This is a particular problem among siblings. It seems to be a natural thing for brothers and sisters to fight and bicker all through their childhood. The same thing applies to playmates and other friends as children grow older. I think it will be helpful for you to understand some of the things that are motivating these behaviors.

Previously, I discussed the phenomenon I call the "pinball machine effect." This is where a person gets a reward from doing something and then getting a lot of reaction from someone else because of it. When you play a pinball machine, you shoot a ball among some responsive mechanisms and they make a real ruckus as the ball moves among them. Lights flash, bells ring, and all kinds of things happen as a result of your shooting the ball. The real pinball machine player also pushes flippers, and shakes the machine around to try to influence the ball's path of travel. The reward is in getting the reaction.

A little child will poke his sister to get her to respond with a cry, giggle, shriek, or even a poke in return. The main reward for the original poke was the reaction it evoked. It works a lot like the pinball machine when he does the poking. He pokes and she reacts. It must be a lot of fun because kids do these kinds of things all the time. They like to do something and get a response out of someone else. Since other kids are most likely to provide the response, they are the ones poked a lot.

Have you ever noticed two small girls who are engaged in mutual giggling? One will look at the other and giggle. The other giggles in response. The pattern is repeated until you think you will go nuts listening to this. It might go on a long time because the girls are doing something and being rewarded for doing it. A vicious circle is established where the giggling is the stimulus and also the reward. These kinds of things do tend to go on a long time and to get worse as they continue.

Children seem to be trained by our culture to do things in particular patterns. For example, the two girls just described giggle. Two boys probably wouldn't be caught dead giggling because that's girl stuff. Boys will probably do the equivalent thing by shoving, hitting, pushing, or doing some other obnoxious thing to each other. They will tend to laugh and do the boy equivalent of giggling while they are doing it.

So far, this isn't too hard to take. It does get pretty annoying to listen to the continual giggling or scuffling, but most people accept this all right. But often, the pushing and poking turn into anger provoking events and the laughing turns into more aggressive sounds. These sounds are often accompanied by physical attacks and screams of anger and pain. The interactions are still producing the pinball machine effect, but now they have progressed into a stage where anger and aggression are taking the place of the fun of getting a reaction.

When the behavior consists mainly of sounds such as name-calling, etc. we call it bickering. When physical aggression is taking place, we usually call this fighting. The situations and cause of them are the same--only the resulting behaviors are different. Because of this we can try to understand the causes and methods of controlling these behaviors as if they are the same thing.

I remember some times when I was a small boy. I have a little brother who loved to get a response out of me. One of the things he would do was to kick me under the dinner table. Not being too bright at the time, I would then whack him above the table. His kick was not seen by my mother, but my whack was. Not only did he get the reward of a response from me, but he also got to witness the effect where our mother would then give me a whack. I suppose I then responded to that whack with some sounds that were also rewarding to my brother. He must have enjoyed the interaction because I remember getting into a lot of trouble that way. I like to think I am smarter now.

Children like to scuffle and will do it on the least provocation. The scuffle is rewarding because it consists of a lot of things like pokes which result in things that are like a pinball machine. Assuming you would prefer your children did not do these kinds of things, we will look at how common-sense behavior modification can be used to understand why these things happen and what you can do to make them happen less often.

First, we need to analyze these behaviors in relation to the basic principle of behavior modification. According to that principle, behavior is maintained by its consequences. It probably won't be very difficult to define the bickering and fighting behaviors we would like to stop. Most parents have a lot of experience with them. The problem comes from being able to remove the rewards that come from bickering and fighting. If the pinball-machine effect is what is rewarding the behavior, how can someone outside the vicious circle stop the rewards? I'm afraid the only answer I can give here is that you can't. Since the reward is coming from someone other than you, that person will have to stop providing the reward. You may find the child providing the reward doesn't want the interactions to stop.

If this is the case, the only possibility for you to gain control yourself is to use punishment. As I have said many times before, I prefer not to use punishment except as a last resort. Punishment gets to be a pretty sticky issue when bickering and fighting is going on. Remember my story about my little brother kicking me and me getting punished for whacking him back. He was rewarded by my punishment, so that didn't work. A parent's sense of justice probably won't allow punishment of the innocent-appearing party along with the guilty one. I don't think I would expect that to work anyway. I say "innocent-appearing" because usually there are no innocent parties to these kinds of behavior. They probably both deserve punishment anyway. I repeat, however, probably punishment won't work unless it gets to be pretty severe and that will cause some other bad side effects.

Since I have given you only two ways to control behavior--extinguish the behavior by removing the rewards and punishing the behavior after it happens--isn't there anything you can do to stop these kinds of behaviors?

Take heart, there are some things you can do. That is, you may not be able to stop the behaviors completely, but you can diffuse the immediate situation and give yourself some peace. To begin with, don't let yourself be another light on their pinball machine. Don't get involved in their argument by asking for information. Asking what happened not only will escalate the argument, but it will let you in for a barrage of "He hit me first" and "She started it" type accusations, and land you in the quagmire of trying to assess blame. Simply assume both are to blame to some extent.

Say "Okay, kids, break it up," separate them, and give them separate assignments in different parts of the house or yard. In that way you gain control of the situation and can reward or punish on the basis of whether they follow your instructions. Say nothing about the quarrel and its original causes. Distracting them in this way won't necessarily keep it from happening again, but it can keep the immediate situation from getting out of hand. Also, your refusal to participate in their argument, by not rewarding their behavior, may help decrease the frequency of those incidents in the future.

Another thing you can do is to allow the children to work it out themselves. If one of them does some damage to property or person during the fights, you can hold that person responsible for the damage and provide consequences for that. This is different than trying to provide consequences for the fighting behavior.

The ordinary bickering and fighting I have been talking about is one thing. That is something they will outgrow as they mature. Real animosity is something else. If siblings truly dislike one another, or if one hates the other and is constantly picking on him out of malice, that is a different problem. It is a problem too serious and too deep to be cured by simple behavior modification techniques. However, it is possible that if from the very beginning you take the laid-back approach and refuse to let yourself get involved in their arguments, you may help prevent that kind of animosity from developing.

You can be on the lookout to see if the episodes of fighting are mutual with both participating, or if it is just one child picking on the other with no instigation from the other. These are the kinds of fighting which may require your intervention. Normally, the fighting occurs as a result of one child doing something to start the process with the other. When this is happening, they are just trying to get the pinball machine going again and it is nothing serious. The time to worry is when there is a constant, one-way instigation and abuse from one child to the other.

Somehow in our society, we have determined that telling on your fellow man is a bad thing to do regardless of the circumstances. There seems to be a new commandment: "Thou shalt not squeal on thy neighbor." This seem to apply even if your neighbor is a gangster, drug dealer, or counterfeiter. Maybe we need to re-evaluate this attitude. Some things need to be called to the attention of the appropriate authorities. The question is how can we selectively allow some parts of the child's version of tattling and selectively discourage some parts?

I believe most tattling by children is an attempt either to get the child's version of justice or to get another lick on the pinball machine effect. Justice seems to be a rare thing in the real world and children are fanatic about getting justice. That really means other kids getting what they deserve when they have done wrong.

Another reason is the wish to get the other child in trouble with an adult. The words "I'm telling" are often heard whenever two or more children are playing together. Often, just the threat of "telling" is enough to get the other child to stop what he is doing. In this case, the threat of telling is a tool to get control of the situation and to scare the other child.

How much of this should we encourage? I have my own personal beliefs on this subject, but they are just my own values. I don't feel I have the right to impose my values on you using my role as expert to do it. The thing I do feel is appropriate is for me to give you some ideas of how to deal with tattling after you have made your own value judgment about how much to encourage and how much to discourage.

In any case, if you decide you want to stop the nuisance of having one child continually run to you to tell on another child, all you have to do is use the simple principle of rule 2. This rule says if you want your child to stop tattling, look for the consequences that are rewarding the tattling and stop them. In this case your attention and intervention are the primary rewards. Seeing the other kid get "justice" by having an adult fuss at him can be a reward. So, if you are tired of a child tattling and want it to stop, try ignoring it and see what happens. You might be surprised at what children can work out for themselves if there is no adult handy to intervene and do it for them. If you are so afraid one of them may get hurt if you don't intervene, I also invite you to look at the situation more closely. You may be over-reacting to something that really won't be as bad as you fear. Children do not learn to deal with difficult personal and social problems unless they get some experience doing it. If you stay out, they will be getting some valuable experience in dealing with an unfair situation or a bully. These are things they will encounter in some fashion the rest of their lives.