Competition Snapshot

The Scenario: Your six-year-old daughter doesn’t want to try anything because her older siblings—a seven-year-old brother and an eight-year-old sister—excel at everything they do. The older siblings receive numerous compliments for their “amazing” abilities, particularly in sports. Now the six-year-old wants nothing to do with physical activities. What can we do to encourage her participation?

The Solution: Stop asking her. Counter-intuitive? Perhaps, but pushing her to do sports is likely not to help the situation. Ask her—when her siblings are not around—what activities she’d like to try. Then see if there’s a class or group in which she, and she alone, could become involved. Don’t allow her siblings to attend the class or group; let her have this all to herself.

Then to lower competition in your home, don’t talk so much in a family setting about how well the older sibs are doing. Ask different questions about their sports that change the focus from them to someone else, such as “Who did you think played well today?”

Also make sure you’re not contributing to the competitive atmosphere by praising your older children too much. This should help your younger daughter find her own special place and also help your older children realize it’s not all about them and their “amazing” abilities.

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.