Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Sibling worries aren't welcome here


“Your eldest sounds like a real character,” a new acquaintance said. “You’ll have to make sure she doesn’t dominate your second, though.”

And so began a discussion of how to manage the relationship of my two daughters. Not with me, mind you - this was taking place as I sat silently by, listening to the opinions of people who have mostly never even met my girls.

I don't know how I end up in situations like this. I always thought I was a closed book, maybe even a little bit scary (!), that no one would ever dare tell me what to do. (Those who know me sure don't.) Maybe I'm getting soft as I get older. Maybe I need to glare at people more.

Being the over-thinker that I am, I've read up on siblings. There are various theories, from "look after the older child first because the baby won't remember anyway" to "the older one needs to learn that the baby needs your attention most right now". I've watched other families manage multiple children and made mental notes about what might work for us. And from all of that Steve and I draw our own conclusions.

What we do here is remove any blanket rules about who is most important, and leave it all to the moment. Sometimes the baby will need me more, and that's something I explain to Abbey. Sometimes Iris has to wait for a minute while I finish something with Abbey, and she'll grow accustomed to that. Sometimes I need them both to leave me alone so I can shovel down some porridge in the morning, and they'd BETTER get used to that. (Practicing my scary mum glare here.)

I think that every child - every person - needs to know that sometimes they'll come first and other times they need to think about others first. I want my girls to know they're both equal to me, that they'll each have my time and attention and that while that might not be spread equally in a single day it certainly will be in the bigger picture.

As for dominance: I think it's a matter of giving each child the space and freedom to be themselves. To love them for who they each are, and to let them know that. To help others in their lives get to know their personalities. To give each the ability to be heard.

I don't want to get caught up in worries about how personalities might work together when it's irrelevant anyway. We're a family and I just want us to love and support each other... and have lots of fun along the way. Let's just focus on that.


6 comments:

  1. I love your thought on this, Megan. I guess while you can't control people having opinions about your family, you can control whether or not you listen to them. And i'm with you on needing to perfect the art of the glare - the sooner the better!

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  2. I agree. Each will need you at different times, sometimes at the same time. That's the deal with parenting isn't it?
    As for sibling issues. What will be will be. All I hope is that our girls create a bond that can never be broken. Surely all the fighting is doing that???

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  3. I totally agree Megan. You definitely need to work on your glare, I have mine down pat, to the point I get comments on it. Hahaha

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  4. I agree with you and recall doing the same with my four. I don't recall any sibling rivalry among them at all.

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  5. I loved your post and agree 100% with your logic. We have an 8 year old and a 2 week old baby and are facing those questions now. There are really a wide variety of opinions that are given to us, but we're taking it one day, one moment at a time and doing what we think is best.

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  6. This is the one area of parenting I have done no reading on whatsoever because I totally agree with you in every way. We are a family of big personalities. No one of us is a wallflower. It's an interesting dynamic to watch my two develop their sibling relationship and really, it's only happened in the last maybe 6 months that Mr 4.5 has paid any attention to Mr 1.5. I encourage them to be kind to one another but to a degree I leave them to fight their own battles too. I don't want to be coming in over the top of them all the time. They'll work it out and I'm sure they'll take it in turns to dominate the other too!!

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