The Siblings Without Rivalry workshop is a do-it-yourself course that enables you to bring together a group of parents, teachers, students, colleagues, staff, clients, friends or neighbors to solve common problems of living or working with children of all ages. It is designed to be run either by a parent or a trained professional.
Based on the book, Siblings Without Rivalry — #1 on the New York Times best seller list
“That’s mine!” … “No, mine!”
“He punched me!”
“I never touched him!”
“You love him more than me!”
You don’t have to grapple with the problems of sibling rivalry on your own. Now you can get together with other parents, share frustrations, and study the basic principles for reducing conflict and generating goodwill among brothers and sisters.
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What does the Siblings Without Rivalry workshop teach?
The goal of the Siblings Without Rivalry workshop is to help you help your children live peacefully together. Each session gives parents the opportunity to learn and practice specific communication skills that help to reduce hostility and friction between siblings, and make harmony possible.
The Siblings Without Rivalry workshop covers the following topics:
Session I: Helping Siblings Deal with Their Feelings About Each Other
What happens to brothers and sisters when their hostile feelings about each other are ignored or denied? Four specific methods for helping children express their negative feelings to each other without doing damage.
Session II: Keeping Children Separate and Unequal
How do siblings react when they are compared to each other — unfavorably or even favorably? Effective alternatives to comparisons. Ways to meet each child’s individual needs without getting caught in the “fairness trap” of treating each child exactly the same.
Session III: Siblings in Roles
Why are siblings often cast into different roles? A look at how powerfully these roles affect their relationships with each other. Skills that free children from being trapped in a negative roles.
Session IV: When the Kids Fight
What can you do when fighting breaks out between children? An exploration of commonly used strategies that backfire. A chance to practice skills that reduce anger and give children the tools to work out their own conflicts.
Session V: Problem Solving
A method for helping children deal with the problems they can’t work out for themselves. A simple approach adults can use with young combatants to teach them how to find solutions that respect everybody’s needs.
Session VI: Final Review
Time to review and consolidate your skills. Exercises give you practice applying everything you learned to potentially explosive situations. And an opportunity to take a look at your own adult sibling relationships from your new perspective.
What is included in the Siblings Without Rivalry workshop kit?
- The Chairperson’s Guide (including instructions for the leader and exercises for the participants)
- Audio recordings for each session
- Materials for exercises and role-plays: pocket cards, puzzle
- 25 promotional brochures
- Wall poster
- Reproducible Certificate of Completion
- Reproducible Evaluation form
What is not included in the kit?
Each participant will need one Siblings Without Rivalry participant workbook, which can be purchased separately on this website.
In order to complete the reading assignments for the sessions, each participant will also need the book:
Siblings Without Rivalry: How To Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too.