The Sibling Survival Guide

Reviews / Votes

This warm and witty book about how siblings can deal with each other in the best possible ways is a real winner...there are lots of good, humorous line drawings of all the things being explained. This book is a practical and useful way of dealing with siblings in all their various life situations and a good way of solving the perennial problem of kids not getting on. -- Healthy Books Once again, Dawn Huebner provides invaluable and brilliant advice for children, parents, and therapists. This book on sibling dynamics fills a major void and is a must-have for any child with a sibling. It will enjoy a spot in my office alongside the rest of Dr. Huebner's fantastic books. -- Kari Groff MD, NYC Child Psychiatrist, Author, and Speaker Sibling conflict is one of the most challenging parts of parenting. The Sibling Survival Guide helps parents not only survive these battles but use them to help their kids thrive. Huebner provides strategies to reduce conflict and build skills, giving children a greater capacity to navigate all relationships well. -- Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D., LCSW, co-author of 'The Whole-Brain Child' & 'No-Drama Discipline' Packed with practical guidance pitched just right for school-age children, Dr. Huebner's Sibling Survival Guide fills a critical need in the literature. The book avoids feeling preachy while inviting children into more effective ways of living with irksome siblings. Those who know Huebner's other work will immediately recognize her practical wisdom, warmth and humor. Those who don't are in for a treat. A must-have for anyone who lives or works with siblings who squabble. -- Eileen Kennedy-Moore, PhD, author of 'Growing Friendships' (for kids) and 'Kid Confidence' (for parents) One of the advantages I found as a classroom teacher working with children and young people is that the 'difficult stuff' like astronomy, physics, chemistry, aspects of PSHE or history gets pre-simplified by an expert who can make such subjects approachable, engaging and appropriately humorous. Dawn Huebner's Sibling Survival Guide is one such book and set to be an invaluable resource.
Her strategies and suggestions are pragmatic and workable. Her tone's accessible to her target audience of ten- to twelve-year-olds without ever being patronising - often really tricky when writing for a 'tween' or teen audience. Arguably a mature nine-year-old or anyone in their early to mid-teens, with siblings, can gain hugely from this book. Similarly an only child could just as easily learn much about compromise, sharing, negotiation and cooperation from Dawn's expertise.
I like that she alludes to Learning Theory: giving interested readers the opportunity to satisfy themselves Huebner knows what she's talking about in a world where children and young people (quite rightly) are encouraged to fact check and question much of what they're presented as 'expert opinion'.
Throughout the book Dawn gives her parent and guardian readers useful tips to steer them away from being the referee of their children's bickering, disputes and arguments.
This is all together a thoroughly useful volume: combining positive thinking with logical, workable strategies to reward constructive behaviour and so effect the change one would like to see.
One of the other advantages of reading books aimed at children which need to be read beforehand by the adults giving them out is that you can gain an awful lot of helpful advice about your own thinking: encouraging quiet reflection on how you manages your own sibling relationships. Basically when you cannot change your sibling's behaviour: change your own. Then theirs changes. It's sound thinking and Dawn Huebner's written a handy book of wise words ...well worth the investment -- Jonathan Charlesworth, Author of Jessica Kingsley Publishers' "How To Stop Homophobic and Biphobic Bullying: A Practical Whole School Approach" (2020) This warm and witty book about how siblings can deal with each other in the best possible ways is a real winner...there are lots of good, humorous line drawings of all the things being explained. This book is a practical and useful way of dealing with siblings in all their various life situations and a good way of solving the perennial problem of kids not getting on. -- Healthy Books