By Shaheen Merali and Kate Orson Sibling rivalry is an inevitable challenge of raising more than one child. No matter what the age difference or personalities of the children, sooner or later, every child with siblings gets upset with their brother or sister. But don’t fret and think this is a sign of how it
How long can we simply BE with our children, lighting the way to reconnection, without rushing to solve “the problem”? My daughter and her friend were playing well one day until they both wanted the same blue scarf. They came to me for help, their voices raised, as they both desired to be heard. I
My three-year-old and I had a Special Time during my older son’s piano lesson. When it ended and was time to pick my older son up, my younger son asked if he could get stickers also. His brother gets stickers at the end of a piano lesson. I said casually, “Okay let’s go in and
My 3-year old son and his slightly younger friend had a play date at our house. There was a bowl with a snack roll in it made of grains and fruit. Frank picked a muesli roll, as he was hungry. My son wanted to follow his lead and picked what happened to be the last
I have been working on how to wait when someone else has something my son wants. It all started with hoping to teach my son how to share and play with other kids without my son hitting. Someone would have something he wanted or other way around. So, I have learned to stay close to help him during these times and hold the limit.
After I had my daughter I didn’t know whether I wanted to have a second child. I didn’t really understand the benefits of having a sibling.
After about 10 minutes, my husband came in and said, ‘how do you know you’re not hurting them or making things worse?’ I had to shout over their wailing that we were on the right track and even predicted that, at the end of all this, one sister would genuinely give the toy to the other.
As soon as another child would begin playing with a toy, he would come over and either hit the child or grab the toy away.
Our children need us to be open to the intensity and the power of the feelings they are having. They need us to fully hear how hard it is.
Our older son tore it out of his brother’s hands and said that he was playing with it.
She took in my answer, and began to scream.
“Hey, Mom! I can spell ‘because’… and ‘sometimes’…”