5YO old girl antipathy to 2YO brother

[Rabbitsaurus]

Hi 👋 dad here. Just looking for a bit of advice and for anyone who's been through something similar to tell me if this is all to be expected or not.

Basically my 5YO girl who is very sweet and intelligent, seems to have a real mean streak and constantly criticises and rejects my 2YO boy. An example from tonight was, she wanted to play a board game together - when I said OK great let's ALL do it together, she said no not him too, and then it all ended in tears when I told her she was being mean and would get no board game at all if she wouldn't include her brother.

This is just one of many examples of a kind of antipathy that I'm seeing. I get that she wants my solo attention but I'm a stay at home dad, so we do spend a lot of quality time together and regularly have one on one time with her. One idea is obviously do more of that, but I feel like I'd be rewarding her bad behaviour?

On the other hand, they often play together really nicely, just recently they have been absolute cat and mouse. Can any other parents relate / offer any advice?

I think that is perfectly normal, and, indeed perfectly reasonable from your 5 yr old.

A 2 yr old isn't going to be able to play a board game. You can't pretend a 2 yr old and a 5 yr old are at the same developmental level.
A parent can generally manage to entertain 2 dc in the same room doing different things, and I don't think you should be stopping your older one from doing things because she doesn't want to include a toddler in that activity.

Are you stopping her doing swimming lessons, or football training or Rainbows because the 2 yr old can't join in ? Do you stop her from attending parties with school friends because her sibling isn't invited ?

They are 2 separate people, at very different stages of their lives. Managing that is part of being a parent of more than one child.

I would agree that your daughter was being reasonable in the board game example. Any board game is a big ask of a 2 year old, and many of the games a 5 year old might want to play would be beyond even a very bright, patient (turn-taking!) 2 year old.

She definitely should be able to play nicely with (or alongside, both building separate things with blocks, for example) her brother some of the time, and I wouldn't tolerate name-calling or taunting from my older child – but she's capable of so much more than he is, it's completely normal and healthy for her to want to spend a fair amount of time doing things that he's not ready for yet.