New Sibling

When we add a new baby to the mix of our family, no one quite knows how to predict the reactions of the other family members. Some kids push back right from the start when the baby is kicking in the womb, other kids seem so nurturing and caring right from the get go. With this new baby not being our first child, we are a little more in the know about what to expect but often we aren’t prepared on how to now deal with our other child(ren) who may be making life a little more difficult as they struggle with less attention.

I remember having my second child and my first was so intrigued by this new ‘creature’ that had come into our home. “What was this thing that is now taking up Mum and Dad’s attention? People are coming over with gifts and presents for this creature and fussing and cooing and ahhing”.

As well as figuring out how the baby worked, she also had to figure out her own place in the family as it had now changed from ‘one and only’ to the big sister. Two other behaviours seemingly totally unrelated also surfaced; biting and hair pulling. I didn’t understand it at the time, but these were her external expressions of a deep cry of jealousy as she navigated this role change. 

 

Imagine with me that you get home one day and your spouse excitedly tells you that he is getting another wife. You don’t know where he found her because he doesn’t disclose all the details, just that she will be coming in a few months and you will eventually be able to share rooms together, go shopping together and be the bestest of friends. He explains that he probably won’t be able to go on many dates with you anymore as he will be doing dates with his new wife, but that doesn’t mean he loves you any less. He has lots of love to give.
Now I’m sure with this new information, you would have mixed feelings, some hope of a new friendship but some fear about what this new wife will be like, who are they? Where are they from? Why is he getting another wife? Am I not enough? Naturally jealousy will take rise.

Children can feel the same way that we may feel if our husband brought home a new wife. They can feel rejected and confused but often so young they aren’t sure how to express this or make sense of it. It can come out in the form of many different and interesting behaviours.

As parents, we need to be like detectives, watching their behaviour to get a clue on what is going on inside for them. We have to do a lot of guess work.
Just as my daughter was biting and pulling hair, I needed to see what was behind the behaviour. Had I known that children will have a natural progression of jealousy when a new baby arrives, I would have been better prepared.

 

 

 

                                     

“Nothing can change the fact that a new baby is a threat to the child’s security. For a first born it’s also a threat to his uniqueness…However, whether a child’s character will be enhanced or warped by the stress and strain of the crisis depends on our wisdom and skill.” (p. 152).

 

Dr Haim G. Ginott

So what can we as parents do to prepare our children for a new arrival? Is there any way to keep that green monster of Jealousy at bay? According to Dr. Ginott, there are certain things as parents we can do for our children to help deal with the upheaval of having a new baby sibling in the house.

The first being to expect your child to be jealous. Thinking that our little angel is never going to be jealous, isn’t a helpful approach because you won’t be in tune with your child’s behaviour or catching the signals to act when appropriate.  When we expect something, we are much more likely to be prepared for it.
We are much more aware of it.
Expecting jealousy to rise means that we aren’t surprised when our child has sudden bursts of frustrations at the baby for what may seem like minor things such as the baby looking at their toys. When we are expecting to see jealous behaviours such as:

Toy-over-possessiveness,
Aggression towards the baby or their other toys (that might symbolise the baby) or other children,
Extra tantrums,
Biting,
More extreme emotions or physical symptoms – sore tummy or sick a lot,
Bed-wetting,
Clinginess at drop offs even though they used to be fine, 
Acting like a baby as well as many other behaviours;

then we prepare for these symptoms and if they pop up, we know the source so we can deal with the heart of the issue- jealousy rather than behaviour only. Think of the ice burg analogy here with the behaviour as the tip of the ice burg and simmering jealousy the large unseen part of jealousy.

Secondly, we empathise with our child and name the feeling they may be experiencing. For example, when your child says something like, “Look at me, I am a baby too” which may be a cry for:

‘Do you still love me like I see you loving my baby sister?’

You can speak straight to their fears by saying something like:
“You are special too. You were once a baby and I loved you like I love your new baby sister. Now that you are a big boy, you are wondering if I still love you and you know what, I love you as a big boy, and I will love you when you are even bigger. I will love you always.”

By watching his behaviour, you can catch his fears and emotions. When you speak directly to his fears, he feels that you are understanding him, that he is okay even though he has these fears and he is reassured that even though he is older, he is still loved.

Will we as parents get it wrong at times? Absolutely! But when we get it right, our children feel supported, heard and able to navigate this difficult season a lot more effectively. Unfortunately when children are left to their own thoughts and just told off about their behaviour with no validating of feelings, they carry them throughout life which often will lead to either bitterness towards siblings or a guilt that they aren’t a good sibling which feeds into strained future relationships.

Thirdly, give them a safe alternative. If your child is getting aggressive towards your baby, find a doll or paper that they can cut up or scrunch instead. If they have aggression that wasn’t there previously, most likely they have some anger against the new baby that needs to come out. When you recognize and give alternative behaviours, your child can let out the frustration in a simple, safe way.

 

Is your child ‘allowed’ to hate their baby sister? Whether you allow it or not, your child at some point will probably have a feeling of hate towards them. Does that mean that they are a bad kid and shouldn’t be allowed to have any feelings but love toward their sibling? This was a hard concept for me to accept personally in my own parenting. One of my biggest values is Kindness and I couldn’t bear the thought of my children having any feelings but love for one another. But when I looked into my own childhood, I saw there were times in my own life that I certainly did ‘hate’ my sister and have all sorts of terrible thoughts. I wasn’t allowed to express these of course so it came out in frustrated misbehaviours.
 When it came to my own children I did much the same, “Oh no you don’t hate her, you just don’t like what she is doing to you”. I thought this was redirecting but what I came to realize was that in reality I was dismissing their feelings toward one another. After reading Dr. Haim Ginott’s book I thought I would give this extreme validating of emotions a try. The next opportunity I didn’t have to wait long for as my youngest was saying how she hated her oldest sister. The conversation went a little like this:

 “Yes you are so angry with her right now aren’t you. You really wish she wasn’t here and you could get rid of her so all the bad feelings would go.” She stopped crying immediately, obviously shocked at my new approach (heck, so was I!). I then tried an example that Dr Ginott explains in his book. That is, when a child is very upset with their sibling, wanting to hurt them, draw a picture of them and cut it out or pull hard on a toy. I decided to try the first one and see how we went.

Again, much to my daughter’s surprise I told her, how about you draw a picture of your sister and cut it up. By this stage my daughter had resolved all upset and had my full attention. She’d never heard me talk like this! She wasted no time in drawing a picture. Not long afterwards I come into her room and she had drawn her ugliest drawing she could put together! The happiness on her face was the direct opposite reflection of five minutes prior as she proudly showed me the picture.
Now a surprise to me, she didn’t want to cut it up but was happy enough to just throw it in the bin and happily skip off to continue playing with her sister as if nothing happened.

 

I had to check myself, what just went on? How did she deal with that so fast and now has no bitterness, resentment, or animosity towards her sister? What was happening, according to Dr Ginott is that not only was I validating her feelings but I was helping her to get those feelings out. When we tell our kids, “No you don’t hate your brother, you just don’t like what they are doing” we are essentially saying that there is something wrong with them. Of course we don’t want them to stay in ‘hate’ that’s why we need to give them a safe, expressive way to get that hate out.

When kids can express their strong feelings in safe ways- it gets the feelings out rather than pushing them down and turning into bitterness. Dr Ginott talks about this again when he says,

 

“The bitter fruits of unresolved childhood rivalries are all around us in adult life….sibling rivalry affects a child’s life more than most parents realise. It may indelibly stamp personality and distort character” (p. 155).

 

Our attitude towards our kids and the jealousy they deal with will make a large impact to how they cope with a new baby. When we are expecting them to feel confused, misplaced and jealous as well as excited, joyful and curious we will be better at preparing our children for that before the baby arrives. We won’t just be saying all the wonderful things but we will be preparing our kids for the feelings they may feel.

 

“Anytime you feel uncomfortable about the baby, come and talk to me.”

 

“The baby requires a lot of my time. It might feel at times that I love the baby more than you but I want you to know that I will always love you. Come to me if you are ever feeling like you are missing that love.”

 

Whether you have the new baby or not, you can use these sentences to let your child know that you understand.

Lastly, role play has a huge benefit to helping our kids to express themselves in safe ways. Tina Payne Bryson and Georgie Wisen-Vincent talk about this in their book, ‘The Way of Play’,

 

 

 

 

                                     

“As the research increasingly shows, play is one of the most important vehicles we have for assisting the next generation to practice emotional intelligence abilities such as self-control, pausing and using social skills in a risk-free environment.
By strategically joining your child in a dramatic play scenario and helping them bring their emotions to life, you give them the chance to ‘play through’ their feelings- to name, experience, and discuss their emotions calmly and explicitly, when they’re not in the heat of the moment, unwilling or unable to think clearly or even talk about what is going on inside themselves” (p. 67-68).

 

Tina Payne Bryson & Georgie Wisen-Vincent

PhD & LMFT

  1. Before and after the baby is born, role playing about the baby arriving and living with you can help a child walk through the emotions they may or do feel about the baby and it’s an opportunity for you to let them express it, for you to validate it and both to talk about it. There is so much power from expressing ourselves with someone who understands.

    While parent coaching, I can’t emphasis enough to parents the power of listening and validating our children. A simple tool is;

    Repeat
    Empathise
    Ask

    This tool is so effective! When your child tells you what is happening or how they are feeling, you repeat back to them what they are saying. This may need to look more like summarising or pulling out key points more than a robotic repeat but the idea is that they hear what they are saying back to themselves.
    Next is emphasising- note here it isn’t judging the situation or feelings expressed. Though a simple tool, it can take a bit of self-control not to jump in and take over. The last one, Ask, is putting the responsibility back on the child which is very powerful- “What are you going to do?”

    In summary, when a new baby arrives in the family, expect a lot of different emotions to be swirling in your other children’s minds as they navigate this new experience. Expect them to be jealous and don’t be afraid of their jealousy but speak to it and reassure your love for them. Through play, help them to express their emotions and thoughts they have of the new baby.