Sibling Jealousy/Rivalry

Mojisola

Herongull wrote: »

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...

I don't think she is a hopeless parent but it did sound as if she may be (possibly unconsciously) favouring one child and (again, possibly) be the source of the rivalry.

As she hasn't commented on that, we're making suggestions without knowing the facts. I wouldn't have pandered to things like weighing out dinners - when we squabbled like that as kids, my Dad said "A - dish up two plates of food/cut two slices of cake/pour two glasses of squash and B - choose which one you want. Tomorrow B can serve and A can choose." We used the same tactic - it undermines the feelings that Mum or Dad is favouring one child!

FBaby

To be fair on OP, reading her post again, she states that the girls are jealous of each other, not that the youngest is jealous of the older.

Herongull

Mojisola wrote: »

I don't think she is a hopeless parent but it did sound as if she may be (possibly unconsciously) favouring one child and (again, possibly) be the source of the rivalry.

As she hasn't commented on that, we're making suggestions without knowing the facts. I wouldn't have pandered to things like weighing out dinners - when we squabbled like that as kids, my Dad said "A - dish up two plates of food/cut two slices of cake/pour two glasses of squash and B - choose which one you want. Tomorrow B can serve and A can choose." We used the same tactic - it undermines the feelings that Mum or Dad is favouring one child!

A very sensible Dad! I was thinking along similar lines when I suggested tossing a coin over the room.

It is possible that the OP could have unconsciously favoured one child, but on the other hand she says that both girls are intensely jealous of each other, so perhaps they both feel that the other is the favoured one?

If they are this jealous whatever she says and does could be misconstrued and she may feel like she is walking on eggshells

duchy

I don't think it matters if she is favouring one over the other or not.......it's the girls perception. I'm sure DD1 doesn't want to feel her rival is taking over her room and therefore by extension her place in the family........ Likewise DD2 has probably enjoyed not having to compete. I do get the feeling that DD1 has lit the touch paper and stood back.

Having had a break from the sibling rivalry for a month it has probably come as an abrupt shock that instead of sisters reuniting they've both gone straight for each other's throats worse than ever as they may both feel they have their position to defend.

mountainofdebt

Mojisola wrote: »

As she hasn't commented on that, we're making suggestions without knowing the facts. I wouldn't have pandered to things like weighing out dinners - when we squabbled like that as kids, my Dad said "A - dish up two plates of food/cut two slices of cake/pour two glasses of squash and B - choose which one you want. Tomorrow B can serve and A can choose." We used the same tactic - it undermines the feelings that Mum or Dad is favouring one child!

omg ....my parents did this with us when we were kids as well. Very often if we had a bar of chocolate to share then one would cut and the other would be first to pick. I've often said it wasn't cut with a ruler, just by sight, but if the pieces had been measured I'm sure there would have only been millimetres difference, if any.

as for the situation that the OP found herself, a friend of mine was complaining that it was a case of musical bedrooms as her children grew up.....started off with the eldest having the 2nd biggest bedroom and as they have left home for one reason and another, its know a case of the youngest having it. But whoever has'had' that bedroom has had it on a permenant basis none of this you can sleep in it until I decide to come back nonsense.

As others have said the OP now has a problem in how does she resolve this situaiton so sense prevails without the youngest daughter thinking that all she has to do is throw a major strop to get her own way

Nicki

Assuming this is a house with two bigger bedrooms and one smaller one, I would suggest that OP gives the bedroom which she herself sleeps in at the moment to the younger daughter. That should then focus her mind more clearly on where the 23 year old should sleep. Options are that 23 year old keeps her old room and mum sleeps in the box room fulltime, that mum moves around when 23 year old comes home or that 23 year old now has the box room. Up to mum which she picks but as 16 year old is getting the extra space she needs without the "history" of the room formerly belonging to a jealous sister, some of the heat is removed.

FatVonD

Nicki wrote: »

Assuming this is a house with two bigger bedrooms and one smaller one, I would suggest that OP gives the bedroom which she herself sleeps in at the moment to the younger daughter. That should then focus her mind more clearly on where the 23 year old should sleep. Options are that 23 year old keeps her old room and mum sleeps in the box room fulltime, that mum moves around when 23 year old comes home or that 23 year old now has the box room. Up to mum which she picks but as 16 year old is getting the extra space she needs without the "history" of the room formerly belonging to a jealous sister, some of the heat is removed.

This is actually a genius solution

FatVonD

ValHaller wrote: »

Careful. you risk being accused of having the worst ideas ever apart from my ideas and going to the police.

Careful, you risk people thinking you can't cope with someone disagreeing with you.

thorsoak

Oh for heaven's sake, stop bickering between yourselves - or I might begin to believe that the Op's children are taking over!

ValHaller

Nicki wrote: »

Assuming this is a house with two bigger bedrooms and one smaller one, I would suggest that OP gives the bedroom which she herself sleeps in at the moment to the younger daughter. That should then focus her mind more clearly on where the 23 year old should sleep. Options are that 23 year old keeps her old room and mum sleeps in the box room fulltime, that mum moves around when 23 year old comes home or that 23 year old now has the box room. Up to mum which she picks but as 16 year old is getting the extra space she needs without the "history" of the room formerly belonging to a jealous sister, some of the heat is removed.

I would be really concerned about that, depending on relative status of OP's bedroom.

If it is the nicest bedroom of 3, then that really would be yielding a result to Younger for her tantrum and I think it should be avoided at all costs. If the nicest bedroom of 3 is the one in contention, then I can quite understand Younger being upset and going about pressing her complaint in a spoiled child kind of way and perhaps OP should take the room.