This is likely to be a personal pity party, so feel free to move on if that bothers you.
I have two exceptionally bright kids, a daughter (14) and a son (10). Let’s call them Dick and Jane. Jane just can’t help feeling jealous of Dick. Now that she’s entering sullen teenagerey territory, it’s really getting bad. I know, girls are supposed to hate their little brothers. But she has deep inferiority issues where he is concerned. Her behavior is simultaneously breaking my heart for her emotional angst, and making me feel like she is demon spawn that needs a good old-fashioned spanking.
The things that have most recently nearly brought me to tears: 1) “He’s better than me at everything! School, friends, music… everything!” 2) “I never want to hear him play that again! He’s just such a showoff!”
He is a bit of a showoff, and his talents tend to be more obvious. (And I am totally aware of how well he knows how to push her buttons surreptitiously.) I want to let her know that she’s just as special as he is, but have trouble coming up with very many specific strengths of hers to point out. I’ve told her that kids don’t come with instruction manuals, and we learned a lot of lessons with her that he was able to benefit from. It’s not that we care more for him, just that we had a better idea what to do. I don’t expect her to like him much, but we need some tolerance around here. No kid should have to feel inferior to a younger sibling. I wish I could help her somehow.
I also have a Golden Brother (he’s older than me, so it wasn’t *as *bad) and I have to tell you, it *is *hard. But one thing my dad told me was that he wasn’t interested in who was better, but that I was better than I was a year ago. Eyes on your own plate, in other words. It’s more important that I improve my own skills and talents than that they be better than someone else’s. I admit, it took a lot of years and a lot of repetition before I was able to accept that, though.
Can you spend some time with her one on one, doing something she likes or something new? Giving her a laundry list of her talents isn’t nearly as convincing as “catching her” learning or doing something well. Empty praise isn’t praise, it’s actually destructive. So if you can’t think of something she’s good at, show her something new. Teach her to change a tire, or sew a shirt, or paint a room or arrange some flowers. Take a class together at the park district or Whole Foods (they have cooking classes for kids and for parent/kid duos). There’s plenty of opportunities for genuine praise when she gets it right. And when your son asks why he can’t do it with you, suggest he get his sister to teach him. This both cements her skills (they say you don’t really know something until you teach it) and gives her some confidence that she has something big sisterly to offer to him.
Your daughter’s thought error that needs to be corrected is that there will ALWAYS be people more talented then her. And those people will likely be someons brother, or son, or dad, or friend, or bully. It is irrational that just because he is her younger brother, she should be better at all of some stuff then he is. Realizing that should give her some peace of mind.
It is not the world at large that will need your daughters talents, big or small as they might be. She is not competing with or against her brother for the world’s attention or admiration. She should be mainly important to the people close to her, and she will be special to them. And that is as should be. Right now, her attitude is making trouble for that very same goal. She is making herself unhappy, her parents and she is souring the relationship with her brother.
I was coming in here to say this. It’s not about making her feel like she has to beat him, because then it’ll always be about her having to beat him at something. It’s about making her feel like she’s appreciated, needed and wanted just for being herself.
Then he’s as much of the problem as she is, and you should seriously consider yanking a good old-fashioned knot in his little tail. Ten is plenty old enough to know it’s not okay to deliberately twist the knife. It’s normal for kids to want to do that to each other, siblings being especially fun to torture, but that doesn’t make it okay, and you need to have that talk with him.
And no, you can’t make it about finding something she’s better at than him. As others have said, it makes it all about competition. And, of course, you run the risk of Little Mister Show-off busting ass to become better at it than her, at which point things get even worse than they are now.
When I was in school, I played the viola. One year, I even made it into the city-wide junior symphony. My older brother told me (out of earshot of mom, of course) that if I started bragging or making a big fuss about it, he’d hide my viola and make sure I got kicked out.
Older siblings don’t always need to be provoked to be assholes.
I find it somewhat odd that at 14 she has any interest in her brother’s doings. At 14, I would have thought she’d be starting high school and making friends there. Are you sure she’s not lashing out at her brother because high school is being more difficult than anticipated?
Do they go to the same school?
One on One time really helps with the sibling rivalry, I’ve found. I take my daughter to the mall and then I’ll spend time with her brother where the two of us just read books. Sometimes he just wants to browse the phones/ipod thingies at the store, so off we go.
When she complains that “He is better than me at (x)!111!!!11!!” Eye rolly, foot stomping, OMFG. She’s 10. That entire behavior is very highly discouraged here at Casa Ujest. He hasn’t been challenged at all in any of his classes ( until this year.) and she views this as some kind of Secret First Child Gravy Train that she doesn’t get any part of, despite being just as smart and having the same grades, but lacking the focus and drive he has.
We explain if she spent more time working on whatever X was than complaining, then she would be better than him. This goes over like a fart in church, but eventually it has sunk in. Sometimes he even helps her with homework.
When he complains that his sister thas the social life of a butterfly and he sits home all.alone.by.himself. ( and he is of an age where we can leave him alone, we do.) he pouts. Friends just don’t knock on the door saying " Come on out!" ( Well, for his sister, they do. ) you have to pick up the phone and call people and stuff. You have to come out of the cave, man.
But, on most days, I threaten to sell them to be made into sausage.
Growing up, there were three boys in the house.
My older brother, me and then my younger brother.
My older brother and I got along great - he was 5 years older and pretty much off in a different world, and moved away when I entered high school.
My younger brother (by two years) and I never got along.
We had no similar interests, I thought he was a brat, idiot and liar as a kid - and he never changed.
To this day, my older brother and I get along great.
Haven’t spoken with my younger brother in about 5 years (his choice in a few nasty emails).
In other words - you cannot make siblings like each other - but as others have suggested, you can give equal time to both and encourage them.
Still - what is that old expression?
“You can pick your nose, you can pick other people’s noses, but you can’t pick your relatives.”
Get her a lovely framed sampler of “Desiderata” - “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.”
Littlebro, then aged 10, started babbling and chest-pounding at how Great and Wonderful his grades were. Dad didn’t say anything, Mom encouraged the chest-pounding. Middlebro has always been the one with the inferiority complex; when I saw he was starting to shrink, I pointed out “you know, Middlebro and I got those same grades when we were in 4th. Come back to me when you’re in 6th or 12th and we’ll talk; until then, shut up.” Dad said “everybody gets good grades in 4th grade.”
Littlebro shut the hell up right fast and Middlebro’s spine straightened.
When you’re 14, everything is a personal attack, the universe is watching you all the time and hates you, and anyone having a good time and enjoying life is only doing it to make you suffer, especially little brothers.
Encourage her to stay in her own lane, give her positive feedback, and pray for time to speed up.
OP, there is a really awesome book called Siblings Without Rivalry that has some good advice and strategies on this topic. I would highly recommend it to anyone with multiple kids. The authors’ last names are Faber and Mazlish, if I recall correctly. I just thought I’d mention it in case you find it helpful.
Thanks for the kind words everyone. The Desiderata link was lovely… I printed it out for her. Maybe I’ll find a cross-stitch kit for it one day.
Maastricht, I appreciate the sentiment in the Cracked article, but it doesn’t seem very kid-appropriate to me. I guess my kids are a bit sheltered.
I’m trying to spend more one-on-one time with Jane already, I’ll keep it up.
Devil’s Grandmother, this has been going on for a long time. I think if anything, high school has made it better, because she is enjoying it more than middle school. That was a particularly hard time for Jane. She had a lot of trouble finding anyone who shared her perspective on life. She had one exceptionally close friend (they were like twins with their own special language) whose father is in the military. When they moved away, Jane was completely alone. I mean, like, NO friends. She is now going to the same high school as many of the girls from her swim team and a few she knows from schools other than the middle school she attended. And she is specifically not attending the high school that many of the clique-y, kinda mean girls went to. Hopefully, it’s a bit of a fresh start.
A lot of days, I feel like Dory. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming.
I’m actually looking forward to her taking driver’s training next semester. It’s something she’ll have that he simply can’t for a while. (Plus, she can drive herself to 5:30 am swim practice next year!)
Is daughter Jane dating? After my older sibling started dating the amount of day-to-day siblings rivalry he was wiling to engage in dropped dramatically. Granted, our rivarly has survived into middle age, so perhaps I’m not the best advice giver.
Why? The language? Maybe not for the 10-year-old, I guess.
However, the part where they show the before-and-after of a model (the blonde looking over her shoulder) and how the image is Photoshopped should be shown to every 14-year-old girl, repeatedly. Censor the language if you feel you must, but the actual message in the article is one every teen needs to learn.
