Sibling love. How to teach your kids to love & respect each other.

As a parent one of my core values is respect.  I want my children to love and respect each other.  This can be challenging at times because rivalry, jealousy, annoying one another and age difference are realities that as parents we have to face.  In my family, we have been INTENTIONAL about our children loving and respecting each other.  Here are the steps we have followed or strived to as much as we can. 

1. My husband and I respect each other.  We model what we want them to do.
2. We do not belittle any of the children, we respect them.  We are careful how we treat them, we stay away from saying things like, "what's wrong with you?" "what were you thinking?"
3. We do not talk about their weaknesses to others in their hearing.  As parents it is easy to say to one another in "code language"  this one can be "S T R O N G  W I L L." Even then kids are listening when you don't think they are.  They can probably understand our spelling or know what we are talking about it.  It is best to stay away from this type of conversations if the kids are anywhere in the room.  
4. I do not always intervene when there is a fight.  I empower my oldest one to know how to handle the situation as the older child, specially when my youngest was 2 or 3 years old.
5. When I do intervene, at some point I will say, "you love your sister, and this hurts her. Please do not do this again, because you love her."  I also focus on the "do unto others, as you would like them to do unto you."
6. I am constantly, INTENTIONALLY, saying things like, "You love your sister," "Yes, brother is a great big brother," "We miss brother, when he is away in college," "Sister is your best friend," "You will protect and love each other." These are messages that have to be delivered in your daily activities, randomly and when appropriate.  
7. I also respect boundaries, for example when our son is home from college, the girls want to jump in his bed and wake him up early.  I explain to them to them even though we haven't seen him in for ever, he is in vacation and needs to sleep. I let my 8 year old have her own time to play with her legos so the little one doesn't mess them up.  I encourage spaces of time for each child, to do what they like.
8. When I catch the girls being rude, in the way we they talk and treat each other, I tell them that is not how we do it in our family.  It breaks my heart because I see so many kids doing this, and soon after we observe this out somewhere, my girls come home and  imitate.
9. I am always hugging them and kissing them, so obviously, I encourage them to give each other good morning/night hugs.  My youngest daughter loves this and she is constantly kissing all of us just randomly during the day.
10. Positive reinforcement works! When they are nice to each other and loving, I am always affirm that.

These steps have definitely helped us in encouraging sibling love.  Of course my kids are kids like all others and are not perfect, but I can say that these steps have given us a strong foundation of love and respect as we continue to grow in this journey.  In conclusion, I would have to say if you have to only take one step- THE WAY YOU TREAT OTHERS AT HOME. If you treat others with love and respect, they will pick that up from you.