I-E-B-R Levels of Analysis
Applied to Sibling Rivalry
“Seth! Stop! Bad boy! Go to your room!” shouted Ann, as she rushed to the side of Timmy’s crib.
Two large welts on the baby’s arm explained why he was inconsolable.
Ann was furious. “You just stay in Time Out and think about what you did,” she shouted after her four-year-old. That’s the last time she would trust the two of them alone, she concluded.
She picked up Timmy and carried him downstairs, “It’s okay. Mommy is here. You’ll be okay.”
It was good she had Timmy to tend to, because she was much too angry to go anywhere near Seth.
In some families, Seth’s behind would have been paddled right there on the spot. Ann doesn’t believe in corporal punishment – that hitting a child for hitting his sibling delivers the opposite message intended. She believes in using Time Out as a punishment. The worse the behavior the longer the Time Out is generally how it works for her.
So what do you think of the situation above? Can you understand why Ann was shocked and furious? Her response to Seth’s behavior was immediate, but required all the self-control she could muster. How likely is it that Ann would flip open her I-E-B-R Analysis right there on the spot? Not, likely. Besides, she had a screaming baby to calm. In the I-E-B-R scheme of things, Seth’s Big B Behavior was immediately answered with Ann’s understandable Raging aRrrrrrrrrrrrg Response.
If she does nothing more, what will Seth take away from this incident?
“Mommy is mad at me.” or
“I’m a bad boy.” or
“It’s all Timmy’s fault.” or
“I knew Mommy loved him more.” or
___________________ (add your own possible answer).
If Ann looked more deeply, she would not be surprised to find an angry little four-year-old. But digging a still deeper would lead her to recognize that his anger came from feeling a sense of loss. Feeling special and loved takes a real hit when a sibling comes along.
The best way to appreciate what being displaced by a sibling feels like is this analogy:
Imagine your spouse comes home tonight and tells you, “Great news honey. I am in love with someone else and s/he is going to move in with us.” ¹
“I know you will love her/him too. … you two can share a room … you can give him/her the clothes you are too big to fit in … isn’t s/he beautiful?”
If Ann had been curious and sensitive, she would have realized those were some of the overwhelming feelings Seth had to manage: hurt, jealousy, and rage. By labeling him a “bad boy”, she added some guilt and shame to his burden. If she just sends him to Time Out for a punishment, the painful loss of mother is repeated and once again he has his brother to blame for it. Or worse, he comes to believe he deserves to be punished because he really is a “bad boy”.
By virtue of an understanding of childhood concerns and/or through a sensitive interview of her son, Ann could have constructed an I-E-B-R Levels of Analysis of Seth’s behavior that would have guided her response.
| Issue | Brother’s presence > loss of mother |
| Emotion | Hurt; anger; jealousy |
| Behavior | Urge to hurt brother; aggression |
| Response | Labeled “bad boy”; sent away |
In that vignette, his mother sent Seth away and then picked up and comforted his brother. The result was loss of mother again and he was left with more reason to be angry at his favored brother and/or starting down a path of “I am a bad boy” (one which is reinforced because he will continue to be angry at his brother and wish to hurt him).
With enough guilt and shame, Seth might limit his aggression and Ann can believe she was effective with her Time Out punishments. But the Time Out was another variation on the abandonment he felt originally with his brother’s birth. As we can see from the I-E-B-R Analysis, Ann’s response probably made things worse in the long run. She has done nothing to understand the origin of Seth’s behavior and what intolerable feelings he must deal with. She has protected Timmy in the short-run, but she has only fanned the flames of future sibling rivalry.
Ann may have needed to send Seth to his room so she could compose herself and think about what she wanted to do. After she got Timmy settled, she might have started a conversation with Seth with one of the following:
“You know pinching is hurtful and wrong, so let’s figure out why you did that.”
“You must have been feeling pretty angry to pinch Timmy”
“You are feeling pretty angry at your brother, aren’t you?”
“What got you so angry at Timmy?”
“Are you having a bad-awful day?”
Our first reaction to aggression is to punish it. If Seth hurts his brother, he should suffer the consequences, right? To what end? The immediate end is to stop the aggression. Ann stopped it when she caught him, but ultimately, she wants to prevent it in the future. Her analysis above shows her that she is not on track for accomplishing that, if loss, hurt and rage are driving his behavior. In fact, her response may have only contributed to it. As he gets older, Seth can learn to be more discrete when he bullies his brother.
From an examination of the I-E-B-R Chart, or more simply, by listening to Seth, we realize that the best way to curb the aggression is to intervene either with the feelings driving the behavior or the main issue at its core. Seth would tell you the solution is simple – get rid of the brother because everything was fine before he arrived. Assuming Ann does not go along with the ship-him-out-via-UPS option, what is the next best thing?
The first is for Ann to appreciate what a loss Seth felt when Timmy arrived. Empathizing with how that must feel makes her much more understanding and sympathetic and more open to hearing him express how his brother makes him feel. Intolerable feelings of jealousy and rage led him to pinch his brother. But if those feelings have another outlet, in the form of telling someone, and he learns that the feelings are normal and okay to give voice to, then the urgency to translate them into aggression is significantly reduced.
Watch what happens to a child who is overwrought with emotion when someone empathizes with them and lets them know why they feel the way they do. They transform before your eyes – like magic.
The fear of being a “bad boy” for his behavior or for having “bad boy feelings” is lifted when Ann can give him the safety to express those feelings. Instead of fearing the consequences of having those thoughts and feelings, and trying to hide them until they are too powerful to resist, Seth learns that expressing them provides some relief. And his mother is available to help him cope with them appropriately. For instance, Seth can joke with his mother about shipping his brother to New Zealand when he is having a my-brother-is-a-pest day. And she can get him the mailing labels and the forms to fill out. All of which lead to an eventual healthy transformation.
“You know Seth, when I was your age, I tried to convince the UPS man to take your Uncle Richard to South America,” Ann confessed one day.
“So, did you make it happen?” asked Seth, a little too interested.
“The UPS man said, ‘sure, but you have to fill out the forms first’.”
“And …” Seth wondered.
“I could never get all the forms filled out.”
“I know you tried,” guessed Seth.
“You bet I did,” Ann laughed.
The issue is the birth of a sibling and that can’t be changed. It is a loss that cannot be taken back. Remembering its significance has value for Ann in understanding where the strong feelings are coming from. In fact, she can access some of the old feelings she had about her own brother. In this case, the “intervention” with Seth occurs at the emotion level. He is coping with powerful, but understandable, emotions. Ann can help him with those emotions by letting him know they are normal and it is safe to talk about them. She can also teach him that emotions are messages that are important to understand, but do not have to translate into behavior. Once Seth learns that his feelings are normal and has a better idea of where they come from, Ann can help him learn to tolerate them or translate them into something useful.
Did Ann make A MESS of her son in this vignette? Let’s count the ways. She certainly taught empathy by the way she showed Seth how she understood how he must feel about his brother. Experiencing empathy is the first step in learning to empathize. She also promoted moral integrity through her showing her disappointment in his aggression. Nothing matters more to a four-year-old than what his mother thinks of him. So a little guilt is healthy in a situation like this. Guilt is part of what keeps us moral. Ann also taught Seth strategies for emotional control, beginning with identifying his feelings and their origin. Talking about those feelings and analyzing them is part of learning to control those feelings. Instead of going straight from feeling to action, without thinking first, she was teaching him to analyze his feelings and figure out what to do with them. In this case, she helped him find more effective solutions to his intolerable feelings. He could talk to her or turn them into creative plans for shipping him to New Zealand. But, what she didn’t teach him was how to negotiate all that paperwork required. Seth’s self-esteem dogged a bullet in this vignette as well. What happens to a child left believing he is “bad” for having murderous thoughts about his little brother? Ann helped him realize those thoughts and feelings were understandable and she gave him some safe places to take them. So, yes, Ann really made A MESS of Seth.
__________________________
¹ This powerful analogy was described in Siblings Without Rivalry by Mazlish and Faber