The Scenario: Your
two kids each insist that you are favoring the other. How can you convince them
you aren’t playing favorites?
The Solution: You
can’t. What you can do is examine your own motives for the decisions you make concerning
the kids. Are you thinking of them as individuals? Are you allowing your
feelings of frustration about behavior color your interactions with one or the
other? Are you comparing one with another on a frequent basis? Are you holding
up one sibling as the “good” example too often?
Spend some time reviewing your own actions and see if you
can pinpoint what might be convincing the children that you have a favorite.
If, after you correct any behaviors on your part that could be contributing to
their feelings, they still howl about favoritism, you can probably chalk it up
to the fact that kids love drama, and ignore the comments. Eventually, as you
work on keeping comparisons out of your home, they stop talking about
favoritism and realize that they’re both your “favorites.”
Excerpted from Ending
Sibling Rivalry: Moving Your Kids From War to Peace, available in October. Posted with permission of Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City
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