You are on the phone and you cannot hear yourself talk because your little one just needs attention to share something with you in a very loud manner. Or you need to change the younger child and the elder does all it can to keep in the centre of your attention? Even this has a solution.
Your little one can be jealous of a sibling and fights for your attention in a way that can harm the other child. It wants to be first at everything, have bigger piece of chocolate….
Where is the attention problem?
A child should be sure of parent’s attention. So when it wants something of you, you as parent should turn to him, kneel down maybe, so the child feels that the parent pays full attention to it and he or she really listens. If parents have more than one child it should be stated that if one speak it will have his turn and after that the other can speak.
Parent should also consider if he or she does not really favour one child over the other. It can increase the rivalry among them.
If an actual fight happened among kids the parent shall teach them rights and wrongs. He or she should teach them how to ask for things in polite manner, how to listen to each other, how not to attack each other. They should also learn how to apologise to each other.
The sibling’s battle
It is an absolutely common phenomenon in all families. It would be wonderful if sibling would not provoke each other or wouldn’t steel each other’s toys. Best model to prevent these fights lies obviously with parents.
If one of the kids has higher gear of action, he is very able to get what he wants; he is actually better set for life. He probably won’t get lost in the world. But we should also teach them to be considerate towards others and also to step down sometimes or even give way to others.
These are all important precondition to fit in society of peers at school or nursery. Children that are able to communicate about a specific matter are more accepted by others and are also able to make friends easily.
Giving in
A child whose nature is to willingly give everything away and is over run by others should be taught to consider if it is ok with him to do so.
If he feels that he is the only one always giving in and feels that that is not right for the sibling’s constellation he should learn from a parent how to approach the other child to tell him that he is not ready to share his toy and to invite the other child to play together.
In this sibling coexistence a child is learning to co-operate, to share the attention, to be patient or to express if he is happy or not.
