My great-aunt taught 4th grade for more years than some people live. They kept calling her back to substitute when she was well up in her 80s. She had no children of her own, which I think allowed her to be more objective than some teachers, and of course she had a hands-on understanding of child development from decades of observation. Living in a small rural community, she taught the child, then her daughter, then her daughter.
She and I were talking about twins one day. I'm a twin, and when I was in school there was controversy about whether to "separate" twins or not.
"I would if it's a boy and girl twin," Aunt Louise said. "The girl's too far ahead. She mothers the little boy, talks for him, dresses him. I had one who tried to put her little brother down for his nap at naptime. It can be smothering."
I've seen this with siblings farther apart than twins, and I'm sure you have too. The Big Sister is very motherly to her little brother, fussing over him, talking for him, taking care of him as if he were hers. What do you think about this? I think that just like the big brother who protects his little brother on the playground, this can be both good and bad for the development of the little one, but the behavior itself is wonderful. It's what we want.
Should they be separated? Well, I would take each case individually. Sometimes you see a child so dominated by an older sibling they need to be put in another school, not just another classroom; but the real remedy is for the parents to bone up on their EQ and create a different scenario. You've got a garden there, and every plant must have room to grow.
The older sibling will always have a psychological advantage. Even when the younger is only younger by months, even if bigger and stronger, it's rare they aren't intimidated by the older one. Parents have to watch the relationship so it doesn't evolve into a permanent victim-perpetrator relationship. Family life should be a proving ground for healthy relationships built on mutual respect that treat both individual rights and group sensitivity, and favor assertiveness and nurturing support, not aggressive competition.
It is NOT true that you "need to learn how to fight" at home. What you need to learn is "how to get along." Look at the average 2 year old, and you will understand that you can take aggression for granted; we are born knowing hot to fight. But to have "not fighting" for a goal is neutral; it is asking for too little. The further step is to foster pro-social behavior. There's fighting. There's not fighting. Then there's helping one another, comforting, protecting, and working together as a team.
The vogue these days is co-sleeping. It's been found that siblings who sleep together get along better in the day time, just like big boys and big girls do. Why would you want to separate kids who were nurturing and close to one another? It's all too rare.
Well, if one of them was being stunted in their growth and actually handing over parts of their personality and functioning to the other child.
I admit to having a bias here, being the Big Sister of four. I find that men who are most comfortable in adult male-female relationships are men who have older sisters. Every relationship has its power issues and struggles. Men who have been "bossed around," were also "mothered," and so innately know they are two sides of the same coin, and come with caring and attachment. These caring behaviors need to be tempered, not attacked, or eliminated. At any rate these men have survived it, are familiar with it and not threatened by it. They had a lesson in childhood about "the way females are" and managed to take the good, avoid the bad, and learn how to tip it one way or the other.
One of the men I know who is most comfortable with women has a sister on either side, 3 years older, 3 years younger. Another one who is comfortable with everybody, had a sister 3 years younger and then the baby - a boy, 14 years younger. At 14 years of age, it was his job to get up with the newborn every other night. He is particularly adept with what I would call "adult temper tantrums," and with soothing distressed people.
However, is this good for the older, nurturing child? To a point. It can cause extreme anxiety if the child is really feeling responsible. When my granddaughter would start stressing about her baby brother's crying, her mom would said, "Hey, Meg. It's OK. He's my baby. You can go play." Baby brother is for loving and for looking after, but he's Mommy's responsibility.
Your position in your family of origin is unique, and there are advantages and disadvantages to them all. What matters is that warm relationships were fostered. Left to their own devices, without supervision, children in a group tend toward Lord of the Flies. The adage that we learn how to get along in the world by fighting with our siblings is incorrect. We learn how to get along in the world BY fighting, if that's what we had as a child. We learn aggression, passive-aggression, attack and defend, competition, put-downs, egocentric behavior and very little emotional intelligence.
If we had parents who modeled good emotional intelligence, teaching us about our own feelings and that others have them too, who taught positive conflict resolution, forbade put-downs, showed us how to comfort others and support them, we're better equipped for the world. We do not have to make it adversarial because when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
The key here is the supervision. It's a good idea to let kids solve little squabbles themselves, but with big squabble you must step in. The difference? Little squabbles are pushing, shoving, grabbing toys, and physical things. Big squabbles? Psychological warfare, domination, and put-downs. These you must stop immediately. If you turn your back, you are condoning it. It's not an option not to notice, or to not be aware.
There are things in life that are not fair, many of which cannot be addressed. You can't change that one child is beautiful and the other is not. You cannot change their IQs. You cannot make the younger one older, or the older one younger. But you can step in when need be, when one child, due to age, size and/or temperament is bullying the other. If you allow it continue, or brush it off as "the way it is," you are creating a victim and a bully. They will then carry this forward into their marriages and workplaces.
We learn how to get along at home. We learn how not to get along. We learn whether the world is basically benign or basically hostile at home. We bond with our siblings or are indifferent, and we bond either in love or in love/hate, i.e., the client who tell me, "I know he's abrasive, but she's my sister. I love her."
You are teaching these things whether you mean to or not, so learn as much as you can and make sure you're teaching what you intend to teach.
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