'helping' my DD at the expense of my DS

[Hotpants]

My DD14 goes to Cadets. She can be socially awkward & this has been really good for her, she has made some nice friends. Her younger brother (DS12) has been DESPERATE to start and has been waiting impatiently (for over a year) until he is old enough. He can start in September and after such a long wait he is really excited about starting.
However DD has spoken to DH about how she does not want DS to join and would rather stop going... so DH wants us to find an alternative cadet thing for him to go to. I know that this particular cadets is the one that DS really wants to go to and feel that would be really unfair on him. DD's fear is that DS (who is more gregarious & makes friends more easily) would steal her friends/cramp her style. But I think that her cadet friends are good friends who would not drop her like that. Also new 'recruits' are trained together so her brother would have his own set of friends. Rather than separating them I think we should acknowledge her fear, talk to DS about being sensitive to DD's anxiety (I think he would, he knows that she finds it hard to make friends) and try to support DD through that anxiety - so that she will see that her friends will not drop her (she has made a real connection esp with one of them so I feel sure they will not). I think it would be a valuable life lesson and reinforce her self-worth to see that good friends will still like her even if she has a more socially confident brother. I also want them to have shared experiences as they are growing up.
But DH thinks I am not being sensitive to DD's social anxieties. He has likened this to my childhood where I had a beautiful perfect older sister and my parents did nothing to stop her crushing me - but the difference there was that my more confident sibling was unkind & made me feel inferior (& then my insecurities were dismissed by my parents who said what were they supposed to do, curtail her blossoming?). Is DH right, am I doing the same to my DD?
I think not because, although I think DS should be allowed to join her at cadets, I am not dismissing her anxiety and I think we should talk with DS about being sensitive to this etc.
Or am I recreating history here?

All this “DS will never forgive her” is nonsense.

Are we really saying DD’s NEED comes second to a want?

I think the PPs that have suggested DD may have a Cadet "persona" have hit the nail on the head. It's not thinking her 14 year old friends will drop her for her 12 year old brother it's thinking I can't be that "version" of me if my brother is about because he will undermine it. I would try to find an alternative unit for DS. Yes he has been looking forward to going to air/sea/army cadets for a year but he can still do this at the next closest unit. My "D"bro was off work recovering from an injury when I went on my sixth form geography trip, he and his friend decided to head to the same town and check into the same youth hostel. It totally ruined the trip for me as instead of being Grumble I was back in home role of "Grumble's big brother's little sister". Find a compromise of you can.

How many Cadet groups are in your area?

I think your DD sounds quite mean actually!

Oh, and the PP complaining that 'extroverts win' - no, manipulative, self-obsessed, attention-seeking whinyarses deserve to lose.
I know we're taking about a 14-year-old girl here, but it will be much better for her if she learns coping strategies rather than to expect to get her own way with a bit of boohooing. If the H is piling in with some daddy's-princess-must-never-be-made-sad then he needs putting in his place as well.

What has the OP said that has given the impression the DD is trying to be centre of attention or as Reanimated so eloquently put it, "daddy's-princess-must-never-be-made-sad"? It is entirely possible that cadets is the place where the DD has managed to carve a niche for herself, away from her family, away from her school. It is not being a "manipulative, self-obsessed, attention-seeking whinyarse" to be worried in that sort of situation.

If the H is piling in with some daddy's-princess-must-never-be-made-sad then he needs putting in his place as well

Or maybe he’s just discussing it. Possible of course given the OP has said DD confides in the day.

I was always the more extroverted sibling. I deliberately refrained from joining clubs my sister was already at because I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. I never resented her for a moment.

I really struggled with social anxiety as a teenager and I'm so bloody grateful I went to secondary school without my confident sisters. What a pp said about putting on a show really rings a bell with me - I can appear quite comfortable and confident with strangers, but if my DSis was there I wouldn't be able to fake it. As an adult I ask for no special treatment at all, but having a bit of space to learn to be comfortable in your own skin is hugely important imo.

You also can't cure anxiety by forcing someone in to situations which make them anxious. If you allow DS to join you need to be prepared to accept that she might well quit if she really can't cope.

I think the PPs that have suggested DD may have a Cadet "persona" have hit the nail on the head. It's not thinking her 14 year old friends will drop her for her 12 year old brother it's thinking I can't be that "version" of me if my brother is about because he will undermine it. I would try to find an alternative unit for DS.

I agree with this. I have a dd who is shy and a little awkward. She does make good friends though. She has a younger sister very close in age who is extrovert and makes friends very easily/does very well in groups. They are close friends themselves and get on well with each other's friends but life got a LOT easier for dd1 when she went to a different school than dd2. She was able to be herself without the shadow of her sister or the feeling of having to be the persona she is at home at school too.

Honestly, in these circumstances, I would find a different group of cadets for ds. And I think those calling her mean and manipulative etc don't get what it is to have a child who finds life a lot harder than a sibling does simply by virtue of personality. Those kids know damn well that their siblings are finding life much easier/are better liked and it can be hard. And I'm not sure why DS's desire to join this particular group isn't also seen as mean and manipulative?

Oh, and the PP complaining that 'extroverts win' - no, manipulative, self-obsessed, attention-seeking whinyarses deserve to lose.

god knows what went on in your childhood to make you say something so nasty about this kid.

DD is being a typical over dramatic teenager. Don’t enable that behaviour. Of course your DS should be allowed to join, why would he be interested in her older friends anyway? He will meet his own that are his age.

Sit them both down for a chat, air all concerns and resolve them.

But she needs to know that he also feels it very strongly. He very strongly wants to go there. And his feelings are every bit as legitimate as hers. No one is forcing her to drop out if he joins. Ask her to stick with it for two terms - till Easter, and see how it goes. You could have a quiet word with the cadet leaders and ask them not to draw attention to the fact they're related, and never to compare them. TBH, most cadets probably won't even notice that they are related unless they already know.

I do sympathise with you. I have one DS who cruises through life getting A*s and awards for everything he even takes a casual interest in, and one DS who struggles to get noticed even when he busts a gut to achieve. I often long to ask DS1 to back off and for once let DS2 take the limelight but I can't. Because even the extrovert ones who appear to thrive need us to cheer them on not hold them back.

I agree with pallisers that chances are she has a different persona there. DS2 - my quiet one - has started to develop close friendships outside school. But at school he's completely hemmed in by being The Brother Of. but that's not DS1's fault. And as other posters have said, it's not healthy to enable 'poor me' thinking by denying one child something they really, really want.

I would allow your son to attend the same group. Your daughter's 14 year old peers/friends will have no interest in a 12 year old boy, no matter how gregarious.
And you won't be helping your daughter to reach any kind of resolve by wading in and 'rescuing' her. There will always be someone else in life, who may come along to steal her thunder. It's the dealing with it that counts, and not the prevention.
Tough isn't it, this parenting lark

No, they’re not asking...they’d be TELLING her that she’ll no longer longer have the space to be ‘cadetDD’ because her brother would be there and she couldn’t be ‘that person’.

They shouldn’t have to ask and she doesn’t own it. It just reminds me of that episode of Peppa Pig where she doesn’t want George to go to the same playgroup as her because it’s her playgroup.

I absolutely feel it would be unfair to stop your son attending this cadet unit. Would you not also be setting yourself up then for 4 nights of taxi-ing also? I know back in the day when l attended cadets all units attended 2 nights a week.

I definitely agree your dad should go to the same unit for all the reasons others have given.

@Hotpants

I have an elder (nt) dd1. Ds1 was diagnosed with adhd and is being assessed for asd currently. I also have dd2 (suspected adhd) and ds2 (nt).

We have been where you are with scouting. Dd1 joined guiding as a rainbow at 5. Dd1 joined beavers at 6. Both have been going for several years now. Dd1 decided when she finished brownies, rather than guides she wanted to go to cubs. Ds1 was due to move up to cubs before she started, but after dd2 and ds2 started beavers (dd1 did a year at rainbows but was hard work and she did not enjoy it).

I had concerns about dd1 joining cubs as she always falls into the role of caring for ds1 when we are not around. I also worried a little about dts starting beavers while ds1 was there and being hard work for the leaders, thus impacting on the leaders impression of the younger children.

But I had to let them try it. There is only one scouting group within reasonable distance and having already done plenty of driving back and forth for rainbows/brownies, I decided it wasn't about to start driving further away just for the sake of a different group and all the extra hassle that would entail.

I spoke to the leaders of cubs and explained my worries, about ds1's needs etc. They could not have been lovelier. Dd1 joined cubs in February, a little after ds1 had joined to give him time to settle in first.

They have been put into separate patrols, they are on opposite sides of the room for flag/howl. The leaders, volunteers, have been fab with both children. They've assigned ds1 a 1:1 of sorts so if there are any problems, dd1 doesn't feel she needs to step in and can stay with her patrol/friends.

Kindly, I think your dd is being unreasonable if this is the only group close to be practical. If there is another group which meets in the same place on a different night, it might be nice for you ds to try there first.

It is always going to be hard when one child is more outgoing and the other has anxieties which affect them in a regular basis. However; others are right when they say her little brother is not likely to be of regular interest to his older sister's peer group.

I really agree with those who are saying this is not really about worrying her friends will “drop” her. It’s about a weird range of things to do with havin a space where she feels like she can be the confident one, where she doesn’t have to compare herself to a sibling, where she feels like she is free from those complicated feelings one gets around one’s siblings in these situations! I would try to help and understand, stopping DS if necessary. This could turn very upsetting for her- and not because he would “steal her friends”.

They seem to be prepared to commit to four night of activities (no idea if they are walkable or if they need to drive) because as I interpret it DD is in air cadets in Ourtown and DS also wants to be an air cadets. The suggestion at the moment appears to be that he becomes army cadet in Ourtown. If there is an air cadets in Nearby town that he could join no-one is missing out.

@ReanimatedSGB

Oh, and the PP complaining that 'extroverts win' - no, manipulative, self-obsessed, attention-seeking whinyarses deserve to lose.

Gosh, you really don't like young girls, do you? Luckily neither of my DDs were anxious, both made friends easily, but if I had had an anxious child I'd have tried to have a bit of understanding.

I think it would be unfair to prevent your ds2 from joining. He has as much right as your ds2 and is as important.

Speaking as a mental health professional, the treatment for anxiety is not to avoid things that make you anxious, but to engage with them, developing coping strategies or discovering that your worry thoughts are not necessarily real. You cannot force the world to change around your anxiety.

If she feels so strongly that she cannot bear to share a space with her brother then unfortunately the onus is on her to move.

I actually think that finding somewhere else for your son would feed your daughter’s anxiety still further. It would show that you believed that in fact she was incapable of holding onto her friends when her younger brother arrived, and that somehow she needs to be protected from his fabulousness in order for her to be able to thrive. It makes out that he is the predator and she is the poor victim. I think it would do her a disservice to be honest.

And it will teach dd that she isn’t the Center of the family unit
No, it will teach her that no-one gives a shit about her feelings, even though she's got problems and her brother doesn't.
Why are people so thoughtless and such complete bastards on here when it comes to social anxiety and possible autism?

I can see it from her point of view, especially if they tend to all be together in a lot of things.

What someone said about everyone flocking to the younger sister does happen. And it may be that they all tend to join together, and if he is socially good, he may rise up in the group which may have the ultimate feeling to her of being pushed out.
There's also the being able to do things without having to either compete with the other (will be naturally be better at it too) or that he'll report back or tell her friend things from home, so she feels she can't relax.

People have said that he will resent his sister if he's not allowed. I think she will equally resent him if he is. It's not an easy situation.