Sibling's birthday jealousy

seeker

Sun, Sep 28 2014, 12:59 am

Worrying about this preemptively and would like to know how others handle the situation if it happens...
DD #2 birthday (turning 2) is coming up very soon.
DD #1 birthday (turning 4) is over a month less soon, meaning she has not had a birthday in quite a long time but still has a while to wait.

DD-turning-4 is going through something of a covetous phase. She sees what everyone else has, wants it, I am assuming/hoping this is pretty normal and will eventually pass as she matures in the general context of a stable life... but I'm anticipating that she will probably be very jealous of the attention and gifts that her 2-year-old sister will be getting. I don't think it would be appropriate to deprive the younger one or call off all birthday parties for this reason. I will certainly be including DD#1 in preparations and festivities so she doesn't feel left out but it wouldn't be fair to ask visiting relatives to give equal attention to both kids on one's birthday. The birthday girl (turning 2) doesn't necessarily really understand what birthdays are about but she surely picks up on how DD#1 generally gets the lion's share of attention and I think she deserves her day.

Any tips for how to navigate this situation, both re. birthday traditions as well as generally dealing with DD-turning-4's jealous tendencies?

imasinger

Sun, Sep 28 2014, 3:48 am

It's great that you have time to plan your approach.

What if you did a 3 month calendar project with both kids, with lots of stickers for decorating? That way, you have a visual with all of yt, and both birthdays. You can point out to the older one how many days there are between events. You can ask them to help you plan some aspect of each (sukkah decorating, favorite shabbos treat, birthday party).

That way, the older one can have a visual that her wait is not endless.

You can do games to build patience, timing ODD on how long she waits before touching a game or treat (start with 30 seconds and build, offering a significant reward for waiting) and developing an arsenal of strategies (different forms of distraction, visual reminders of the bigger reward, covering the temptation) to help with the wait.

You can make up a story of how the torah was jealous of the sukkah and had to wait its turn, and maybe throw in some humor and a few real life examples of behavior. Tell it a few times. Then, as DD2's birthday approaches, remind DD1 how she wouldn't want to be silly like that.

As the birthdays approach, offer some aspect (more kids at party, getting to choose design on cake, whatever) that is special for bigger girls only. Also, give her a job for YDD's party. Maybe she can be in charge of cleaning up all the wrapping paper, or serving juice?

Then, if/when ODD acts out, remind her that the wait is not long, she has the skill to do it, and you are so proud of her.

seeker

Sun, Sep 28 2014, 4:22 am

It's not a patience thing. She happens to be EXTREMELY patient. She can wait a long time for what she wants. For example, while out shopping on a hot day and she was behaving great and I had told her we could go to the ice cream store as a treat - things were taking longer (and hotter and more tiring) than I'd thought so I offered her the choice of getting any treat she wanted from the supermarket or waiting indefinitely until we could hit the ice cream store. She chose to wait and did so with very minimal pestering through a couple of other hot tiring errands because she knew she would rather have the store ice cream. I myself would probably never have had that kind of patience. She is really good. But she still seems to have this deep sadness when other people have something she doesn't have, even if she has something else instead. She is always looking at other people's toys and saying to me in a hinting sort of way "So and so has more/better than me" and I usually respond with something like "Yes, it sure is fun to come play with Sara's toys. We're lucky to have such fun friends, and we also have lots of great toys, a different day she can come to us and play with your [current favorite toy]" and she still gives this little sigh and says something like "Maybe for my birthday you can get me that" and usually it's the kind of thing that I probably won't, but I say "Hm, we see lots of nice things that would make good birthday presents, so let's give it some time and we'll talk about it before your birthday." which usually satisfies her, but still I know she is constantly looking at everything everyone else has and wishing she has it.

I generally live frugally and simply and in a very small space, but I try really hard to make sure my kids aren't lacking anything and I feel sad that she seems to feel like everyone else always has better than she has. I try to make sure my kids feel confident that they will always have what they need and in moderation what they want, and I thought this would make them have healthy outlooks and not always be looking at the next person, but I guess they're still really young and maybe I haven't flopped at this yet... They have a nice selection of toys and games, I get them new things from time to time, and little treats like stickers and the like pretty frequently. I also try to emphasize quality time and having good experiences together, we take little trips, etc. They didn't get much new clothes for yomtov just now but I made a point of getting them new headbands and hair bows and some special food treats. New shoes are going to be the big Sukkos treat. I try to eat healthy, but we do dessert on Shabbos and yom tov after they eat healthy foods. And I'm not rigid about it, if they're really just not hungry and have been good I'll spring for dessert anyway. I give a decent but child-appropriate sized portion but limit it to one portion, that way they get a decent amount but they don't get into the habit of taking more and more. We were together with a different family whose parents are much more, um, permissive and I saw my ODD having finished her child-appropriate piece of cake ogling the kids around her helping themselves to multiple, giant pieces of cake. She was just watching with these big wide eyes, knowing I was nearby she wouldn't do it herself, and knowing our general family policies didn't bother asking to, but she kept kind of sneaking the crumbs that were sprinkling from the person next to her as he grabbed like an animal. And I just have no clue where I went wrong that my kid is the most aidel person at the table but seems kinda sad and deprived shnorring crumbs from the next person.

OK I have totally gone off on a major tangent here but it's all kind of tied together in the theme of how can you raise kids to be happy with what they have. This is only going to continue because even without being super frugal there are kids in DD's social sphere who have a larger lifestyle than I would even want to aspire to if I could afford it - like even if money were no object I still think an appropriate birthday celebration for a 5-year-old is something along the lines of sending cupcakes to school, while some people in my community invite half the world, get dressed up, have a theme, hire a professional entertainer, and a custom made 4-layer cake. I can see the fun in it if that's your thing and I have no taynos on the people who do that except that I ain't doing it no way and I feel silly about my child getting these ideas in the first place. She will be in the vast majority of kids NOT having that kind of affair but still, I can see she's the kind of kid who will spend a lot of emotion wishing she were the one in the princess gown with the fancy cake and trillion toys even as it's not the expectation (which 4-year-old wouldn't?)

So this has come a long way from sibling jealousy, which remains a big issue in our home, but this is something that's been on my mind lately anyway.

RachelEve14

Sun, Sep 28 2014, 11:17 am

No specific advice but we have the same issue. My twins are 3 weeks before their younger brother, and my 3rd dd has to wait a whole 4 - 5 months after all the birthday excitement for her own special day. And now I have one a month after her birthday, but he was too little to notice this year. Probably next year. We do lots of talking about what is coming, and I do a lot of empathetic listening that time of the year. Wow it's hard for you. First twins birthday. Then AT's, and you have to wait through Purim, Pesach, Lag b'Omer, Shavuot before it's even getting close to yours. We talk about it A LOT (in fact my twins are talking about their birthday already, and it's months off), and a lot of talking how each person gets what he or she needs, and it's okay to ask for wants too but everyone in the family will get what he or she needs. Oh, and all the time the "next" birthday who is coming. And about poor Abba who has the last one of the year (23 Elul).

I don't think I offered you any real advice, but I wanted to let you know you are not alone.