Managing sibling rivalry among children2
With a rather maddening rush, Bolu ran out of her parents’ large home with tears streaming down her eyes. As the third girl in a family of four, Bolu has been at logger head for many years with her younger sister because she’s their parents’ favourite. And as she hurriedly walked along the pathway, she vowed never to return to a home where her younger sister was the preferred.
Experts on family issues say favouritism is one of the major causes of sibling rivalry although many parents will not agree with that nomenclature yet it is favouritism because parents fall into the pattern of favouring one child over the other.
“Sibling rivalry is a normal healthy part of life,” says Bimbo Tomoloju, a family counsellor and psychologist. Parents have to really dig into their own feelings to know whether they favour one child over another. For instance, a parent may probably like the child who is more docile, easy going, and compliant; than the one who is more withdrawn or rebellious. Parents have to work with their feelings first and make themselves feel as much for the disfavoured child as they do with the favoured one.”
The disfavoured child in the family, like Bolu, will have difficulty in dealing with her feeling of being a failure, or of holding a lesser position and status with the prime parent than her favoured sister. That is the crux of her pain. Therefore, Tomoloju advises that parents can address that pain by giving their children the respect and attention on the same level as they give to the favoured child. “A parent must heal and soothe her children for them to come around better. So, the parent really has to work with herself. It’s not an easy task. But, the children do come around, and when they come around, the parent gains more leverage because the children begin to love her better. And, for the sake of loving you, they perform and behave better. It’s when there’s love that there is leverage developed and on that leverage the parent can start to work,” says Tomoloju.
As a child psychologists and a parent, Samson Amole observes that favouritism has never been looked upon as a serious issue in personality development but after his education, he realised that his knowledge which was steeped in Freudianism and in behavioural theory; and with the children that he was raising, he couldn’t use any of the techniques that he had learned in school to apply to reality.
Hence experience has taught him that there was some kind of deeper conflict that was going on between children that had never been explained before in his psychological studies and for which he could find no reason. “Just as there are two parents in a family, one being the more giving and easy-going and warm, and the other being more demanding, probably more disciplining, and perhaps more detached.
The same way there are children with divergent personality types, one being the more relaxed, easy-going, compliant and likable child to the parents, and one being less easy to like, either diverting their behaviour into angry modes or anxiety-ridden modes of behaviour or depressive modes of behaviour. And I call the child who is more compliant and easy going the favoured one, because adults tend to like those characteristics better, and the one who is more angry, anxious and depressed as the disfavoured child. And that’ never been done before in psychology, ” he explains.
Bankole Adigun, an educationist says parents must learn to treat children individually rather than equally according to their needs.
Keep your children’s individual needs in mind and determine what is needed to promote cooperation. You can help to change their mood by playing soothing music or taking time out to read a story. Avoid making comparisons between one child and the other as it promotes competition.”
FUNKE OSAE-BROWN