Episode 91: Why Your ADHD Child Baits Their Sibling (and Why Telling Them to Stop Never Works)
Sharon Collon (00:00)
When I was little, my mum used to leave us in the car. I mean, this was the 80s, right? And it was acceptable to leave your kids in the car. I don't know. Actually, was it ever acceptable? I don't know. she used to leave the three of us in the car and duck into Kmart, which feels like a big shop to duck into and leave. And we we lived in Queensland, so it was very hot in that car. And what we would do is
we would all sit in the car and wait for mom. And my eldest brother would turn to me and go, Mom's dead. She's never coming back. Mom's dead. Mom's dead. Mom's dead. Until I would be crying because I was little and I was like, My older brother's telling me, Mom's dead, she's never coming back. And once I was crying, he would then turn to
the middle brother in our family, even though he was in on the original thing
of teasing me, he would then start on him. Mom's dead, mom's dead, mom's dead. And so Mum would come out of Kmart with all her things in her hands, and I would be crying, Chris would be crying, and Paul would be sitting there going, I I don't I don't know what happened, right?
Jacquie Ward (01:07)
I literally just felt this flood of relief at the thought of your mum walking out and little Sharon being like, there she is.
Sharon Collon (01:15)
We went straight for trauma, right? But what this is a perfect example of is baiting, baiting behaviors between siblings. And it is one of the most common things that Jacquie Ward and I get asked about. So to explore this in more detail with some strategies to support your family and my little past version of Sharon crying in that car.
I have brought in the incredible Jacquie Ward, who is a registered psychologist and my partner in crime when we're talking about sibling conflict. Welcome, Jacquie.
Jacquie Ward (01:53)
Thank you. It is so nice to be back on the podcast with you. And nice in particular to be talking about this because this comes up all the time, right?
Sharon Collon (02:01)
it is just so common. And I think the part that no one gives enough credit to is just how extreme it is for ADHD families. We've got some key components which we're going to explore about why it is more significant. So if you're thinking, bloody hell, like our family fight, like not like the neighbors' family, our family fight. I want you to know that you are in the right place for that in our community. So Jackie, tell me what.
Is baiting and how is it different to siblings annoying each other or annoyance?
Jacquie Ward (02:35)
Yeah. So just so we're all on the same page, when we're talking about baiting, we're talking about the scenario, it's very specific where one child in the dynamic is deliberately doing something to wind up or trigger their sibling. And so with this, they're looking for a reaction. They know they're going to get it. that's the piece of it that, is kind of solid as well. and what's tricky about it is it's often subtle enough so that from the outside, it doesn't look like any one big thing. We're not talking about going and like,
Know pushing them off the couch or yelling something at them, but it's usually a little more subtle than that. It builds and builds and builds, and that's what makes it so effective. The payoff that the child doing the baiting gets is that they're looking for the other one to blow up, to have a huge emotional reaction, and then they end up usually being the one that ends up in trouble. My boys call this, and maybe listeners will relate to this, my boys call it rage baiting. I think that's a pretty appropriate kind of summary, right?
Sharon Collon (03:30)
Mm.
Jacquie Ward (03:31)
So Sharon, I know you're living this. You've got the three boys in your household. What does this look like in your house?
Sharon Collon (03:37)
Well, firstly, I want to say that my kids fight, right? Like they fight. We are not a family that ever sits around watching a movie and like being quiet. they're going to argue about which movie it is for 30 minutes, and then we're one of them's gonna storm off, the other one's gonna be up crying there and disrupting if everyone. Anyway, they fight. That's what I want you to know. And so we are definitely living this, but what baiting looks like specifically, and I
Give you a very recent example from this morning is my middle son going in and going near, because it was just having like a bit of a lull in energy in the morning, because we were waiting for other bits and pieces, just going into my youngest son's near his football cards. Not touching them, but they're his prized possession, just going in near with this look on his face of like, I could destroy these. And boom, explosion in the house.
Full on fight club.
Jacquie Ward (04:34)
Yeah, classic example. And I guess when parents are describing these fight club level, you know, scenarios to you as well. And we hear about these from all of our clients, what are they typically blaming it on?
Sharon Collon (04:46)
they are going for triggers, right? So we're trigger hunting. And so when they come in talking about sibling conflict and baiting behaviors, they're really talking about the specific incident. So they would raise it in the way that he was gonna touch the football cards but what we actually need to be talking about is why and what is going on underneath that moment. So you heard me refer to it there in that example of that low arousal state. We went into that low arousal, there was a bit of a lull.
Which can often feel uncomfortable for the ADHD brain, because we like to go at speed, that lull, bit out of they want a bit of sensory stimulation. And the easiest, quickest, most effective way to do that is to mess with your siblings.
So now we touched on rejection sensitivity dysphoria last time we spoke in the previous episode of this podcast. but most parents have never heard of it properly. Tell me what is it?
Jacquie Ward (05:43)
This is super interesting, and I'm I think something that'll resonate with a lot of the families listening to this. So when we talk about rejection sensitivity, or maybe you've seen it in social media referred to as RSD, which is rejection sensitivity dysphoria, we're really talking about this very intense, sudden, overwhelming emotional reaction that we or our children can have. And it's in response to feeling like they've been rejected or criticized or let down in some way. So
When we think about this in the context of sibling conflict, it is really can be the sort of the button that detonates the whole explosion, if you will. Right. When I work with clients that talk about RSD, I never forget I had a little one that said to me in session that it is so painful for them that they would prefer to be physically hurt than to have this feeling because it's just so intolerable and so incredibly awful for them. I think that really sums it up.
Sharon Collon (06:39)
Mm. So how does this turn a simple poke into a forty minute meltdown?
Jacquie Ward (06:44)
Yeah. I think in two ways. I think that first of all, we've got the layer of feeling rejected or criticized or outed, if you will, by your sibling. Particularly tricky if you've got a two against one type dynamic or, you know, multiple against one. That can be really, really triggering. But perhaps more so is when you have a parent come in in response to the sibling conflict and be wanting to help sort it out or, ease the situation, very often the first response is, who started it, who's to blame? And then well, right, well, you can go away.
That itself can be incredibly triggering, particularly if you're the one that's been baited, then had a big reaction, add in a sense of unfairness, this rejection sensitivity, and all of a sudden we can see why this goes so huge.
Sharon Collon (07:25)
So triggering for the ADHD brain that has a very strong sense of fairness and justice. Well, no wonder that that will be the hill that we die on. So here's the one I want parents to hear. When we step in and land on one child, which is what you just said as the problem, we go in and we try and work it out who started it. What have we just done?
Jacquie Ward (07:50)
Essentially with that, what we've done is we have set up the perfect dynamic for
rejection sensitivity to flourish. And we've also put ourselves in the position of being a referee. We're there to sort out who's right, who's wrong, make a judgment call on it, take a side, if you will. And largely, while well-intentioned, absolutely, this is a really, really ineffective strategy when it comes to managing siblings.
Sharon Collon (08:13)
Now this is where we position ourselves as the ref. The only problem with the ref is nobody bloody likes the ref. No one likes it. Like in the game, everyone's yelling, both sides are yelling at the ref, right?
Okay, so thinking about some of my finest parenting moments, the boys are fighting. I come in and I'm really confused. I'm trying to rack my brain as to the right thing I should be saying. I know I'm dysregulated. I know I shouldn't yell. I know I'm unintentionally escalating the situation, but I can't quite draw on the right strategy to throw at that particular friction point. So I start flip-flopping.
I flip-flop between being a really gentle parent and then I flip-flop to being strict and then I be like my parents and just tell us to get out or whatever. And it's so stressful. It's so stressful. Now you give us the idea of the competent captain in our sibling conflict series. What do you mean by that?
Jacquie Ward (09:12)
I really love this analogy. And I'm going to be frank, it was born out of my own experience into coming into these high pressure situations, feeling, you know, a little powerlessness, powerless sometimes as well, and desperately wanting to
manage it well. So we've got all these high pressure stakes, the
emotion is high, everybody's dysregulated, including myself. And so I realized pretty quickly that that was ineffective and learned this strategy of really, really focusing on showing up as a competent captain. So if we think of it this way,
Referee versus a competent captain. we've talked about what a referee, you know, does and the fact that it's a pretty, thankless role, essentially. So instead, if we can focus more on being a competent captain, I want you to imagine for a minute you're on a ship and the ship is sinking, kind of akin to the way it feels in your family when everybody's arguing, right? If you were on that sinking ship as a passenger, you would look to your captain and if you saw them.
Freaking out, running around screaming, completely dysregulated themselves. It's not going to instill a whole sense of confidence. You'd think that's it, we're done, we're doomed for, we're sinking with this ship. Versus the experience of looking to the captain who was able to stay somewhat regulated. We're not expecting perfection here or complete stoicism, but somewhat calm and in control and instilling a sense
of capable confidence, I suppose. And that's really what we're looking to channel in this whole idea of showing up as a competent captain.
So Sharon, I guess in thinking about sibling conflict, what I'd keen to hear your thoughts. Do you think our kids need us to be fair or instead are they looking to us and needing us to be steady?
Sharon Collon (10:39)
this is such a good question, Jacquie. because I guess fairness is a it's a shaky ground to stand on because what is fair? Because I can tell you my perception of what is fair in the situation, because I have a pretty good frame of reference versus my 10-year-old's frame of reference for what is fair. We have different opinions about it. Now, fairness is important to the ADHD brain. We like things to be fair,
We have a very strong sense of justice, as we mentioned, but it isn't the hill that you should die on in sibling conflict. Now, because what is fair for one child is really based on their executive function development level, like where they're at and what they need in that moment. So if you go after fair, you're probably gonna lose. You're gonna put yourself in the referee position, and it's gonna be tricky. What we actually need is to be steady. We need to be steady because they're just their working brains are completely.
completely offline when they're dysregulated. So we need to be the steady captain, not the ref. that's the only way out of this. If we get into a debate about what's fair, we put ourselves back in the ref position again.
Jacquie Ward (11:48)
Yeah, absolutely. I love that concept of focusing on steady because that's something that even when things are explosive or really, really challenging, that's something that we can work towards. I think fairness sometimes is like this elusive goal that, you know, everyone's gonna, like you said, different perceptions on what that actually will mean.
Sharon Collon (12:05)
So Jacquie, what if we don't feel steady? Should we fake it till we make it?
Jacquie Ward (12:11)
Fair question, because I'm going to guess that most people won't feel particularly steady in this scenario. And that's actually a reasonable human response. It is really activating to see your kids argue. It's particularly activating if someone is getting hurt or being particularly mean or, it can stir up a whole lot of stuff in us. I don't think it's about necessarily faking it, as it is about really committing to doing the best job we can to stay regulated in that. And that honestly comes about through practice.
consistency and you know, doing this work outside the moment of intensity.
Sharon Collon (12:43)
Thank goodness we give you those strategies in our sibling conflict workshop coming up because it is such an important piece of this puzzle.
so here's a little practical action step because you guys know I love you to take action. It is not enough to listen to theory about stuff. We've got to do something with it, and it's got to be ADHD specific. So over the next two days, I want you to watch your kids fight. Look, don't worry, I think you're gonna get plenty of opportunities for this. It's fine, it's fine. so I don't want you to fix anything, I just want you to notice baiting when it starts, what time of the day is it happening?
What happened right before? Who was bored, hungry, who was on screens ten minutes earlier? So Jacquie, tell us why does this pattern matter more than anything a parent says in the moment?
Jacquie Ward (13:34)
Hmm. In a nutshell, because that pattern is what's going to bring about change. Right. Many people will relate to the fact that these arguments feel cyclical. We go through the same cycle all the time, the escalation, the baiting, the building, building, building, the blow up, the come down, the repair. it is this cycle. And getting the pause, noticing what the triggers are, that is what is actually going to elicit change, improvement in this situation.
Sharon Collon (13:57)
I think you've just touched on something so important. You guys know if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, I talk about predictable problems.
predictable problems are the things that come up again and again. If you are having the same sibling fights in your house on repeat, it is time to stop hitting your head against the brick wall. We need to try differently on this topic and we need to have ADHD specific strategies.
About this. Now, when Jackie and I were researching for this and creating this workshop, we were looking for ADHD-specific strategies on managing sibling conflict. And guess what? We found none. And those that we did find, like the
short little snippets that we did found, were pretty wishy-washy actually. And what people really needed was scripts. You cannot think of the right thing to say.
When you are dysregulated. You need scripts. You need to have them ingrained in your head, practiced in the car, so that you can bring them out when stuff hits the fan. So we are going to give you these scripts. We're going to give you the why and then we're going to give you the how on how to implement on Sunday, the 11th of October at one to four. That's Australian Eastern Daylight Saving Time.
and we are gonna spend Sunday afternoon together and just
Go for it. It's a big meaty subject and we're gonna make sure that you have the right tools on how to handle this and make things easier for your family. So tell us a little bit more about it, Jacquie.
Jacquie Ward (15:23)
It's that element of knowing what to say and the scripts that that we've built into this session that I'm so proud of because clients say to me all the time, I understand, I get it, I've had the light bulb moment, I understand how ADHD plays into this. And yet when it comes to the moment, I'm frozen or I revert back, I regress back to all the things I said I wouldn't do and I end up yelling or saying the things that later I have to repair on. That's human, of course. But what we want for you and what we, really saw come about our last time we ran this.
Is clients said when they felt empowered and had the words pre-rehearse practice there, they were much better equipped to handle the situation when the heat was on.
Sharon Collon (15:59)
what I want to say that my kids still fight. They had a massive fight this morning, right? But what has changed is my stress levels around it because I know that I've got the scripts on what to say. I know how to diffuse that fight. I know how to do the repair. I know how to make it not take 40 minutes. Like I can make it wrap up quite quickly these days. And so the goal is not to eliminate the whole conflict. anyone that promises you that is totally lying. But what how we handle it is
To have a playbook on how to actually handle that situation. So we don't have this huge stress response. the sibling conflict erupts and we go, yeah, that's all right. I just handle it. I've got the scripts, I know they work. So I can just handle it. And that's what exactly what happened this morning over the football cards. It I didn't have the massive stress response that I would have had before.
So on the 11th of October, we are going to be giving you the scripts, the prevention plan, the repair, a teen version, which is we've really bumped this up this time. We've run this once before, and we know that the scripts and the teen version were widely requested. So we've made sure that we've bumped that up. And what you can do when you can't actually physically separate your kids. So we're going to be outlining all of that, plus having a live QA. And if you can't attend live, don't worry, we've got you covered. You can get the replay for six months.
So it was $297. We have reduced it down to $197. And if you book before 10 p.m. on Wednesday, the 7th of October, you are also going to get our exclusive sibling baiting scripts for free. And they are valued at $197 just them. So you are going to get that as a bonus. So make sure you go in, check in the show notes, register, and you can reserve your spot. I want to say a big
Thank you, Jacquie If you can finish us off with one last little piece of advice, if you've got a parent listening to this in the car after a rough day, what's one sentence we can tell them?
Jacquie Ward (17:55)
You know, I find one sentence hard, Sharon, but I think what I would want you to hear is that I understand what it feels like to be post-argument, feeling like it's just this insurmountable friction and to be craving peace in your home, right?
What we can work through with you though is the support and resources so that you feel empowered and competent to manage it. And it's that confidence that you can take into sibling arguments that is really going to make all the difference in your home.
Sharon Collon (18:24)
Thank you, Jackie, so much. It is such an important topic and we're going to give it the credit and time that it deserves in this workshop because this is a big, big friction point for a lot of families. we know the friction point is big. Let's give you the tools to be able to navigate it with confidence. Let's go. I hope to see you there.
Jacquie Ward (18:43)
Thank you.
