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One dd "hates" her younger sister
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I have 4 children, 3 girls and a boy. My 2nd and 3rd dd’s are mortal enemies, it seems. 🙁 The 3yo adores her 5yo sister, but they have similar personalities. The 5yo can play nicely with her sister, but most of the time, if she so much as touches her, it’s the end of the world. How can we overcome this? She will not sit next to 3yo, she goes out of her way to hit 3yo if she so much as passes by her, she won’t even eat unless 3yo is sitting far away from her. What can I do about this? We have tried having discussions about listening to the devil vs. Jesus (her understanding and words), and even though I speak right away about “who are you listening to?” “who is sad right now?” etc, by that time, she doesn’t care and is mad as a mama bear. And she breaks into the tantrum almost immediately. It’s very difficult to predict when she will play nicely and when she will attack. Any ideas? I haven’t gotten CM’s book yet, so I don’t even really know what habit this is that needs to be retrained. Help!
Ok, not sure of any CM advice…. but
it sounds like your 5yo is still jeleous of the 3yo’s existance. I’d recommend the book “Siblings without Rivalry” – a book I need to reread I think! lol
Just a couple of things to keep in mind – at this point I wouldn’t let the 2 girls be anywhere together without close supervision. A 5yo can really hurt a 3yo, without meaning to actually hurt her.
The feelings of your 5yo need to be validated and listened to. Right now she has a lot of ambivalent feelings (at the best) for the 3yo, and probably a lot of very hateful feelings because of the jealousy. These are actually pretty natural when you have a look at the situation. So far the messages she is hearing from you are that these natural feelings are bad, and that she is bad for having them – which will probably make her more angry, and more likely to act out.
Here is what I mean by taking a look at the situation. Of course I’m not saying that things happened exactly this way – but take a look at your feelings with this…….
Say your husband comes home and says something like “Honey, I have great news! I have enjoyed being your husband so much, I’ve decided to have another wife. She’ll be coming home in a month or so. You are going to love her so much and have a lot of fun with her. Don’t worry, I’ll still love you too, but I have enough love for every wife I bring home.” The month or so goes by, and your husband brings home his new wife. She is younger than you, and very cute. Your husband has a couple of parties where everyone gves the new wife gifts, and all the nearby friends and relatives keep dropping in to see the new wife. Most of these frineds and relatives don’t say a lot to you, except how lucky you are to have a younger new-wife in the family. You keep looking at this wife, but she just seems whiny and ugly to you, and doesn’t play with you or anything. You try to mention that you aren’t happy about it at all, and get told what a bad wife you are for thinking that way.
Now a year or so have gone by, and your husband says to you “You know that pretty dress of yours that you loved so much just doesn’t fit you anymore, so I’m giving it to the new wife.” “Oh and your laptop computer (ie, a toy) – you don’t use it much anymore and the new wife would just love to use it.” Later you go into your bedroom and the new wife has gotten into all your makup and broken most of them. Then you are finishing a 1000 piece puzzle that took you hours, and the new wife comes and messes it all up, and you just know inside she did it on purpose even though everyone around you says it was an accident….. and you get so upset you slap her! Now your husband is saying what a horrible person you are to hit the new wife and how she didn’t mean to do any harm – and of course that is after going and hugging and kissing the new wife to make sure that she is ok….
So now lets just look at it…… did you try and visualize all this? How would you feel? Would you like this New Wife person, even if she was really a nice person? And yes, you are adult enough to try to be Christian about it and not give into the feelings – but wouldn’t you be tempted to do things like little pokes when no-one is watching? Or (as is likely as the 5yo gets older) try to do things to get the new-wife in trouble? Wouldn’t you have feelings like she is a little goody-two-shoes, or a spoiled brat that always gets things her way?
Anyway – the one thing I really remember from the book I mentioned, is that if these types of emotions are there – there is only one way for them to go away – and that is for the child to get the opportunity to express them without judgement. Obviously not by hurting the other child – but in a safe way. This can take a while, but makes a huge difference.
The book has a LOT more info in it than this though…. it talks about things we do as parents that make sibling rivalry worse without even knowing it….. Things like setting up a role for each child, or setting up a specialty (ie so-and-so is the musical one, and so-and-so love gymnastics….) or worse comparing (Johnny always gets his room clean SO quickly….)
anyway, hope this gave you something to think on…..
Wow. You have answered my question perfectly. This is exactly what it is! I never thought it could be jealousy or sibling rivalry, but it is! Thank you so much! Now to figure out what to do about it. I will look for that book asap. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
A little motto that I tried to emphasize from the beginning might be helpful in the process, Sara B.:
Respect the older; protect the younger.
I loved the New Wife scenario. I giggled all the way through, but it made so much sense!
I did have a question though. Does your daughter only act that way with her sister or with others? I would say it’s totally jealousy if it’s only with the sister. But if it is with others too or only at certain times, you might want to check out food allergies–it made all the difference in our household.
Good luck!
Just a quick piece of advice from someone who has real experience of this. There was a 3 1/2 year age difference between myself and my sister – she was horribly resentful when I came along and throughout her life has had real difficulty with jealousy. Our relationship has never been good because of it, and I would hate for your daughters to experience what I have – it hurts me no end to know that just my existence has caused this problem. You may think that kids will grow out of such things, but trust me not all do, I still to this day have no real relationship with her, and so please nip this in the bud before it gets out of hand.
The new wife scenario was wonderful, I might print that off to show to others I know who are having this problem. I was giggling too (but inwardly becoming very resentful!)
@art: Yes, she is only this way toward her sister, no one else (except for regular little spats). She is great with her baby brother who just turned a year, even when he tries to mess up her stuff (well, OK, for the most part lol)
@Sonya, that is a great quote, I will have to write that down and keep it where I can see it.
You mentioned the 2 girls have similar personalities – and I do think that rivalry tends to be stronger with siblings with similar personalities.
Glad you all enjoyed the new-wife senario… I too giggled when I read it, but also could feel how upset and resentful the feelings that go along with it are. There is a senario like this in the book – I made mine up from remembering about how it went…. it might be very similar to the one in the book,or might only have a few similarities….
I do remember the whole bit about the dress not fitting anymore… which of course for an adult adds in an insult of “You are getting fat” – but for a kid could add in a “you aren’t as little and cute anymore”….
I too have a sister who is jealous of me. There is 6 yrs difference between us. I could never understand why she was this way until our older sister explained it to me.(recently, I might add!) She said since I was the baby of the family, I got a lot of attention. I was “cute” when she was not at the age of 12. (she really was-just not little girl cute) She had to be a “mother” to me. I got my way. She couldn’t do things she wanted to because my mom used me as an excuse. My older sister had told her-that wasn’t your sister’s fault (that would be me) you should not take it out on her. But here I am 41 and she still does not “like” me.
I have been kind and pleasant to her. Over the growing of her kids, I did things with them often. She just “tolerates” me.
I agree, nip it in the bud while you can!! It makes me very sad to not have a relationship with my sister.
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