Stumble It!Oct 02 2008
Sibling Rivalry
I have two daughters and a son. My oldest is three years older than my middle child who is also a daughter and four years older than my youngest son. Now my younger two kids seem to get along fine for the most part, no less than a typical brother and sister with the occasional fights but they play together, hang out together, share their secrets, defend each other, and do almost everything together. Now my oldest daughter gets along with my son pretty well also but her and my middle child just can’t seem to get along. There are always threats of fists flying as they push each other around calling each other names and both claiming the other gets special treatment. For the longest time I was intervening but lately I’ve decided I am going to let them work things out for themselves even if that means it comes to blows, which it hasn’t so far that way neither of them feel that I have a favorite and neither of them feels I am being unfair to them. They tend to calm down quicker this way because I think my older daughter is afraid of hurting my younger daughter and I kind of think my younger daughter is afraid of the same thing. Now my question is, is this because they are so far in age or is it because they are sisters who are competing for the attention of their mother? Well I have been trying to give them equal individual attention and they seem to be doing better. I guess I will never know if it’s because of a silent competition between them or if it is just age related, I’m just glad that it’s getting better between them.
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You are not alone! LOL…I have 5, that’s right count ‘em…F I V E children. The oldest is 15 and the youngest is 8. Their ages are 15,14,12,11 and 8. The two boys 15 and 14 get along for the most part, but lately have been going nose to nose with arguments over basically who the boss is and why the other has to listen. The 12 year old is a girl and 11 is the youngest boy. He gets along better with the 12 and 15 year olds. My 8 year old is lost. She can’t figure out who to hang with and tries to be the boss of everyone. she stomps her feet and tells them very matter of factly that they need to listen to her. She has found friends outside of the house just her age to connect with.
That was going on for sometime. What I realized was that the baby was out of the loop because the older kids has shared so many things together that when we talk about them or laugh about things in the past she is kind of left out. What I have done is incorporated her into the old things we used to do before she was born or very young, like actually watching the lion king, (which she never saw before) and this year we will carve out a pumpkin and bake the seeds. As the older kids got older, we had to move on to address theier after school activities and girlfriends and outside interests. We remain a close knit family but we had to go backwards to go forwards. the baby missed out because everybody was growing up except for her.
Your kids will be fine, promote family unity above all, go to church together, explain that they are the only people who they will be able to depend on as adults, work together to do more family activities that are not above or beneath the others and hug all the time! attacking your kids with unexpected hugs and kisses does wonders! Good luck, and don’t worry so much! ~Alicia http://savemoneymomma.today.com
ps. i love this post and i am going to use it in my blog, i want to elaborate on it further with incorporating some freebies! hope you don’t mind!