Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John-Payne. I've been thinking this week about conflict and difficulties that arise between very young siblings, particularly when there's a very little one in the house, you know, a six-month-old or up to sort of a year to 18 months. When a new little one arrives in a house and there's an older sibling, there's a chance to get this off on a good footing.
There's a trajectory that is set in those early years that is quite influential. It doesn't mean it can't be changed later on. Absolutely it doesn't.
But there is something in those earlier years that can be set up that is a really healthy direction. And what I mean by this in particular is that when a very young child, you know, they're six months, seven, eight months old, and they're learning to grasp things. And, you know, children this age are really good at grasping and holding onto things, aren't they? With that, you know, you put your finger in their hand and in their little palm and they grip it so tightly and giggle away.
It's that kind of reflex. And so they can, when they're of an age where they start gripping things and particularly when they start crawling and moving around, a lot of sibling issues can start to arise with if you have an older two, three, four-year-old who doesn't, in a sense, understand that their baby brother or sister is reaching out and grasping things and doesn't mean to take it for themselves. They're just exploring the world.
Now, you know, explaining that to a three-year-old is a whole bunch of philosophy, right? And you can say little things like, oh, you know, like baby Skylar just wants to feel that and she'll be giving it right back to you. For sure, if you're right there, you can do that if you're right on hand. And you can let the older child know that this is one of the first points I want to mention, is that baby is just exploring things and she'll be giving them, he'll be giving them right back to you.
And that you can stay right there at you, the adult, and of course, then you can try the whole replacement thing. We all know that, that we give baby, you know, another little object to hold. It might be a shell or a stone or another little toy, but we give baby that to hold before we take away what they wanted.
And you can really coach a child up to do that. I've seen several children very, very well coached, frankly, by their parents to always give to the other hand, to the child, and put the thing in the other hand and leave it in their hand and hold it and then move it around a little bit. So it creates a little bit of sensation on the baby's hand.
The baby then, because of the palmar reflex, that reflex will grasp it again. And the grasping of that reflex that will grasp the new object, let's say it's a dolly, will grasp the dolly or grasp the little toy. Their eyes naturally go to it, right? So the reflex comes first.
Well, the object is wiggled around in the palm of a child's hand. The child grasps it. Their eyes will look in that direction.
And then the grasp is much often, not always, but often then released from the object that they were holding that the older child wanted back. Do you see the sequence of events? But when they get a little older and there is a tussle, right? So let's say now the baby is one, 18 months, you know, one and a half years old. Then there's a little bit more consciousness behind it.
Then you've got your four-year-old, your three, four-year-old is going to, they're going to get into a tussle, right? They're going to be pushing and pulling and there's going to be screaming and there might be biting and all the kinds of things that are really tricky. Then you move in and you try and sort them out. And it's, it's tough.
One of the things that I find it's important to avoid doing is saying to an older child that they know better and that they shouldn't be doing that. A child will carry that for many years. If you speak to older children in families, the oldest, that's one of the things that they, many firstborns really carry into their adult years and, and didn't like it when they were told that.
One of the things that I'm, I found really helpful at that stage is actually to, to go to the younger child. And it's very important that the, the, the, the, the older one sees us as parents really, really helping the younger one give up the object, give up the toy that the older one was playing with. Maybe they were, they were playing with it.
The younger one now toddles up or, you know, if it's two years old, perhaps just walks up a little more firmly and just takes it and, and holds it above their head and won't give it back. And the, the older one is, is all, you know, set to bite or kick or scream. And it's, I find it very important to, to insert oneself into that kind of argument and really say, and address the little one, not always the older one, the bigger one and address the little one and, and, and, and understand and say, oh, oh, now that is a very nice big block that you're holding.
That is a big one. You show it to mom and be interested in what it is that they snatched away. In a sense, I call this the meet and move principle.
You meet a child where they're up to. That's that they were really wanting that block or that toy or that car or whatever it was. You meet them where they are.
That's a very big block that you have, or that's a lot of toys that you just took. And let me see what you have there. Is, is one of those your favorite? Now, meanwhile, the four year old is looking on, perhaps with, well, with very keen interest as to what's going to happen here, because she wants her toys back.
Now, if you do this repeatedly, an older one starts to trust that you'll work this out and they see that you're providing boundaries for the little one, that the, the bigger one's not the one that's always getting into trouble. So that, so now you've gone from that's interesting. What do you have there? Oh, and you're, you're, you're moving in close to a child and you've met them where they're up to.
And you'll say, well, soon and say this right out loud. If this feels natural to you soon, we're going to have to show that to Sophie because she was building with that. And I wonder what Sophie is going to build.
Sophie being the older child. I wonder what Sophie is going to build with that. Hmm.
Let's see. And so then the, and then now again, the replacement. Sophie, I wonder what you could give to Joshua now.
What is it that Joshua might like to play with? What do you think? And actually start engaging the older one in a little bit of, of that replacement dynamic. And she might then, and you can again, coach a child up to that. So she would say, well, I'm not going to use like, I'm not going to use like the really big truck until later on.
And so you can have that. Right. And kids genuinely can start to come on board with this because they understand that if they give up to the little one, something that they really weren't playing with much anyway.
And that you're going to get them the high value thing that you're right there and you're dealing with the little one. And that you're putting boundaries in place for the little one. Many, many, many parents have commented over the years, how kids will come on board with this.
And it becomes a way of problem solving that the older one, the bigger child really starts to understand after you've done that. And they've given the, the truck or the block or the toy that they weren't playing with very much. And they've given that to the little one.
And that they've, and then they've retrieved what they were playing with. Then it's important to turn to the older child and say to them, well done, love. That was really good.
You're getting so good at helping sort these situations out. And when things are going wrong, that was really good. Well done you.
And just have a little moment with the older one assuring her or him that you know it was good of them not to shout and scream. Where this is going eventually is that an older one will come and seek you out. If something's been snatched by a little one, rather than going at them, there's two things they'll do.
The most basic is they'll come and find you and say, mum, Joshie took the, and you know, took the block again. And, and then it's important that you recognize that the child is not telling anything to, to get anyone into trouble. She's really asking for help.
And then go along and then, you know, run the, run the whole system again. And say to the older child, that was really good, love. We sorted that out so quickly.
Well done you. The second more, I guess, higher order thing to look for is that kids will start doing this themselves. An older child sort of gets into the groove of this and will then find something else that they know their little brother or sister are interested in.
Give it to them. And almost like help them be able to give back what it was that they were going to hold on with, you know, for, for grim death. And in this way, the older child doesn't need to become bossy and controlling.
They don't need to go into that space where over and over they, they, they seem to be over controlling things. And then that sets up the, the younger one really having to stand their ground and defy the older one. And that can set up a relationship glitch that can last for years and years and years.
And kids get further and further apart when they're little, help them out with this kind of way of dealing with. Now there are all kinds of nuances to this. The examples I gave, of course, aren't the only, it doesn't go that way every single time, but it's the gesture of, of a parent giving a younger child a boundary just, and not just the older child expectations.
But having those expectations of cooperation exist for both children equally. Developmentally, the little one doesn't understand so much. Developmentally, the older one understands more, but there's still the equal expectation of cooperation.
It's just voiced differently for both. If we can do that as parents, we have an older child see that there's fairness in this. And a younger child feel that they're supported and that not everything belongs to the older child.
Okay, complex issue. I hope that simplified things a little and at least given you another thought into how to deal with fairness and issues when they come up around ownership with siblings. Okay, hope that will be helpful for you in the coming weeks and months.
Bye bye for now.
