All children have times where they struggle to get along with siblings. But in many cases children who have experienced great loss in their lives will have an even more extreme reaction to hurt inflicted by siblings. Their feelings about even a small slight can be magnified by other feelings of loss, causing a stress reaction that is way out of proportion to the actual current wound. A child may grump for half an hour over a brother who accidentally steps on her toe, or rant on and on about the endless faults of a sibling who was unkind to her.

In my years of parenting many children, I've come to realize that it is a rare argument where only one child is entirely at fault, despite my kids' best attempts to convince me otherwise. The more I've parented, the less interested I have become in puzzling out who is 'more' to blame. Even if I spend a great deal of time carefully listening to each child's side of the story, I still am getting two skewed accounts of what happened.

Lately instead of allowing a child to rant on and on about the terrible faults of his or her siblings, I've begun to take a new tack. I remind the kids that it takes two people to fight. And then I sit down with all the children involved and say, "I know some bad things happened here. I don't want to hear the details of what other people did, but I want each of you to tell me ONE thing that you personally could have done to help the fighting stop."

I'm not interested in hearing a blow-by-blow account of the argument, nor do I want kids to tell me what other kids did; I just want kids to comment on their OWN behavior. In the case of an argument at my house yesterday, one child said she should have been nicer to her big sister. Another child admitted he should have done what an older sibling told him to do. Another child said she shouldn't have teased a younger sibling.

I've found that this does several things. First of all, it forces each child to accept at least a small portion of the responsibility for the fight. In the case of a very stubborn child, this is huge. Second, as the children listen to siblings admitting fault, they tend to feel softer-hearted towards each other. Finally, it gives kids a chance to think about how some of this type of unpleasantness could be avoided in the future.

Certainly there a times when one sibling might be bullying, and you really do need to know details so that you can stand up for a child being victimized. You need to be observant and sensitive toward your children's tendencies. Also, there are times when you validate a child's feelings by listening to him. But in the case of a child who endlessly gripes and never accepts any personal responsibility for fighting, I've found this tactic to be very helpful.