Diane Dempster

Well, true story. Today we're gonna interview for a summit that's specifically focused on siblings. And so it was a great sort of thing. It's like, OK, well, what do we wanna talk about? So we're gonna share some of this stuff with you guys as well.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Well, but then I was just talking to somebody in the last week about is my younger kid really dealing with the same issues as my older kid? Or are they mirroring and mimicking the older kid's challenges?

 

Diane Dempster

So let's back up and say, like, what are some of the key challenges? Let's riff 'em off for a second and then dig into 'em.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

So, I see sibling issues with complex kids, right?

 

Diane Dempster

Riffing, like one is sibling fights and intensities and that sort of stuff. Two is, you've got kids like an older kid who's neurospicy and a younger kid who's not. And so there's more responsibility that the younger kid can take than the older one. The younger one says it's not fair, or you don't know how to handle it. The one sibling is taking up all of the energy of all the parents, so they don't have time for the other kid, and they feel like they're left out. The one you mentioned was...

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Mirroring is the older kids' issues.

 

Diane Dempster

Right. What do you do if your kids' issues are different than each other? And they're both neurospicy, but they're different flavors of neurospicy.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Right. Often, there's the issue that because one's taking up a lot of energy in the space, there's this sense from the parents that the other kid's not getting the attention they need.

 

Diane Dempster

1. So are there any other big buckets, and then we can dig into?

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

There's one more, which is: My neurotypical kid is blaming me for the way I'm parenting my complex kid. OK. Yeah. Not fair. You're not being fair. You're not doing well enough; you're not right. And so the mom or the dad is trying to meet the kid where they are based on their needs, and the sibling is criticizing the parenting.

 

Diane Dempster

Yeah. That's a lot of issues.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Wait, can we just have a minute?

 

Diane Dempster

That's a lot of stuff.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

So let's set the context again. You've got three kids? I've got three kids. All of our kids have varying degrees of neurospiciness. And here's the thing about neurodiversity: they all show up differently, right? So when you have multiple children, you're not dealing with, well, if they've all got ADD, it looks like this. You're dealing with: This is how it shows up for this kid, and this is how it shows up for that kid.

 

Diane Dempster

Well, it's really funny cuz I was thinking about this a little bit this morning: two trains of thought. One is I now have grandkids, one is 6 and one is a newborn. And even there, there's sibling stuff already, right? I think that sibling stuff is universal. I always joke I am gonna go spend the weekend with my older sibling, and I'm excited about doing that. But when I was growing up, I used to say one used to beat me up and one would tell on me. I was the only daughter; I was in the middle, and there was always a dynamic. So there is typically some sort of sibling dynamic that happens. And I think two things happen when you have a neurospicy family. One is neurospiciness always adds extra flavor to whatever dynamic you're talking about, and I think that as parents, we sometimes become differently vigilant.

 

To what's going on between our kids, particularly if one is neurospicy and one is not, or one requires more energy from us than the other. And so we do add a layer of vigilance where I don't know whether one of my brothers was my mom's favorite or not, or whether I was her favorite. There was always the rumor and the suspicion, and I think that as parents, as a nurse who sees kids, we're probably a little more vigilant because our kids demand more of our attention.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

And energy.

 

Diane Dempster

And energy, yes.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

There's this energy, there's this play with my three kids. We'll talk about this in the second half of the episode about how you help foster a sense of team in the family. But my kids are like puppies. They're very close as young adults, and one of their favorite jokes is, "Who's the favorite?" But for them, because they're close, it's a joke, not a competition. Right? But the dynamic is always still there, whether they are connected and supporting each other through it or fighting with each other through it.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

There's always this vying for attention that happens when you have multiple kids. Yeah. And you can't—that is, I love what you said: sibling stuff is universal, period in the story, and it's always interesting. I don't know if you've met this experience working with clients. I was thinking about one client I have where the dad has multiple siblings and the mom was a single child, and her reaction to the sibling issues is so different because she was a single child. So that's another theme.

 

Diane Dempster

That's a whole other variable, right? I've got stories about that too, but I'm not gonna—it's just all of this stuff is out there, and ultimately we're talking about relationships. We're talking about helping kids who have needs that may be different, helping kids that have needs that can be different, period, right? And how they relate to each other. There's an aspect of this that links back to the Drama Triangle episode. But what is our role when our kids are bickering or fighting or arguing? How do I wanna be with that?

 

And I think if we go backwards and say, let's look at a few of those key areas of challenges and talk about them one at a time. So the first one we were saying: sibling stuff happens, period. And I think the first thing I wanna talk about is: what is our role as a parent with regard to sibling stuff? This ties back to the Drama Triangle, but it's so hard as a parent—especially if we had conflict in our family when we were growing up—not to be hungry for our kids to get along every minute. I want my kids to be best friends, right? I hear this from clients all the time: "I want my kids to be best friends. I'm best friends with my sibling. I love my sibling. I want my kids to have the same opportunity that I have." Or, "I've had this broken relationship with my sibling who happened to be neurospicy, and I don't want my kid to have that." Here's the deep-breath point, parents: your kids can hate each other for 30 minutes or for two years.

 

And still have a really effective, loving relationship, right? It's true, it's possible. I think about my siblings: I was close at different ages. I've been differently close to each of them because our interests line up, our practical lifestyles, or we both had kids at the same time, and so we had to talk about it and we were complaining about our kids together, right? There's always going to be this thing. Your kids have to figure it out. We can't figure it out for them.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Well, I'm gonna argue that—let's talk about that again when we get to solutions, because I have to take that on. So we'll play with that a little bit. Yes. OK, so here's what I've heard so far: sibling stuff is universal. Mm-hmm. There's always gonna be a dynamic, and siblings are gonna have conflict, right? That is part of what it is to be a sibling. And when we talk, there's an episode where we talked about how sometimes it's really helpful for kids to have different parents because they learn to navigate different relationships in life.

 

Diane Dempster

Well, have the parents parent differently, right? We all have different parents.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Yeah. How to parent differently. And the same is true for siblings. Siblings are the relationships in your life that help you learn to navigate different kinds of people. It's really helpful to foster the relationship, and it's gonna have some conflict because life has that. Ideally, they're gonna learn to navigate conflict a bit because they have siblings.

 

Diane Dempster

So, then let's talk a bit about differences and different needs, because I think that's the other big area and theme we identified: one kid is neurospicy, one's not; the other's judging you because you're being unfair or causing the problem. The kids are really different and have different needs, and it's causing conflict between the siblings.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Yes. You've just identified that so well, and there are so many pieces to it. I think what you're saying is: there's the normal, typical conflict that happens with siblings—different dynamics, who's the favorite, competing for attention, and that's not fair, right? That's normal sibling stuff. What you're asking is: How does that get impacted when there's complexity in the family? When one of the kids has neurodiversity, or multiple kids have neurodiversity or other medical conditions, what happens when there is an additional need that influences that dynamic?

 

Diane Dempster

Right. A great example: I've got a client with an older kid who has really big emotions—sometimes there's physicality. There's a younger kid, and they're working on helping the big-emotion kid navigate without getting physical. But frankly, they seem like a little bully. When mom's watching, this kid is like a bully to his little sister, and it's really hard to watch. This mom wants to protect the little sister from the bully. We think, "This shouldn't be happening. He's gotta stop being such a bully." And all that stuff is one dynamic that I notice.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Well, I was just talking to my adult kids, and they said how much my oldest was bullying the youngest when they were kids, and I didn't even know about it. So I thought I was protecting, but there's only so much you can do. There's this issue of when the complexity is directly impacting the younger kid—is that part of what you're saying? Or could it be the other way around? There's also the issue of what happens when one of my kids required so much attention that the other two didn't get as much attention a lot of the time, and that was just the reality.

 

Rick LaVoy used to say, "The stuck wheel gets the grease because it needs the grease." So sometimes some kids are going to—and usually in most families it changes over the years—some kids get more attention at this time, some at that time. But when you've got a really complex kid, that's the kid that's constantly getting attention.

 

Diane Dempster

Well, part of that is it might be a kid who's really saying, "Mom, Dad, I feel like I'm over here on the sidelines without any help." And it may also be that we have this story in our head that we're not treating our kids fairly because one of the kids does need more attention.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

I don't even think it's that we're afraid we're not. I think sometimes we're not, and we have to be honest about that. My line with my kids was always, "Everybody's going to get what they need, but everybody doesn't need the same thing." I was very clear—maybe this is how I learned to navigate this dynamic—that I had to make sure I was meeting everybody's needs, good enough. If I tried to do everything the same for everybody, I would never make it.

 

Diane Dempster

Right. Here's a simple example: I have one kid who's an introvert and one who's an extrovert. They'd come home from school, get off the bus—my two younger kids are about the same age, and my older kid is 15 years older. One kid needed complete attention for 30 minutes to unravel from the day because they were so excited, overwhelmed, extroverting, and they needed me to sit with them for 30 minutes after school. The other was fine to be in their room by themselves, reading a book or playing a game—"Please leave me alone." So was one getting 30 minutes more time with Mom? Absolutely. They needed it.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

We are talking about siblings, and Diane, as we're having this conversation, I'm realizing we could do like 10 episodes.

 

Diane Dempster

There's so much here, and we can't hit it all. It's hilarious that we haven't done one yet, but now we're trying to fit it all into one. So we can float it out and give it as much time as you want.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

But here's what I think we've talked about so far: we've normalized that sibling dynamics are going to happen in neurotypical families. The dynamics are going to be different when kids have neurodiversity or complexity, and that sometimes means one kid is going to take up more time and energy than others. Maybe that will vary across the years, and maybe it won't. We have to begin to think as adults: how do I meet the different needs or challenges? What I see happening a lot in families—and I'm curious if you've seen this—is families come to us because one kid is really, really intense. Once we've done some coaching and calmed things down at home, another kid's issues show up that weren't showing before because sometimes the sibling overperforms or protects so the parent can deal with the really complex kid. Then, once that levels out, this kid's anxiety, ADHD, or learning disability shows up because now they can say, "Help."

 

Diane Dempster

It's not just when there's intensity. I have a college-age kid who was really struggling in college. They worked hard to get them to a place where they were doing OK, and then the kid who was four years younger pops up and says, "I'm really struggling." It's that—sometimes we notice our other kid is struggling, but because this kid was struggling more, we think, "My kid is not as bad, so I must be OK." That's normal human behavior and it breaks our heart when we see it.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

All right, so we want to address how to support siblings effectively. I want to make sure we hit the issue of when a kid blames the parent. How do we improve this situation? How do we foster the healthiest environment when you have complex kids and siblings?

 

Diane Dempster

The tool—and I think it's universal, particularly for "Mom, Dad, it's your fault that you're spoiling this one"—is that the blame game is a dysregulated response. This kid is frustrated, overwhelmed, let down, or sad—there's emotion there. Most of us don't go to the blame game unless there's emotion. It's easy for us as parents to go, "No, no, I love you just the same," because we don't want them to feel that way. But the tool we teach is ACE.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Acknowledgment, right?

 

Diane Dempster

ACE stands for Acknowledge, Validate, show Compassion, and then you Explore. With this, you might say, "I can tell you're really upset about the way I'm handling this and that you feel I'm not being fair or that it's all my fault your brother is behaving X, Y, Z." You acknowledge and be with your kid and say, "I see you."

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Their experience is real.

 

Diane Dempster

It doesn't mean I agree or see it the same way. We want our kids to know we see their experience and believe it's their experience.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

We talk about this a lot in our trainings and coaching: you can acknowledge your child's experience—their feelings or thoughts—without agreeing with them. "I can see how it feels that way for you. I can see how you would interpret it that way. It makes perfect sense that…"

 

Diane Dempster

And that's hard for two reasons. One is it takes language crafting. I've spent lots of time figuring out how to say things compassionately without sounding complicit. If our kids blame us, we get defensive and reactive—and when we're reactive, it's hard to use that compassion tool.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

And the other thing is that when kids do that, it's a great opportunity to ask, "What's the truth here? What might I need to pay attention to? What does this kid need that they're not getting?" A lot of kids have a deep need for fairness; if it feels unfair to them, we must address their feeling and help them navigate what's going on.

 

Diane Dempster

Is that enough on the first? The second is our role in their conflict. We've talked about normal sibling conflict. I remember when my kids were little—they're 17 months apart—and they fought over everything. One parenting book said, "Whatever you do, don't pull one of them out and point the finger at them." The conflict is in the relationship. The language I used was, "Wow, it sounds like it's getting hot up there. Do you need help navigating the argument?" Even if one is the instigator, I held that the conflict was between them, not just one, because it takes two people to come to any argument, even if one person tends to be an aggressor, an instigator, that sort of thing. What would you add, Elaine?

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

So what you're describing is a way to avoid that tendency to begin to become the protector of one kid over another, because that's gonna just reinforce the competitive dynamic instead of fostering the kind of team dynamic that you want. If you're always saying, "You can't speak to your sister that way, you can't do that to your brother," then of course the kid's gonna feel like you're always taking their side and you're always on their team because you kind of are.

 

Diane Dempster

Right. Well, and ultimately, what you're gonna want to do is help your kids set agreements and boundaries. When we get mad at each other, it's not OK to call each other names. It's not OK to hit each other. I know when you've got little littles, it's hard to do that and you want it to be an agreement in the family. Everybody does it, and not just the one who happens to be doing it at the moment. Our rule as a family is: when we get angry, this is what we want; this is how we handle it.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Yeah. Right. And code words are great for that too. What's coming up for me in this conversation is what I said earlier: the value I brought to the family and really communicated is, "You are all gonna get your needs met." I commit to you—I promise you can count on me to make sure your needs get met. We're going to have to figure out how to do that sometimes. Code words are a great way to help families navigate and set reasonable expectations and agreements for how to handle it when something isn't going well. It's a pattern you can begin to recognize. So that's something to come back to.

 

Diane Dempster

So then the third thing you really want to talk about is how do you create an environment where foster kids are going to be more on each other's team?

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

So when I first started coaching, I did some work with Hal Runkel who does Screen-Free Parenting. One of the things he talked about—and he and I had a lot of debates about where it applied to complex families and where it didn't—was this notion that we as parents can create a team energy. In our family we go by the TKs—Taylor-Klaus is long, so we're the TKs. In the TK family we support each other. We go to each other's events. We like whatever it is. There was this family energy of "We're TKs and this is what we do as TKs." The notion was that you have a value around family connection, family teamwork, working together. If you create the vision and hold the vision for that value and help them see how you do it—this is what we stand for as a family—then when we have that clear value, our kids begin to absorb it. What would you say?

 

Diane Dempster

Well, as I'm listening to that, there are edges to it, right? Because I think of a couple I'm working with and there's a neurospicy kid who has a really difficult time with crowds. This kid cannot go to the game and be there cheering. It can be a conversation that says, OK—

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

How do you want to do this? We expect that you can't come to the game?

 

Diane Dempster

Can you come to the game with headphones, yes or no? Can I record the game and you'll watch it later with the volume off? What can we do that will create a sense of you supporting your sibling that feels OK to you? I think that's the piece of it: we want to meet our kids where they are. The way I show that I care about my sibling may be completely different from the way you show it. We want to help our kids figure out their way in it instead of figuring out how to do it our way.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

For those of you in Lifeline, group coaching, Premium, or whatever, there's a really good—though old—workshop on family meetings that I recommend. I'll make sure I capture that.

 

 Diane Dempster

There might be an article on that too.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

I'll look for it. But I think this notion we're really saying is: we set the value, we foster a sense of team, we work with them to figure out how it shows up for them. That doesn't mean there won't be conflict. But the thing that came up as you were saying is something I really want to share: as a mom of three kids who are really, really close now, the hardest thing I deal with is the way they team up against us. The mark of success—and what we used to say to our kids all the time is—"You have the longest relationship you will ever have; you'll be in relationship with each other long after we're gone." So when they start teaming up against you, remember that's good, because it means they're a team.

 

Diane Dempster

Yeah. And even if it feels like you're suddenly an outsider, you have that team, right?

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Like now that they're older and we need two cars, they're like, "Well, kid's car." My husband and I are like, "Wait, I don't want to be in that car."

 

Diane Dempster

When we used to send you off to the kids' table at Thanksgiving, you were all mad—and now you want to be there.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Now you want to be there. So that's a good thing. OK. I know we need to wrap. I want to talk about one more thing that I think is really important, pulling back to the larger context. We didn't deal with a single child versus multiple—that could be another episode. But the larger context is: families are better than anyone at holding people to who they used to be instead of who they are now.

 

Diane Dempster

Oh my gosh.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Yes. Families really make it hard sometimes. If you've ever gone back to your family for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or a holiday and felt like, "They're treating me like I'm 12," you know what I mean? Part of what we have an opportunity to do in our families with conscious family parenting—which is what we're talking about here—is to allow and encourage our kids to see their siblings as people who grow and change and that it can get better. We want to acknowledge that and help them see it—and give them points when they do something nice for their sibling—but really make that conscious effort not to hold them to their worst behavior, but to hold the vision for their best behaviors and for who they're.

 

Diane Dempster

And the piece I want to add to that is about resentments, because a lot of these kids are in difficult relationships with their siblings. That does create resentments and harmful feelings. Whether it's little-T trauma or big-T trauma, if we're not helping our kids navigate that—"Wow, it makes sense you're really angry and frustrated about how your sibling treated you for years"—it's going to be hard to just forgive and forget. There are two parts: encouraging our kids to do their own work, and encouraging our kids to give their siblings permission to have done their work, to have changed, grown, and be different.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

This is sophisticated stuff to expect kids to do, and that's what emotional intelligence is about, right? That's what the coach-approach does in terms of cultivating emotional intelligence. Kids will rise to the occasion when you give them the opportunity, when you presume their competence and capacity. They may not get the nuance you would as an adult, but they are feeling human beings. They really want to be in connection with their parents and their siblings more than anyone else, and they want a way to feel safe in those dynamics. Part of what we're talking about is understanding the dynamic well enough to foster a sense of safety and cultivate trust. Just like in the Independence Pyramid when we talk about relationship as the foundation and then trust in the communication, the same is true for siblings, and we can guide them into that process.

 

Diane Dempster

And what you said, you guide them into that process there. There’s an energy of holding it lightly that I want to leave us with, because it’s so easy to go, “Oh my gosh, this feels scary sometimes, and it feels critical, and it feels important. It feels really important.” And the lighter we hold it, the more effective we are at really identifying what the real issues are, when it’s important to take action, and when it’s important to just let it play out a little bit.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

With love, support, and a trusting, safe environment. That was a great conversation. Thank you, Diane. I love that. OK, folks, as you’re listening, take a moment. We talked about a lot; this was a long episode. What are you taking away from it? What had your attention? Was it your siblings? Was it your kids and their sibling dynamic? What was really holding your attention throughout this conversation, and what’s your A-ha or your insight from it? What are you taking away? What’s your awareness? Based on that, is there some action you want to take? Is there a conversation you want to have—maybe with a co-parent, maybe with one of your kids?

 

Diane Dempster

Maybe you want to call your brother and see, right?

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus

And, yeah. Just understand that this is an evolving process of relationships, and relationships happen over time. It’s not a one-time moment, right?

 

Diane Dempster

As always, thank you for what you do for yourself and your kids. At the end of the day, you really do make a difference. Take care, everybody.