Sibling Jealousy/Rivalry

poet123

duchy wrote: »

Surely keeping a room empty and making the younger daughter use an inferior one gives the same message to the younger daughter that she is of less importance ?

I agree temporary swopping is ridiculous -but so is a twenty three year old expecting her younger sibling to be disadvantaged to accomadate the older one for the few weeks a year she is staying at the family home each year.

University students who study away btw aren't counted in with the "bedroom tax" so I'd imagine quite a few have found their "domain" disappearing .

I don't think so, it just keeps the status quo. When mine were away they retained their rooms (too much stuff to shift about) but when the eldest bought a house and moved out the rooms were reshuffled. University holidays are long and many students come home for a lot of weekends. It worked for us, I can't remember it being brought up to be honest.

Pollycat

From another thread dated 30/8/2013:

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

I've never heard of the Christmas Eve Hampers and am definitely going to do them for my two this year, even though they are 16 and 20!!

From this thread:

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

My two girls are 23 and 16 and have always been very jealous of each other, to the point where I have almost had to weigh out the dinners to make sure one wasn't getting more than the other.

Maybe there is less age gap than we first thought - which would also explain DD1 being at uni at a more typical age.

Herongull

duchy wrote: »

Surely keeping a room empty and making the younger daughter use an inferior one gives the same message to the younger daughter that she is of less importance ?

I agree temporary swopping is ridiculous -but so is a twenty three year old expecting her younger sibling to be disadvantaged to accomadate the older one for the few weeks a year she is staying at the family home each year.

University students who study away btw aren't counted in with the "bedroom tax" so I'd imagine quite a few have found their "domain" disappearing .

But the older sister could be living at home for months on end during holidays and she could be at home for lots of weekends too. We don't know all the facts here.

The only sensible solutions would have been a full swap when she went to university or both girls keeping their old rooms until they move out on a long-term basis.

The mother has to decide now, taking account of the needs and wishes of both the daughters But she should not feel that she has to give in to abusive, threatening and bullying behaviour.

ValHaller

Herongull wrote: »

I would agree that there was a valid argument for a full room swap when the older girl went to university (and I said that in my first post). But that didn't happen (for reasons that aren't clear).

Instead an awkward compromise was reached, which unsurprisingly didn't work.

The younger girl is now demanding her sister's room, being abusive and obnoxious and, more seriously, making threats.

She sounds like a bully and appeasing bullies is never right.

The only solution is to revert to the original status quo - both girls in their old rooms.

I think that is a very valid argument. And I think that the point for a room swap was when Older went to Uni. You are right too to identify the awkward compromise of Younger having the room but having to move out for Older as unsatisfactory.

But I would say that now the mistake has been recognised it should be put right. I think it is untenable to put Younger back in the smaller room for good having allowed her the larger room while her sister is not there. It would not address the resentment of Younger - the aftermath of this weekend would simmer for years. There is a distinct need to move on quickly and put things right - but to do it without on the one hand reinforcing the behaviour nor on the other leaving lasting consequences from the outburst.

The difficulty is finding a way of climbing down which acknowledges a mistake was made without reinforcing the behaviour from Younger.

ValHaller

duchy wrote: »

Thing is that leaving her with Dad "whilst the important people sort it out" is still marginalizing her. This is a family issue-the three (possibly four with Dad) of them should be sorting it out together.

I am not suggesting that she be marginalised. OP needs to just decide on the allocation of rooms - telling Older tonight and giving her time to sort her stuff out, then waiting for Older to be gone and telling younger.

There is no need for negotiation or anything more than 2 way discussions. When Younger returns, OP needs to say 'Sorry, Younger, I should not have let this awkward compromise have arisen and left you to be pushed from room to room like a bag of old clothes. You get the big room from now on. Your behaviour the other night was unacceptable and I never want to see a repeat. As it arises from my mistake, I will let it go. Now if there are any more resentments you have to let me know in a proper way and we will deal with it properly and fairly'

OP also needs to be open to a sanity check on what is fair, given tat the situation over the bedrooms was completely wrong.

I don't see that younger could justifiably feel marginalised by this.

melanzana

The OP must be hiding in one of the girls rooms!

Herongull

Sending the younger sister to stay with her Dad was probably the only thing the OP could have done at this stage.

It separates the two sisters and gives the younger one a chance to calm down, while a longer term solution is sorted out.

It avoids the mother feeling pressured into another quick fix or messy unsatisfactory compromise and gives her time to work things out properly.

If both daughters are still at loggerheads over the room, one solution is to see if they will agree to let it be decided on the toss of a coin, rather than letting the mother decide between the rival claims of both daughters.

Whoever loses may be less resentful as they can't then accuse the mother of favouritism. Rather than a part-time share in the room (which we've seen doesn't work) each daughter would then have a 50% chance of having it or not having it.

It also doesn't reward the younger daughter's behaviour as she has only exchanged a part-time share for a 50% chance of getting/not getting the whole room.

And if the younger daughter lucks out, she has learnt a useful life lesson - if you reject a compromise solution in favour of all or nothing, you run the risk of ending up with nothing...

ValHaller

Herongull wrote: »

Sending the younger sister to stay with her Dad was probably the only thing the OP could have done at this stage.

It separates the two sisters and gives the younger one a chance to calm down, while a longer term solution is sorted out.

It avoids the mother feeling pressured into another quick fix or messy unsatisfactory compromise and gives her time to work things out properly.

If both daughters are still at loggerheads over the room, one solution is to see if they will agree to let it be decided on the toss of a coin, rather than letting the mother decide between the rival claims of both daughters.

Whoever loses may be less resentful as they can't then accuse the mother of favouritism. Rather than a part-time share in the room (which we've seen doesn't work) each daughter would then have a 50% chance of having it or not having it.

It also doesn't reward the younger daughter's behaviour as she has only exchanged a part-time share for a 50% chance of getting/not getting the whole room.

And if the younger daughter lucks out, she has learnt a useful life lesson - if you reject a compromise solution in favour of all or nothing, you run the risk of ending up with nothing...

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

FBaby

Why didn't this happen? Perhaps the elder daughter wanted to keep her room even if she was away at uni during term-time. If she is often home on weekends and for all the holidays, this isn't unreasonable. As far as she is concerned, it is her room not her sisters

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.

Mojisola

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.