How to Prevent Sibling Rivalry upon the Arrival of a Newborn

Sibling rivalry would be inevitable if you have more than one child. This is especially true when you are busy with your newborn and your toddler son in an aggressive child who wants to acquire your attention no matter how. The worse thing that can happen in this regard is the inability of your toddler son to give his emotions the words. As a result, he gets frustrated and goes as far as tending to hit the younger fellow.

This is one of the big emotions your elder child can have; and if you want to control the situation, you need to help your child managing the emotions.

One thing that you should keep in your mind is that a child influenced by big emotions gets ready to do such things about which he knows that these are the wrong actions. Hence, setting the limits in this case is not going to work. What your child really needs is your help in managing those emotions.

While your child is riding those motions, he wouldn’t be ready to listen to you at that time. However, you can make him feel that you are really interested in what he wants from you. Moreover, you can do something to distract your child from doing something harmful.

If you want to resolve this issue once and for all, there is a simple guide that you can follow.

Try to reconnect

Remember, only reason your elder child got ready to give some harm to the younger fellow is that he believes he has lost connection with you; and hurting the younger brother/sister is going to make you pay attention to him. In other words, you need to pay attention to your child and try to reconnect with him to assure him that you still care for him.

Show empathy

Another shape of sibling rivalry is that your elder child may want you to come to him no matter how busy you are. So, he starts making tantrums. Most of the parents would snap the children to give an expression that it’s quite silly to make them get up while they are busy. On the other hand, children feel that they are no longer important to their parents. Therefore, showing some empathy to the child is very important. Even if you are unable to fulfill the request of your child, you can tell him politely that you are definitely going to help him once you will get your hands free.

Children are children

Although, you have taught your elder child how to dress up and now you cannot help her because you are carrying the baby, you need to fulfill her request regarding helping her in changing the dress because the only reason she wants you to do it is that she want a conformation regarding your helpful presence. Additionally, you can see it as an opportunity to lessen the sibling rivalry. Helping your elder child this way is going to make him feel secure. As a result, he would be more free to pay attention on acting like a grown up, and that also includes protecting the younger sibling.