Episode 91: Why Your ADHD Child Baits Their Sibling (and Why Telling Them to Stop Never Works)

***Join Managing Sibling Conflict & ADHD Session***

Why does one child seem to know exactly how to push their sibling’s buttons, then keep going until the whole house explodes?

Sibling baiting is incredibly common in ADHD families. It can look small from the outside. Standing too close to a prized possession. Making a particular noise. Saying the one thing they know will get a reaction. But underneath that behaviour, there can be much more going on.

In this episode, Credentialed ADHD family Coach Sharon Collon is joined by registered Psychologist Jacquie Ward to unpack why ADHD sibling conflict can escalate so quickly and why focusing on who started it often makes things worse.

They explore boredom and low-arousal states, rejection sensitivity, fairness, emotional regulation and the role parents can unintentionally play when they step in as the referee.

Because when the same fights happen again and again, the answer is not another lecture about being nice to each other. It is understanding the predictable pattern and knowing what to do when it starts.

👀 In This Episode, Sharon Covers

✅ What sibling baiting and “rage baiting” actually look like

✅ Why an ADHD brain may seek stimulation by provoking a sibling

✅ How boredom and low-arousal states can contribute to conflict

✅ Why rejection sensitivity can turn a small interaction into a huge emotional reaction

✅ How asking “Who started it?” can intensify the conflict

✅ Why ADHD children’s strong sense of fairness can make arguments harder to resolve

✅ The difference between being the family referee and becoming the competent captain

✅ Why being steady is often more useful than trying to make everything fair

✅ How to recognise the predictable patterns behind recurring sibling fights

✅ Why having scripts ready matters when you are dysregulated too

The Real Problem With Sibling Conflict

The hardest part is often not the argument itself.

It is feeling like you are dealing with the same fight on repeat.

One child baits. The other reacts. Someone explodes. You step in and try to establish what happened. Everyone argues about what is fair. You become dysregulated too.

Then, the next day, it happens all over again.

In the heat of the moment, it can be incredibly difficult to remember the parenting strategy you intended to use. You might start gently, become stricter, raise your voice, separate everyone and then wonder afterwards what you could have done differently.

Sharon and Jacquie explain why the goal is not a home where siblings never fight.

The goal is to understand the pattern, know how to interrupt it and have a clear playbook for what to do next.

⏱️ Episode Timestamps

00:00 Sharon’s childhood sibling-baiting story 01:15 Why sibling baiting is so common in ADHD families 02:35 What is baiting and rage baiting? 03:37 What baiting looks like at home 04:46 Why the obvious trigger is not always the real problem 05:43 Rejection sensitivity and ADHD sibling conflict 06:44 Why a small poke can become a 40-minute meltdown 07:25 What happens when parents ask, “Who started it?” 08:13 The problem with becoming the family referee 09:12 The competent captain approach 10:39 Why steadiness matters more than perfect fairness 12:05 Staying regulated when your children are not 12:43 The two-day sibling conflict observation exercise 13:57 Identifying predictable problems 15:23 Why parents need practical scripts 15:59 What success with sibling conflict actually looks like 17:55 Advice for parents after a difficult day

🎯 Sibling Conflict Workshop

If you are constantly breaking up fights, figuring out who started it, or dealing with explosive reactions, join Sharon Collon and Jacquie Ward for the Managing Sibling Conflict & ADHD Workshop on 11 October, 1pm to 4pm AEDT. You’ll learn what is really driving the conflict, how to step out of the referee role, and get practical scripts and a clear playbook for handling sibling fights with more confidence, shortening the conflict and