Before I start this post, I want to say a big 'Thank you' to everyone who read my post last week and made it my most succesful post to date. I had no idea that it would hit off like that, or that people were even interested in the topic. Therefor a heartfelt Thank you!. I'm glad you liked my post and I hope that I won't disappoint you. Feel free to come with suggestions and questions or even just ideas for future posts.
Raising a child (or more) is like . . . . . No! There's nothing like raising a child!!!
In this post I want to deal with something very natural and also very difficult. It can be very rewarding and fulfilling if you deal with it properly, but if you do it wrong, it comes back to bite you in the *ss.
Jealousy
I think this is probably one of the most difficult things to deal with as a parent. Jealousy is natural, if we didn't have jealousy in the world, a lot of problems wouldn't exist. Let's be honest, even adults still suffer from this. My neighboor has a Tesla, I want one. My brother has bought a 4 bedroom house with a large garden in a well respected neighboorhood, I need that as well. My rich uncle in the Bahamas bought 1000 Bitcoins in 2009 .... well you get the point.
Jealousy is natural and it is still part of us.
What I find the most difficult aspect of dealing with jealousy is agreeing with my wife on an approach. My wife is of the opinion that it's normal that kids are jealous and that you should leave it, only when it gets out of hand, you should step in. I am of the opinion that jealousy should be addressed, now it's on a small scale, but the kids are still small. What will happen when they're older?
The Times today
or even worse:
ABC's Eyewitness News on Friday 24th November (not caused by Black Friday 😉)
A simple example my daughter gave us last Friday. My parents in law bought my daughter new curtains with the characters of the Disney movie Frozen on them. To compensate this, they bought my son a stuffed animal, a Husky-dog. My son is too young to be jealous, so I guess this was more to make themselves feel good about spoiling my daughter. My daughter loves the curtains, but it's not as tangible as the dog. After a while I noticed her walking around with the dog and I took it from her and tried to explain to her that it wasn't hers. Obviously this didn't go very well, as the damage was done. The presents were unbalanced and she obviously felt that she was in a disadvantage, as much as I tried to explain and calm her down. This was still too much for her to understand.
There are a few lesson I have learnt from this:
- When you want to give a present to your children, make them equally meaningful
- When a child is not happy about the present they receive, make them swap for something that both are willing to give away
- As parents stick together and be consistent
- If you spoil one child, do it when the other is not around, but also treat the other when the first isn't around
A very good example of 2 presents not being equally meaningful, but also 2 kids not being treated equally
Another cause for friction is wanting to play with the toy that the sibling/friend is playing with or the other person receiving attention (despite them just having had 1-on-1 attention). Here I come back to my first post about how I educate my children. Both children/kids deserve equal shares and it's important to try and balance this out all the time ... which is impossible.
When one child does feel disadvantaged and starts taking toys away, whilst the other is playing with it, or worse behaves violently, I go to the punishment stages. It's important to keep communicating with the child, explain them what they do wrong and warn them. I described this process in my first post here.
The best way to treat jealousy is by taking the cause away altogether. So sometimes I take my daughter out on walks or try and spend quality 1-on-1 time with her, away from her little brother. That way she's not distracted by what he does and she gets your full attention. I also praise her when she shares toys or helps him when she is nice to her little brother.
The most important aspect is to reward good behaviour, that way she will try and copy that and hopefully you as a parent have one less problem to deal with. But remember, jealousy can not be eradicated!
Doron