I have been feeling lately how needy children are. I am not begrudging them their need. They are children. They require things to live and grow and become. It is the job of the parent to provide these things. Now, I am not talking about a new video game system or another Elmo toy. I am talking the big things. Patience. Confidence. Attention. Feeling valuable and important. And I love being a parent. I do.
But I am feeling really inadequate to provide these big things lately.
I have never been good at having two friends over to play at once. I would always focus on one and leave the other out in the cold, which would lead to the inevitable fight and someone going home in tears. These children of mine? It seems sometimes nary impossible to focus on them both at the same time. There is animosity. There is a significant age difference. There is the desire to be the center of attention, please.
Maybe it is because there are only two of them and therefore so easy for them to dichotomize themselves? I don't know. And I can't really understand how to help because I was an only child and am not good at sharing, even as a grown-up.
Jelly Bean loves Brother and would follow him to the ends of the Earth. But he also is rambunctious and wild. In his glee, sometimes the bigger people get hurt feelings and hurt bodies. There is no satisfactory retaliation, because Jelly is so young, not that we are really the 'just push him back' kind of people. He is just 3 and I don't know how to contain him better than he is contained, short of a straight jacket. And I don't know how to teach patience to Brother when he has had it up to here with Jelly. And I don't do such a good job sometimes of not losing it myself. It never occurred to me that there would be times when I would have to choose whose needs were more important.
The whole thing just makes me sad.
5 comments:
Ah, yes. It's hard. :(
Ack, yes.
I find that with my boys too. And I feel guilty asking D (8 years) to be patient with M when he goes overboard. Every once in a while D will tell me that I am always focusing on M, but M is the one who is constantly pushing the boundaries. It is hard.
I can totally see why it would be frustrating and sad. But also, you know, it's normal. Every parent of multiple kids struggles with this. Everyone who has siblings remembers incidents like this from their childhood. And yet we all grow up OK and usually even close with our siblings. It's natural and therefore we are all equipped to deal with it, you know?
My two are so different, my daughter somewhat more like me, my som a little more like Hus. So it is confusing to me that they don't get along. Hus and I do. Of course we are adults and I am no longer as impatient and anxious as I was. Or maybe I am.
At least you are trying to help them now when they are young.
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