My DD feels she is being discriminated against!

pipkin71

tiamai_d wrote: »

I remember it all being so unfair that my little brother got to do stuff that I wasn't allowed to do when I was his age.

And he got let off with everything while I was always being told off.

And that she cared more about him than she did about me, I was just the old bit of luggage she had to carry round that she wished she could just dump.

It was sooooo unfair!!!

Then I grew up and forgot all about it until my own kids started it!

Good luck!

Sounds so familiar tiamai_d.

It's a good job I know DD is in the kitchen and not upstairs on the lappie otherwise I might have thought she had hijacked your user ID

I suppose lots of children go through this. I'm not going to change how I see things but I don't like it when she gets upset.

skylight

silvercar wrote: »

Accept it is an arguement you can't win.

If you don't let the younger do something then you are being unfair. If you do then the older will say its unfair because she had to wait until she was older but the little one gets to do it without waiting.

I was the older one and I felt this way with my little brother!!


I get similar stuff of the 7yo (DD2), but the age gap between her and the next is a lot - DD1 is 15 now. DD2 still thinks that she should be able to go to the shops and stuff on her own.

newmum1

I think a lot of it is about attention and possibly jelously we are going through something similar i am the eldest of 3 we are 29,25 &20 and the middle one who is male is convinced mum prefers me best he goes out of his way to argue with me and cause problems the funny thing is that i dont live at home neither does he, its so bad now and to save arguments i see mum in secret so not to offend him i should not have to do this but i sense he needs to grow up and he craves some sort of attention, yet all mum says is that she is sick of it.
with us me being the only female my mum and i do girlie things together and he just cant hack it

patchwork_cat

Mine have a bigger age gap, so it is easier to say he is older. Ultimately though being a parent isn't always about being liked though, is it.

Children do challenge the boundaries and it is developmental - the 2 year tantrums are to help us parents realise they are not babies and have to be allowed more freedom - the ones as they get older are for the same reason.

Would sitting her down and talking through some re- evalutaion rules on specifics help?

Is she in year 5 or 6? At this age they do start growing up quite fast, don't they? If year 6 then Sept would be a good time to ammend rules.

melorablack

Point out all the boring things (like chores) your eldest has to do but the younger one doesn't (yet).

pipkin71

She would be year 5 patchwork cat.

Today hasn't been so bad, and yes she does like to test the boundaries. We've had a chat and hopefully she will accept why she cannot do the same as her sister - until next time at least :rolleyes::D

patchwork_cat

My youngest is in year 6, so I know where you are coming from, however my son is in year 11, so as I say it is easy to say, yes, but he is 16. We do however get - 'but when he was my age' and as it was 4 years ago, sometimes I find it hard to remember at exactly what age he was allowed to do certain things! Of course she will swear blind it was younger than she is now.

I do try to deal with each issue seperately and compromise. However as they are different people sometimes she is allowed to do things younger than him and sometimes older!

Becles

My boys are 10 and 12 and I get this from the younger one.

He wants a mobile as his brother has one. However his school is a few yards from our house, but his brother has to travel 12 miles by bus and has a phone in case he needs to contact me. I've had to keep saying he will get a phone when he goes to the secondary school.

Had arguments because the eldest goes to bed later and because the eldest is allowed to go further from home, and so on. Just have to keep telling him that it's because the eldest is older and he will get the same allowances once he's a bit older.

I've also compared how he goes to bed later and is allowed out to play, but my youngest one goes to bed really early and isn't allowed out to play. I've said he gets a lot more than she does, which has helped him accept things a bit.

It is hard though but you have to be firm and explain why you have set your rules and why you won't be changing them.

remembered_nights

Equal opps means she gets treated the same as when DD1 was that age No way to win! I'm 15 months older than my sister and cor, I fought for everything and it was 'sooooooooooo unfair' when she got something at the same time (like our ears pierced, ohh how my 11 year old heart fumed!)

Quackers

silvercar wrote: »

Accept it is an arguement you can't win.
.

Thats what I do now I'm afraid.

And I'm fairly blunt with my daughter over it too.

Although her rants are different - because her older sister is disabled I discriminate against her because I do more for her disabled sister.

Yep, I do. Because she needs it.

But its unfair apparently.

My little sis is 8yrs younger than me and I was always amazed at how differently she got treated to me....

....and its kind of reassuring to read that it happens in every family.

Tis just life me thinks.

Unfortunately, over the past year I have given up trying to justify my actions - I dont know what to say to my youngest daughter anymore to get her to understand that her sister is so different to her. She is 14 so I believe she does understand but she just resents and seems to hate her older sister so much that nothing I say makes any difference at all