Jealousy in siblings is relatively common and normal in childhood, this is an important issue and often worries parents, as the older brother seems to feel that another child is taking his place. Suddenly, a little brother wins, he’s no longer the king of the house. Now you have to share the throne with someone who seems to claim more attention, with someone who collects many looks and smiles. Someone you’re going to start comparing yourself to?
This situation in which the child no longer occupies this place where he was happy and felt safe, ends up generating fear, fear of losing a privileged place. A place where everyone looked at her, protected her, loved her, yet it seems that this love (already fully established and safe) is threatened.
- The dethroned child’s mind thinks of something like.
- “I’m no longer important to my parents!I also want to get the attention you get?!That’s why these endless battles are starting to attract attention I’ve received before.
- An attention that must now be shared.
The dethroned child is frustrated and helpless. Your mind whispers messages of fear, and sometimes somewhat catastrophic messages, all have to do with your survival: your love no longer surrenders, it is not worthy of the love you have received, now you will have to fight for that love. You will have to do something to recover the same kind of affection and attention that you have received without any effort.
These jealousy between siblings usually go away as children grow up. The problem arises when these rationally logical jealousy continues and intensifies over time.
In this case, there are other variables at play and parents should be careful, this feeling cannot be minimized and should be watched carefully, parents often end up paying more attention to the jealous child, but that is not enough for them. acts in this way to continue to benefit some “privileges” that you might not otherwise be able to do easily.
It is important to understand that each case is unique and has its own peculiarities, there are children who already have a certain predisposition to jealousy, for others, do these episodes of anger (of the new brother) develop only in this particular situation? Or Are there births that coincide or trigger a series of emotional disorders in the parents? Each family and its situation are unique.
Being each unique case, it is necessary to understand the origin of these jealousy among the brothers, who can reflect the personality of the child or the emotional style of the parents, can the jealousy between brothers also reflect the emotional moment through which the family goes, the moment when the new birth occurred?place?Etc.
If we can understand how our dethroned child suffers, we will be able to understand him better and act calmly, the child has his own emotions and is also worthy and worthy of respect, regardless of his age, we cannot allow these conflicting emotions to generate more suffering and family chaos than they already generate.
The episodes of anger against the younger brother must be resolved: talk a lot with the older brother, if this hand is resolved, the next time you punish him, but always explaining why you have to be careful and approve the positive behaviors that your son shows. All cooperative and confident behavior must be recognized, valued and strengthened, in most cases this is what the child needs: to feel safe, to have confidence in himself and in his immediate environment.
Highly variable and unstable environments end up creating chaos in a child’s emotional development, so, as far as possible, healthy environments need to be created where children feel protected and protected from their parents’ care. Children usually learn from the example of adults.
Therefore, it is very important to teach our children values that they can use in their interactions with others: positive values such as solidarity or joy, rather than perceiving the achievements of angry and jealous people, seeing them as something that does not affect their safety will help our child see the reality of another color. A cleaner reality will be healthy for your emotional development, thus avoiding the appearance of jealousy among the brothers.
The child will find it difficult to rejoice in his brother’s success, if he perceives in his parents’ attitude a rejection of achievements or good news in relation to others.
The child will feel safer in an environment where his qualities are valued, than in an environment where his defects are constantly reported. It would be a form of “positive” education, in which we applaud healthy behaviors and try to extinguish those that are least adaptive and most disturbing.
Have you ever been jealous among brothers in the family?How did you deal with that?