This picture is captioned “I used to be the little one.” If you have more than one child or you have siblings, I’m guessing you can relate to at least one of the girls in this picture. I’ve noticed my older son sometimes gets jealous when I give attention to other adults, while my younger son only gets jealous of my attention toward other kids (especially his big brother!). Sometimes he’ll actually push his brother out of the way and say, “She’s my mom, not yours.”
I was one of four children, and what that meant is that you had to do something REALLY good or REALLY bad to get any parental attention focused solely on you. Sometimes that was a blessing. I liked not having to be the only one to take the heat when household objects disappeared or got broken. Even though my brothers annoyed me, spied on me, and took things from my room, I liked the feeling of being in a “pack.” Anywhere we went, there was always a pile of us. I rarely spent time alone. An important part of my identity is being a sister.
On the other hand, it may have been good to learn early on that I wasn’t the center of the world, but sometimes I wanted to be, and that wasn’t going to happen with three younger siblings. I rarely knew what it was like for the house to be quiet. Sometimes we all got in trouble when my parents didn’t feel like parsing out who did what to whom. At the time, it seemed so unfair, but I find myself doing the same thing when my kids argue now.
I try to spend some time with both of my kids separately. I try not to compare them to each other. They may look alike, but they have very different personalities. I even motivate and discipline them differently, based on what works for them. What do you do to handle sibling rivalry in your household?
[photo source: http://failblog.cheezburger.com/parenting]
If you’re interested in reading more about family, please check out my novel, Giving Myself Away.
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Grete DeAngelo 