Many families who have more than one child with misophonia will experience what some people call a “3S” problem. This label refers to a “Sibling Sound Source,” where one sibling provides visual or auditory triggers to another. Because of the nature of sibling rivalry, this 3S complication introduces a whole new set of dynamics into a family that can be very difficult to manage. Let’s take a look at those dynamics before we continue.

Competition, rivalry, and antagonism between siblings are a fact of life. Research tells us that in the average family, kids ages four to seven will fight 3 to 4 times per hour. This frequency, combined with the fact that most parents see sibling rivalry as unnecessary, stupid, malicious, and totally aggravating, makes for a difficult situation even without misophonia. Anyone who’s been a parent for very long knows that siblings—while appearing very aggravated—can actually enjoy fighting with each other and teasing one another.

This takes us back to the two games we talked about before that were described by psychiatrist Eric Berne: Now I’ve Got You (NIGY) and Poor Me. Kids can actually have a good time feeling unjustly treated by a brother or sister and then loudly complaining about this perceived treatment to their parents. That’s Poor Me. Kids can also have a good time blasting their brother or sister and yelling at them for the other’s misbehavior. That’s NIGY. Though children play Poor Me and NIGY with extreme energy, at the same time they seem to have no insight at all into their own contribution to the trouble. That’s the way sibling rivalry works. My sib is a “Mean Jerk,” and that’s all there is to it!

With these dynamics in mind, let’s take a look at a typical 3S—sibling sound source—problem, and let’s carefully analyze it. At the dinner table, Mark, age eight, is triggered by the chewing of his sister Megan, who is ten. Mark yells at his sister, saying that she sounds like a horse while she eats. Mark feels totally justified in his comment because he is really upset. He has no insight into the problem and knows nothing about misophonia. To him, he’s being abused by his sister.

For her part, on the other hand, Megan also feels totally mistreated by her brother. All she’s doing is eating and chewing her food, which is a perfectly normal thing to do. Her brother has no right to be angry at her. So, she forcefully complains to her parents that she is doing nothing wrong and that her brother is totally out of line. Megan also internally cherishes a feeling of righteous indignation, and she savors the fact that her parents are direct witnesses to her idiotic maltreatment by her brother.

In my experience, the vast majority of moms and dads have a very difficult time appreciating sibling rivalry for what it is: an intensely competitive stance between kids that never goes away and that is ready to pop up with the slightest provocation. Parents instead feel that the kids in the family should love each other the way each parent loves each of them. This, of course, cannot be the case because parents are wired by Mother Nature to love their kids unconditionally and patiently. Kids, on the other hand, are wired by Mother Nature to compete—often nastily—with their siblings for parental attention. True, sometimes their sib may be a good playmate, but at other times, the same sibling is their best competitor.

Because of these different parent and child mindsets, misophonia and sibling rivalry mix moms and dads up. Parents are not likely to appreciate the fact that both kids—the sound source sibling and the misophonic child—can savor being mistreated and then enjoy complaining about it passionately to their parents. This game can be one of their favorite pastimes! Although they may sound like they want the problem to end—which in a way they do—they can also look forward to playing a good round of Poor Me or NIGY. And, even when nothing’s hitting the fan, they may engage in subtle behaviors that make the 3S problem happen again and again.

How are you going to manage 3S? You first need to explain to the kids what misophonia is and how it operates. You next tell them that when this issue makes them uncomfortable, you will try to deal with that event as reasonably and fairly as you can. That means that you are going to try to minimize the contribution of misophonia to their normal teasing and fighting. Hopefully, you have a reasonable strategy for sibling rivalry to begin with.

Your strategies here will involve two things. You tell the kids that you are the judge and that your decisions will be final. First, when you feel the misophonic child is overreacting to a normal sound produced by their sibling, you will not treat this as if it’s the end of the world. Instead, you’ll help the misophonic child deal with the problem. The sound source sibling will not be held responsible for misbehavior of any kind.

Second—siblings being what they are—there will probably be times when the sound source sibling will engage in producing trigger sounds with the idea in the back of their mind that these noises will irritate their brother or sister. When a parent has the feeling that trigger sounds are being produced deliberately for aggravation purposes, the parent will then deal with the trigger-producing child. Usually, a quick way of doing this is with a brief rest period, break time, or time-out. Parent’s judgment is final, and screaming, yelling, or tantruming about the decision will not be honored.