Being a parent is hard for a thousand reasons, and those reasons are understood even clearer when you have more than one child. This is when you’ll start teaching your kids how to interact with others, and that can be a tricky thing to do. You’ll be given the task of handling a wide range of child emotions, such as fear, jealousy, anger, and sadness, among countless others. Here’s one mistake you should avoid if you have multiple kids.
Don’t Get Them “Different Presents”
If it’s a holiday where everyone gets presents such as Christmas, do whatever you can to make sure they get very similar presents. You might think you’re being clever by getting Johnny one thing that’s meaningful to him, and Ricky something else that’s meaningful to him. But kids are funny creatures. Even if Ricky likes his gift, he may be jealous of Johnny’s gift simply because Johnny has it.
Ricky doesn’t know it yet, but this jealousy he has actually is rooted in love. He actually looks up to his brother, and thus wants to be just like him. Even though your intentions were good for wanting to get Ricky something that’s unique to him, he may be conflicted in accepting it while knowing that his bro also got something really cool.
Then again, sometimes it’s also about reading the room. If you think Ricky isn’t the jealous type, then by all means get him what your original gift was. After all, learning to control ones jealousy is a life skill that will be great for him to learn.