Per Request: Sibling Rivalry

     Sibling Rivalry is a topic most families must deal with, but rarely does one hear it as a regular topic of conversation at Wine Night.  No one really wants other people to know that their kids are perfectly dreadful to each other and say the most horrible things, especially when they do it right in front of their mama!  Even four and six-year-olds!

     “That’s mine!  You’re a Poophead!”  “Oh, yea?  Well, you’re a Butthead Fartacus!”  It’s embarrassing.  How can children who are reared with such unrestrained love treat the very people they are supposed to love the most with such distain?  In a word, jealousy.  Every child wishes that they were their parents’ only child, receiving all of the energy, attention, time, and financial resources for themselves.  Truthfully, who would want to share any of that with another person?  They know we are full of it--sharing is not fun.  Sharing is a pain in the butt.  But as they grow up and out and have families of their own, having to share continues when visiting parents/grandparents and who gets the “good room” and who was given what piece of furniture for their new house, blah, blah, etc…This rubs raw on past injustices.  Worse will be the dividing of responsibilities toward caretaking of aged parents and dividing of their estates.  Life requires practice.

     God willing, your children will spend an additional twenty-five years with each other than they will with you, so the relationship they build has lifelong consequences. 

   “Great, my kids already hate each other.” 

     I hear you, most do.  There is no way to guarantee that they will be friends, but the truth is that siblings must deal with each other for, hopefully, the entirety of their lives, so they may as well be given the best chance to learn to deal effectively with one another.

Introducing New Babies to the Fold

     There is nothing fun about an infant brother or sister to a small child. At first glance, they are about as exciting as a new lamp and less useful.  They cry for the tiniest reasons, everyone who paid attention to the small child now pays attention to the infant, and nothing runs on the same schedule as it did before.  It is exasperating for a three-year-old, so to have the same people who are cooing and smiling at the new baby look over at her and ask “What do you think of your new sister?” is insulting. 

     What mamas want is for their children is to love each other, protect, play, and be best friends to one another, right?  Ain’t gonna happen.  What parents need to go for initially is apathy. 

     Before you go to the hospital, think of a toy your older child has been begging for you to buy him.  You may have to set him up with a trip to the toy store to buy a small puzzle as a ruse to find out if he is dying for something—“dying” for something looks like: holding it while following you from aisle to aisle, or begging, crying, throwing a fit over it.  This only works if he is emotionally attached to something.  Buy it without him knowing and hide it.  When the baby comes home, your older child should be elsewhere with Grandma or a neighbor—the park, out to lunch, a movie, something fun.  This allows you get home, settled, and ready without a big scene.  Set up the meeting place in a neutral part of the house, where the baby can be in a pop-up bed or Moses basket nearby and put the desired toy next to the sleeping infant—they all sleep for about three days before becoming milk vampires, remember?  You need to be sitting and comfortable like nothing unusual is going on.  As your older child enters, take him into your arms for a big hug and ask him if he had fun at the park. (Don’t ask if he missed you—of course he did--that is bringing up a negative—we are only being positive).  He answers yes and tells you that he missed you and you say nonchalantly, “I’m back.  I’m so glad to see you,” smooch, smooch, ear nibbles, zerbert his neck, as if he just came home from school.  No biggie.  As you chat about the park, he will see the baby and the toy and connect the two as both positives.  You tell him that the toy is from his baby sister to him, because she is so glad to have him as her big brother.  It is imperative that he hears this said clearly and only once (if you repeat yourself, he starts to feel like you are hammering the point and won’t believe you—little kids are more intuitive than we give them credit for being).

     In the next few weeks, NEVER ask what he thinks about the baby or if he likes the baby, he does not have enough information or words to express it yet.  When he has an opinion, you’ll know it.  Life changes and it is a good idea to prepare children, but with toddlers, it is best not to discuss something to death.  The less you draw attention to the new baby, the more comfortable they will be with the baby.

     “Well, it would have been helpful to know that one five years ago.  My kids are 5 and 8 and fight constantly. Now what do I do?”  The answer: nothing.

Yep.  Here is another Mama Bubble for you to draw around yourself:

     When the children come screaming for you because the little one took the big one’s juice box or the big one called the little one a “baby,” your new answer is, “Go work it out.  I was not there.  I do not need to know.  Go back to the playroom.  No hitting.”

     How often do you file a complaint in court?  Probably never is pretty close to the truth.  If you have a problem with someone, do you always need a mediator?  No.  Children will never learn hold their own against the world if they do not have the wherewithal to do it within their own four walls.

     Since mine were old enough to argue, we have sent them into a neutral location to have it out.  The only rule was that they could not hit each other.  Listening to how they learned to explain and compromise their way through a dispute  has become kind of an event.  I do listen from the other room and occasionally, after a few hours have passed and tempers have settled, give a critique of their performance and ask how they could have avoided the confrontation.

     Time to throw my own kids under the bus: My youngest daughter (kiddo #3) has the nickname “Ferret.”  If anyone in the house is missing something (tape dispenser, markers, socks, makeup brushes, etc…) it has most likely been ferreted up the stairs to her room and is neatly organized on a shelf in Ferret’s room.  She “stores” anything that does not have a specific person’s name on it, happy to share, but she likes having the stuff in her room.  Where there are three of the same sex in one family, the third daughter always seems to come up with an interesting role for herself.  Daughter #2, aka “Tech Girl” (loves gadgets) was missing her labeler.  No one in the house had seen the item, so the first place TG looked was in Ferret’s room and guess what?  Yep—displayed beside a coffee mug containing every missing pencil in the house was the pilfered item. 

     Ah-HA!  TG pounced, bellowing at Ferret at such length and volume that the dog sought his hiding place under the kitchen table and I had to pause so that I could monitor the show.  Ferret raged back, arguing that it was left on the floor no question this part is true and the dog had been chewing it, so she took it from him to save it, besides the finders-keepers rule overrides personal property law if left for an extended length of time.  Boo-yahh!  A few moments later, the labeler was returned to its original owner along with the insulting suggestion from her four-years-younger sibling that she take better care of her things.  Doors slammed all over the upstairs, but in twenty minutes, both were downstairs on the sofa, laughing at Wipeout and sharing a bowl of popcorn.  Since then, the labeler has been used by not only Ferret, but the other kiddos, too.  They learn.  Occasionally one will slip and come tattling, but no one comes to seek my help.  They don’t need it and I’m not helpful.  I laugh.  I think it’s hysterically funny and take notes for future novels, so they may as well handle it themselves without getting abused by my teasing.

     When you first implement this change, your children will not like this.  They will try desperately to get you on their side, pulling out every memorable infraction the other child has committed.  They will accuse you of not caring.  Give them the death stare, then dismiss them from your space.

     Having children capable of sharing is one of those pinnacle goals that practice over time will yield.   As mamas, a large part of our job is allowing our kids to fail where it is safe, so they can have success when we are not there to zerbert their necks.