Blast From the Past: Q. We have two daughters, ages 3 and 17 months. At first, the older child seemed to accept the younger one, and things went well between them. Within the past few months, however, an often-intense rivalry has begun to develop. While its often hard to tell who started something, the 3-year-old clearly uses her physical superiority to her advantage. When they get into a scrap, it usually involves a toy. The older one knocks the baby down, snatches things away from her, and has even hit her on a couple of occasions. We dont want to be constantly reprimanding the 3-year-old, but we feel we have to do something when these altercations occur. Can you give us some guidelines concerning when and how to intervene? A. The older the baby gets, the more assertive and territorial she will become. In turn, the more she will conflict with her older sister, who has no sense of fair play and will use whatever means she can to prevent from being bested by the new kid in town. Youre going to have to live with their scrapping and squawking until the younger one develops a better capacity for give-and-take, which wont happen for another couple of years, at best. In the meantime, I can give you three bits of advice: + Intervene as little as possible in their altercations. It goes almost without saying that you have to get involved when the baby is in danger of getting hurt. You might also need to intervene if conflict occurs in an inappropriate situation, such as when you have guests, or gets grossly out of hand and extremely disruptive. But if they manage to contain their conflict to their rooms and it doesnt sound as though someone is getting mangled, then stay out of it. + When you have to get involved, do so in a way that doesnt assign blame to either of the girls. Dont concern yourself with who started or who did what to whom. Separate them, send them to their respective rooms, take the toy-of-dispute away, but in a manner that effectively says, I am holding you both responsible for this problem. Although its probably true, for now at least, that the 3-year-old is more at fault than the baby, if you fall into the habit of assigning the roles of villain and victim to the children, you will inadvertently create ideal conditions for never-ending and ever-escalating sibling rivalry. Furthermore, as the children get older, they will begin competing for the privilege of being the victim. In effect, therefore, parents who become over- involved in their childrens squabbles are actually training them to act like victims in conflict situations. So, maintain as much distance, both physically and emotionally, as you can from their battles. + Hang in there. This, too, will pass. [Originally printed 12/8/1985; Copyright 1985 John K. Rosemond]
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 14:05:47 +0000
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