Sibling Jealousy/Rivalry

duchy

FBaby wrote: »

And that is probably the exact conclusion the eldest daughter and mother reached...except it is very wrong. If you use your rationale, ie. who needs more space than the other daughter, then that decision becomes totally unfair as it is clearly obvious that at this stage, considering the older daughter is living elsewhere, who has more of a need of the bigger bedroom IS the youngest daughter. However, as you quoted, it seems that it might have now become a matter of 'want' and the elder daughter 'want' taking precedence over fairness.

Agreed..... Oldest has the large room at home as well as her own room at Uni .....Youngest has the box room. Whilst I can see how this happened.....Mum wanting to make the girl feel it's still her home etc it was a poor and possibly misunderstood compromise. For all we know youngest is fine with swooping back for the holidays but not for weekends and kicked off because she felt they had welshed on the deal.

DigForVictory

Amidst all this, what is eldest daughter doing?
I get fairness is a very potent issue, but BabySis being shipped screaming off to dad?
What does BigSis get out of this mess & why is she enabling it?
It takes 2 women in 1 kitchen to start a war, sure, but this 3rd is surely adding fuel by "not getting involved"...

Herongull

Mojisola wrote: »

We had the same thing to sort out - the elder boy had a larger bedroom and the younger one had a smaller one. When the elder went off to uni we kept his room as his sleeping space because he was going to be coming home regularly and he left quite a lot of belongings here but the younger one spread his stuff out a bit into the bigger room and used it for daytime activities. During holiday times, he went back to using his room and the family rooms instead.

When it became clear that the elder wouldn't be coming back to stay, younger one moved fully into the big room. The elder one uses the smaller spare room when he comes home now.

This compromise is not dissimilar to that tried by the OP.

In your case it worked fine. The younger boy didn't become abusive or threatening or go ballistic when his elder brother returned home.

This implies that the OP wasn't completely stupid in initially going for a compromise. In her case it didn't work due to the intense sibling rivalry of the sisters, but it can work with less problematic siblings (like your boys).

In hindsight, it has turned out to be the wrong solution, but the OP wasn't the total idiot/hopeless parent that many posters have assumed.

Ultra-jealous children must be really difficult to handle and people shouldn't be so quick to throw stones...

Errata

Herongull wrote: »

This compromise is not dissimilar to that tried by the OP.

In your case it worked fine. The younger boy didn't become abusive or threatening or go ballistic when his elder brother returned home.

This implies that the OP wasn't completely stupid in initially going for a compromise. In her case it didn't work due to the intense sibling rivalry of the sisters, but it can work with less problematic siblings (like your boys).

In hindsight, it has turned out to be the wrong solution, but the OP wasn't the total idiot/hopeless parent that many posters have assumed.

Ultra-jealous children must be really difficult to handle and people shouldn't be so quick to throw stones...

It didn't work for the OP because she and eldest daughter welshed on the deal that the swop would happen for holidays, not holidays and any and all weekends eldest fancied coming home.

FBaby

I think boys are often less bothered about their own space than girls.

lika_86

My mum completely redecorated my room when I left for university! It became the guest room (it wasn't worth my sister moving as there was only one school year between us, although she could have if she'd wanted). I always knew that I was welcome home whenever I wanted (and did go home for all the holidays) but I'd left home so hardly expected my room to become a shrine to my existence and kept as it was when I still lived there full-time or to be left free for me, as long as I had a bed for the night, it really didn't matter which one it was. I didn't need much space, my stuff usually went into the garage over summer in the move between houses and every other holiday I just came home with a suitcase.

Mojisola

Herongull wrote: »

This compromise is not dissimilar to that tried by the OP.

In your case it worked fine. The younger boy didn't become abusive or threatening or go ballistic when his elder brother returned home.

It is similar and it was agreed by all of us after a discussion where everyone's voice was heard.

DS1 had to be happy that DS2 was "in his space" while he was at uni and DS2 had to be willing to relinquish the use of the room during the long holidays.

If they couldn't have agreed, I would probably have given the larger room to DS2 from the time DS1 left for uni. It makes no sense to me to leave a large room empty for all those weeks of the year just so that an older child can come back to it during the holidays.

duchy

lika_86 wrote: »

My mum completely redecorated my room when I left for university! It became the guest room (it wasn't worth my sister moving as there was only one school year between us, although she could have if she'd wanted). I always knew that I was welcome home whenever I wanted (and did go home for all the holidays) but I'd left home so hardly expected my room to become a shrine to my existence and kept as it was when I still lived there full-time or to be left free for me, as long as I had a bed for the night, it really didn't matter which one it was. I didn't need much space, my stuff usually went into the garage over summer in the move between houses and every other holiday I just came home with a suitcase.

That's the more normal way of doing things when the room isn't surplus to requirements.

Herongull

Many young adults are sensible and mature enough to be relaxed about rooms and space.

Unfortunately this is not the case with the OP's daughters and this is why she posted seeking advice. She is having a stressful time and feels like piggy-in-middle, so let's keep the ideas flowing but be constructive rather than hyper-critical.

Herongull

Errata wrote: »

It didn't work for the OP because she and eldest daughter welshed on the deal that the swop would happen for holidays, not holidays and any and all weekends eldest fancied coming home.

Big assumption but you don't know this was the case.