Being the
youngest of seven children, one would think I could write an entire book on
sibling rivalry but alas, I cannot. I have little to no experience on the
matter. My youngest sibling, my brother, is five years older than I and
he is amazing in that he basically catered to my every whim. After a
particularly brutal battle with his little sister, my son asked my brother,
"Uncle Dave, did you fight with my mom like this when you were our
age?" To which my brother replied, "No, we pretty much had to stick
together." Sad but true. A good childhood is no preparation
for life and idle hands lead to nothing better to do than stir up trouble with
your sibling.
When my
daughter came into this world, I prided myself in all the thorough
consideration I gave to the possibility that my son could feel displaced.
We rented books from the library, (Darcy and
Gran Don't Like Babies, I'm a Big Brother) we talked a lot, we took the
crib down way before she was born and let my son sleep in a cool tent in his
room because he was such a big kid at 2 1/2 years old. I never so much
asked him to get me a diaper for his sister. It was very important to me
that he not feel like a servant to his little sister. Then one day after a
particularly rough episode of rebellion, my son actually said he felt like he
was being replaced. I told him that was ridiculous and he was just
repeating what he heard on Arthur. I mean, seriously, we had a second
child for him. It was, in our eyes, a gift. I usually do encourage our
children to be verbal with all their thoughts, feelings, and concerns. It
is important to me that their feelings are validated at every level but for the
life of me, I was so sick of this bickering and was so tired of it all!
Nothing worked: I involved, ignored, and separated them, I forced them to
work it out, forced them to hug, forced them to say sorry when all they wanted
to do was stab the other with a dull rusty blade. I yelled, cried,
pleaded, explained, and encouraged them to work it out on their own. I
was confused, stressed, and worried that these two loves of my life would grow
up hating each other.
Then one
day, it happened, the clue we didn't know we were searching for. The
epiphany! We let our daughter do something we never had before: We
let her use the toaster. The horror! You would have thought we let
her handle plutonium! Our son was so uncomfortable, insisting that we let
him help her. He could not settle himself, could not let it go, and
basically treated the situation as if we were the worst parents in the world
for letting her work such a complicated piece of machinery. I mean
really, will they just let anyone be parents? Who is running this ship
anyway?!?!
After the
children went to bed. This is an hour long process that I will discuss in
another post. My husband and I discussed, at length, how bizarre we found our
son's behavior and came to the conclusion that this kid worries incessantly about
his sister and wants to control her every move. This ultimately drives
her completely bonkers to the point that she wants to strangle him. That
and she is human, seven years old, and does not have the tools to tell him to
#$%& off in a healthy manner.
The new
day... We asked the kids if they thought this might be the case: Brother
trying to "help" but coming off as controlling. Sister,
sensitive, but capable, and tired of his bossiness. They agreed. We
discussed some healthy words to use, (please, space, thanks but I can handle
it) some behaviors to incorporate such as walking away, counting to three
before demanding a response, and please please please don't whine, and keep
your hands to yourself. We are doing well and feel like we are on the
right track. My son is type A, he is not going to change much in that
department. My daughter is frustratingly stubborn, I don't know what type
that is but I don't see her changing much either. They still argue about
who sits where and who goes through the door first. It is their lot in
life. I only hope that because they have each other, they will be more
apt to navigate the choppy waters of interpersonal relationships in their life
with a little more patience and dignity.
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| Ahhh, good times. Now that I think of it, he was telling her which ride they should go on first... |
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