Tag Archives: baby

Middle Child Jealousy

I have just had my third baby boy and my second child (3) has turned into someone I don’t even recognize. At first he was very upset about the baby and asked us to leave him at the hospital. When we came home, my husband and I had to be super watchful with him because he was rough with the new baby. This was so different to our oldest son (6), who was besotted with his new baby brother.

Now, two months later, he is much better with the baby but his behavior is impossible. He literally doesn’t listen to a thing we say. We may as well not be talking! What are we doing wrong?

– B.

Hi B,

It certainly sounds like your little one is struggling with having a new “baby” in the house. Take heart, you are not alone with this problem and there are many things that your husband and you can do to bring harmony back into your home!

You have done nothing wrong. The birth order of our children and its effects has received attention from parenting analysts all over the world. Entire books have been dedicated to this subject. You may want to check out some of these.

Keven Leman’s book “The Birth Order Book” is worth looking at. He has also written a children’s picture book called “My Middle Child, There’s No One Like You.” I find children’s stories a wonderful way to help them understand their feelings and to springboard further discussion about things that may be worrying them. Books can help children put their feelings into words that they may not have been able to do before.

Your three year old has had to, very abruptly, give up his previous status of “baby.” This is very difficult for him and he is doing everything he can to hold onto you your undivided attention. This often exhibits in “bad” behavior. The reality is that he is no longer the baby and your attention has become more divided. So what do you do? Make the times when he is not acting out really count. Even if you can’t reinforce something he is actively doing, compliment him generally. Say things like, “Mommy and Daddy are so lucky to have a boy like you. We love you this much.”

Try and avoid reinforcing him as a big brother unless he is doing something like passing you a diaper. Even in this situation, let him know that you love him for himself. So say something like, “Thank you for being such a great helper. Are you an amazing helper like this at school too?” When you are able, spend intensive “love” time with him. Extra hugs, kisses and “I love you’s” go a long way with a child who feels displaced. Also let him know that he may not be your youngest baby but he is still your baby. Bring out his baby books as a bedtime read.

Bad behavior should never be tolerated but you can use these times to connect positively with your child too. Parents generally know why a child is acting out. In this case, your little boy is feeling left out so before you discipline him for his “bad” behavior, let him know that you understand his perspective. This is more than reflecting his feelings; it is saying something to him that really lets him know that you get him. For example, if he throws a toy at his older brother while you are feeding the baby, you might say something like, “You’re mad because you want me to play with you and it makes you sad that I’m always feeding the baby. I can see that but you still can’t throw things at your brother because that could hurt him.”

This alone will often calm your child because children (and adults) like to be heard and understood. This doesn’t remove the need to discipline his bad behavior. If hysteria ensues with the discipline, reflect his perspective in the same way. For example, “I know this is really not what you want but when you thrown a toy at your brother you always get a time out.” Showing empathy to a child who is misbehaving does not eliminate discipline, it simply introduces another element that will impact is behavior more long-term. I hope this helps!

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Why Negative Emotions Are Important To Emotional Intelligence

Here’s a fact. Humans are capable of a full spectrum of feelings. So when we avoid the less comfortable ones or minimize their importance, we in essence understand less of ourselves.

Babies exhibit mostly negative feelings, intuitively understanding that these are the ones that will get the attention they need. Not to distract us from attending to their needs, babies hold back on smiling for four or more weeks. And a cry is not a cry. Parents, in particular mothers, can identify the reason their baby is crying by subtle changes in pitch, intensity etc. almost from birth. Crying can be from physical reasons like hunger, pain or a wet diaper or from emotional reasons like loneliness and needing a hug.

When our baby smiles for the first time, we do everything we can, short of standing on our heads, to get them to smile again. This is the moment when many parents, unintentionally, begin to focus on positive displays of emotion in an effort to keep their baby happy. Now when their baby cries they will do things to make them smile, rather than focus directly on the crying. This change is subtle but important as it sets us on a path where we focus less on negative emotions and more on positive ones. Many might ask, “Why is this a problem?”

There is a generally held belief that when we focus on our child’s negative emotions, we encourage negativity and pessimism. This is simply not true. When we teach our child to accept and deal with a negative emotion we help them understand what they are feeling and why. Children (and adults) need this information to resolve problems and to learn how to deal with similar situations in their future. When children (and adults) identify their negative feelings, face them and deal with them, they will be able to put them aside and embrace their happier emotions. Ignoring, avoiding or minimizing negative feelings, gives them a power that they neither need nor deserve.

When we focus on all of our child’s feelings, we see them as whole, and they will learn to see themselves in this way too. Life provides us with challenges and adversity with high predictability. Our child’s ultimate success and happiness depends not on the challenges that she faces, but on how she faces them. When we teach our child to give negative emotions equal status to their positive counterparts, we raise their emotional intelligence and give them the tools to reach their full potential.

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