How can I ensure that ds2 feels he is as 'able' as ds1?

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[MyNameIsInigoMontoya]

Haven't really got any experience of this but I would think one of the biggest things you can do is ensure DS2 has plenty of time mixing with children his own age and maybe also younger children if possible, so he has a chance to be "ahead" of them sometimes. So, toddler groups and activities, nursery?, if he has cousins or other younger relations then mixing with them... ideally without DS1 at least some of the time if that is possible. I suppose it would also help if you can get DS1 to cut down on the bragging, but not sure of the best way to do that! And the other thing that might help is if DS2 has any separate interests which DS1 finds boring, and where you can encourage and praise him - I guess with 2 children the older one gets to choose the activity for both of them a lot of the time? If so then DS1 will of course be more likely to choose things he likes and is good at. But if DS2 is for example more sporty, or more musical or more into crafty stuff then perhaps sometimes you can get him doing that while DS1 does something else, and then praise how good he is at it. Hope that is some help...

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[honeybunmum]

We have a similar problem, DD1 nearly 5 and DD2 2 and a bit. DD2 wants to do all the same things as DD1 but is not as capable. Bigger problem for us is that DD1 expects too much of DD2 and gets V disappointed when DD2 can't do something. We constantly have to explain to DD1 about the age difference and what children can and can't do at each age, reminding her what she was like at that age.
DD2 often ruins any games we play together as she can't understand and gets bored and DD1 won't play the 'babier' games so we do have to separate them for some activities.
We encourage fantasy role play games where DD1 can be a teacher or mum for example ( being her bossy self) and DD2 is her baby or student (a more submissive role) that seems to work really well. When they do anything creative we make sure that we praise them equally and when DD1 says that DD2's is rubbish we say 'for her age it's brilliant, when she's your age she'll do lovely pictures like yours' and to DD2 we say ' wow you've done really well, that's great. If you keep enjoying painting like that you will be able to do great pictures like Becca does when you are a bigger girl.' That way DD1 can't do any bragging and realises that we value effort and enjoyment rather than results.
I don't know what it's like to parent boys so that approach may not work but I HTH.

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[GooseyLoosey]

Similar issues with a 15 mnth age gap. Dd has just started in reception but has a late Aug birthday.

Ds sometimes teases dd about what she cannot do - the bossy and bragging thing that you mention - we explained that when he was exactly the same age as her, he had not even started school so in some respects she is way ahead of him.

Sometimes they play games on the Cbeebies website. However, a condition of allowing ds access is that he shares with dd and helps her. Would not say this works perfectly though as ds bosses dd around (a lot).

We also took the tack of making clear that dd understood that there were advantages to being younger too - there were things that she could do that he could not (play in a particular soft play area, be picked up be me etc).

[muppety]

I could have written your post!

ds1 is 5 and in reception. ds2 is 20m younger and starts in Sept. Exactly the same issues. I do worry about him as he is generally less confident anyway. Plus we don't really tend to mix with children of his age as most of my friends I met through having ds1 and antenatal classes etc.

At the moment we are just trying to give him loads of encouragement and try not to compare them as they are obviously very different.

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