How to deal with jealousy? Tips from the editorial team
«Do you wait until blood flows?»
As the father of two early pubescent children (12 and 10), I watch with fascination - and sometimes bewilderment - how siblings manage to get into each other's hair on a daily basis. Writing everything down would fill pages. The constant rivalry between the two of them, this constant vying for attention often brings my wife and I to the brink of despair. And the question of how to behave properly as parents. Do you let child 1 get away with it when child 2 repeatedly calls him stupid? What do you do when child 1 and child 2 argue for minutes about who gets which pillow when you read to them? Do you leave the room, do you intervene? Or do you wait until blood flows?
I have - and I'm happy to admit this - longed for our «Jealousy» dossier a little. I was hoping for answers to questions such as «How much competition should parents allow?», «Can parents unconsciously encourage jealousy between children?» or «Does rivalry between children eventually grow out of control?».
And you know what? I was not disappointed.
How parents treat their children in everyday life, whether they allow competition, favour one child or ensure fair and equitable treatment for all, whether they assign fixed roles to everyone within the family or encourage flexibility - all of this influences the relationship between siblings.
A comforting statement for me comes from the social pedagogue and supervisor Katalin Nef: «It's normal for children to compete with each other. Competition helps you to get ahead. Healthy competition is a skill that we need to survive.»
So the next time child 1 argues with child 2 about who gets to sit in the front of the car, I look at things differently: it's not just an argument - it's about evolution!
More anecdotes from the editorial team and publishing house in short form:
«Scolding or talking well: nothing helped»
As an only child mum, I am not confronted with sibling rivalry. However, as the eldest of a trio of siblings, I am very familiar with the subject. My sister's jealousy attacks on the youngest of the bunch are now - 30 years later - a permanent fixture in our repertoire of humorous family anecdotes. My sister was not at all happy about the fact that ten months after her birth, a new addition had joined the family nest.
While I was at nursery and therefore busy elsewhere, she didn't feel like sharing my mum's attention. And did her best to get rid of the unloved bundle of joy: When my brother started crawling, she secretly opened the front door and put him on the landing of a staircase, where he was discovered just in time. The same thing happened in the kitchen: my mother left the room briefly, my sister took advantage of the moment and led my brother to the oven - and pressed his hand against the hot glass pane. When nobody was looking on trips in the twin buggy, she would pinch the little one under the blanket or stick her finger in his eye under the protection of the awning. My parents tried either scolding or persuading her: nothing helped.
In the end, it was my brother himself who ushered in a new era by putting a bucket on our sister in the sandpit. From then on, the two of them grew together bit by bit to become what they were at school: one heart and one soul.
