, direct, direct violence.

28:20I mean, my brother, uh, once punched me so hard, he almost dislocated my jaw. It was, uh, sort of

28:24hanging loose and, and hurt for quite some, some time. So, yeah, it can really escalate to violence.

28:29And you don't want that. Obviously, that's really, uh, it's really bad. Really not good. So,

28:35try and find some way in which they can enjoy the difference and remind them that the difference is

28:42going to narrow, right? The difference between 20 and 17 is not huge. The difference between 6 and 3

28:48is huge. It's going to narrow. And then just remind, of course, the siblings that you can,

28:53uh, you can go through your life together and you're the only people who can, right? Your parents

29:00are going to die. Your kids don't know when you, when you, don't know you when you were young. But

29:03your sibling is the only person who can go through all of life with you. And that is a very,

29:11very good and important thing. To hang on to that is really important. And they may not understand,

29:16they won't understand that till they get older. But nonetheless, it is super important because if

29:21you can get people to go through the whole life journey with you, you gain a huge amount of wisdom.

29:26And also, because your siblings know you so well, they can really help you avoid problems or issues.

29:32And that also is super important and a great benefit. So just keep reminding the siblings of

29:39all the great benefits they can get from that. And I hope that helps. Lots of love. Take care.

29:433dmain.com session 8. Bye.

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