It can be pretty complicated once a new baby becomes a part of the family. Often, the second child arrives when the first is still a toddler, who suddenly has to share your attention for the first time. Soon, she will need to share other things with her younger sibling too—her baby clothes, her favorite hair accessories, her dolls. She may start saying things like "Take the baby back" or "She’s stupid" or "I hate her." She may even start getting physical and unintentionally harm her baby sibling.

These are normal feelings of anger and jealousy, expressed in inappropriate ways. Most parents will quickly reprimand their children and tell them to stop expressing such feelings. But this actually makes you lose a valuable opportunity to validate these feelings so you can then teach your child more appropriate ways to express them.

An article entitled "The New Science of Siblings" published in Time magazine in 2006 stated that parenting style and the child’s temperament are the two most powerful variables that affect a child’s conflict resolution skills. You can not change your child’s temperament, but you can teach her ways to deal with challenges in her temperament.

It will be very helpful to your child if you validate her negative feelings because that tells her that you understand how hard it is for her to share your love, attention, and time. Once she is confident that her feelings have been acknowledged, take that time to teach her appropriate phrases or actions to express these negative emotions. She can punch a pillow when angry, for example. You can easily find soft and snug baby pillows in baby boutiques.

Some siblings grow up to be very close and consider each other good friends. Sadly, others have conflicted relationships and grow up apart. As a parent, it’s natural to want your children to have strong bonds even as they become adults. But how do you help foster such positive relationships? While they are young, find a way for your older child to feel helpful to your younger one. Also, have special one on one time with the eldest so she does not feel neglected.

Once your baby starts growing up, brace yourself for sibling conflicts. Once your second child is old enough to crawl and explore, she is likely to get into her older sibling’s things, like her favorite baby gifts, and this starts a conflict. It is tempting to punish the oldest for not wanting to share and then coddling the youngest. But this only makes you responsible for managing the conflict instead of teaching them how to work it out themselves. Children as young as 18 months can be shown basic resolution skills.

Drop by your favorite baby boutique and get puppets that you can use for conflict resolution. Your children can speak through them and say what they really feel. You can speak for the youngest until she gains more verbal skills. Then let the elder speak through her puppet to share her feelings. This will help teach your children to work things out themselves.

Here are a few more tips to help develop a healthy bond between your children:

• Avoid comparing your children. It only sets them up to compete with each other.

• Treat your children according to what they need. Parents are always advised to treat their children equally. But each of your children needs you in a different way at different times.

• Accept that each of your children is a unique individual. Let them each know what you appreciate about them.

• Avoid labeling your children. Everyone is different to some degree, and you want to encourage them to explore outside the box enough to develop their own personalities.