Do you find one child 'easier' than the other and, if so, how do you deal with this and do you feel guilty for feeling this?

[Janus]

Hello. I have 3 girls aged 7, 5 and one month. I feel guilty to say that I find my oldest to be quite different from my 5 year old. She is more likely to upset her younger sister by saying something mean and saying something very intentionally that will wind her sister up, something the younger sister rarely does and I am finding myself always having to tell the older one off for her behaviour and rarely have to tell the younger sister off. Tonight, after she had said something silly like her sister's hair was horrible, younger sister cried, I told her off for saying something that would hurt her sister's feelings and she flew into 'you love her more than me, you never tell her off'. I don't tell her sister off very much but that's because she doesn't do that sort of thing. It made me feel awful to think that she thought I didn't love her as much, I always say I love all of them equally, etc but I suppose to her it makes sense as I seem to always be telling her off, not her sister. I think we are a bit confrontational and I do tend to believe her sister's side of the story as she is just more likely to tell the truth but I am worried how this is now impacting on my oldest.
What can I do to try and change her behaviour or do I let it go a bit more or how can I make us less confrontational?
Sorry, I have really gone on here but wanted to try and be clear in the hope that someone has gone through something similar and can say how they dealt with it.
Thanks.

I have the same. Have an 11 year old ("challenging" - ha! most of the time at times) and a 3 year old who is mostly a little smiling angel [puke emotion] If I leave them alone in a room, before teh door has closed the older one will have done something to make teh younger one cry. It's all attention-seeking stuff, resentful of the cuter younger one who has, in their eyes, replaced them. I've no strategy that works, just hoping with maturity she'll back off a bit [hollow laugh]

Are you the same Janus I have met btw - long time ago?

I have something similar with my two DSs. I wonder whether I tend to ascribe too much emotional maturity/intelligence to the older son, because in my eyes he's 'old enough' to behave better - whereas it's very easy to always see the younger one as the baby, and not expect half as much (and therefore not be anything like as disappointed).

I know I am definitely guilty of expecting much less from DS2 than I expected from DS1 at the same age. So it's not surprising that DS1 gets resentful sometimes.

I think it's very very common to find the oldest harder than the youngest. I'm sure this is down to birth order, one way or another. It could be PW's point, re: expectations. It could be that first children expect more of our time and attention, and resent their siblings more. It could be because we recognise whatever DC2 is doing as 'a phase' because we've (probably) seen DC1 do it before.

Crikey yes, that bar somewhere in Covent Garden, I remember you! Bloody hell, that must have been at least 5 years ago! I remember being an old soak and being one of the last to leave!
My oldest is exactly the same as yours, I find it so hard to not be telling her off constantly so do try and almost invent things to say to her younger sister like 'you must learn to ignore her if she's trying to wind you up'!!! I'm just so worried that I'm the one making her behaviour worse by 'attacking' her in her mind. Note to self, must practice counting to 10!

Siblings Without Rivalry is a good one on sibling behaviour. My favourite idea from there is to say 'hey, I can see that . But you guys are clever, I know you can sort it out. I'll be over here, reading my paper'. They really rise to the occassion, ime.

i have dd(8) who is very easy,ds1(7) extremly hard work most of the time,ds2(2) who is usually very easy but has started copying his hero brother!i try to treat them all the same-although i feel sorry for dd as half the time im sorting ds1 and 2.

absolutely. my firstborn dd is way more challenging than her little brother; I definitely have had higher expectations of her which probably doesn't help, but i do think its mostly down to character. dd is feisty, highly strung, sensitve, emotional etc, whereas ds is a laid back easy going little boy and is all round much easier to handle.
i try to handle it by spending some one-to-one time with dd, and also by letting the smaller incidents go, hard sometimes but i try.
Its difficult, but I was hoping that all of this would get better with time, but mine are only 2 and 3.....

Cheese, but do you feel guilty that you find one much harder work? I do and I'm worried it will forever affect our relationship. Or do you just hope it will all unravel in time which in the cold light of day I do believe too?

I just try to cut DS1 some slack, tbh. It's not fair that, as the big one, he gets more responsibility and hassle.

Hello again

Agree about having higher expectations with teh first one. I also worry that all my shouting and arguing will be seen by the younger one and will "change" her in some way. Which then makes me feel more guilty. My first one is also extremely highly strung - don't know if nature or nurture there, both I expect.

Can work the other way round too -- I had easy-going dc the first two times. If you told them to do something, by and large it would happen. Oh yes, I thought it was down to our fantastic parenting.

Ha.

And then I had dd2, who came into the world hard-wired with a completely different operating system. Co-operation is not her native language, shall we say. It's taken me a while to get the hang of her, but we do now get on pretty well (she's 4.5). But no, I don't feel guilty for finding her more difficult than either of the other two -- it's not my interpretation, it's fact.

I think it helps if you can avoid going head on with the things you find difficult in the child's personality. You do have to accept that this is how they are, and try and find ways of meeting the tricksy one halfway. It does sound as though your dd1 feels that you favour her sister, so might be worth finding some things to do that would make her feel like the special grown-up girl? Quality one-to-one time is never going to be the wrong thing to do.

Yes I have easy ones and difficult ones and yes I feel constantly guilty, but that goes with territory!

i dont feel guilty that i find him harder work.i do feel guilty that i just cant seem to deal with/make right his behaviour(is that same thing?)and that it may be my fault that hes such hard work.weve tried allsorts to show him 'how to behave' i suppose(although that sounds awful),nothing seems to help and to make it worse hes being bullied atm.im hoping he'll grow out of it.but i love him to bits,however hard he tries to make it.

i feel guilty finding one harder than the other, but there you go, it's just life isn't it? There are always going to be people we get along with better than others, and our kids are the same. Sometimes, every so often my ds can be a handful too and this puts things in perspective, I realise that even tho he's being a handful, it doesn't get to me in the same way dd does. If that makes any sense. And in a weird way i feel better about my relationship with dd as I think we probably have a stronger connection for her to be able to get under my skin the way she does!

kittywise-your children are adorable!

Bless you cheesesarnie, would you like one,? I'll send over via courier!!

I think with the older ones you are on a learning curve with everything they are doing. So they take up more of your worry time. Whereas the younger ones are doing (mostly) phases that you have handled before.

I would normally say that i find my 3 yo harder work, but we just started potty training ds2 this week so guess what my 3 yo suddenly seems like an easy peasy child.

But you know, I think it depends on the day, the activity, the company etc. There will always be one stressing me out more than the other, I just mustn't notice when its my cute babyish mummy's boy rather than my scruffy grubby 3yo.

kittywise- i tried the courier idea with mine.no one will take them!but yes i'll take one!

I found dd1 was and still is very laid back. She does as she's told, she doesn't answer back and is generally nice.

DD2 however is the complete opposite. You ask her to do something she'll find a million reasons why she can't, won't shouldn't do it, will argue till she's blue in the face that black is white and vice versa, She has opinions on everything and she's only 4! Plus she winds dd1 up all the time, throws things at her, steals her seat, calls her names and instead of ignoring her etc dd1 retaliates which is exactly what dd2 wants to happen.

The simplest requests turn into a battle and I find her very hard going compared to dd1.

I feel guilty about the fact that I spend most of my time telling dd2 off and dd1 seems to be neglected as I spend so much time and effort trying to get dd2 to just sit down and do one small thing! while poor dd1 is left to her own devices.

Cheese 'i just cant seem to deal with/make right his behaviour', spot on, exactly what I feel guilty about.
Sigh, maybe there is no answer here but I do like your idea Belgian that maybe it's because we have a stronger connection and one day we'll be giggling over boys etc.
Thanks ladies, you've all made me feel much better, it's good to know I'm not alone in how I feel.

At one point last week I was so exhausted by my five year old's constant touching, fiddling and interfering while I was trying to walk around a shop that I put him in his brother's pushchair and let his brother walk instead. His brother is two.

Why is my 2 year old easier than my five year old? Why does he seem to have better impulse control? Why is he more obedient, instead of less? Why is he less likely to get stroppy about being told no? Why can I control him with a firm voice and some distraction when for my five year old I need to use threats of consequences?

It's not fair, my five year old does get told off more, he behaves worse, that's why. he struggles more not to touch, not to suddenly run off, not to just stop and climb under a market stall, or squash a grape, or poke holes in shrink wrapped meat etc etc....

Colditz

Your 5 year old sounds just lime my ds (only 3.5 yet but he does SO MUCH of this it is exhausting)

Spare a thought all of you for those of us who have only one who is like this. I don't have another who I can see is different so I spend so much time blaming my parenting.

It is actually really a relief to hear parents with more than one say oh yes I have one like that too. Many of my friends have only one child and just about ALL of them are easier to manage than ds. It is very dispiriting sometimes.

Two of mine are far easier than the 3rd. my middle one, dd2, was the hardest baby, the hardest toddler, and is now still significantly the hardest, at 6.

My other two are laid back and peace-loving, they tend to avoid confrontation. Dd2 loves to argue, whinge, fight, complain, strop, fight. to the extent that the other day I found myself wishing we'd just had dd1 and dd3, life would be so very peaceful.

I think it's a bit easier for me though as dd2 is the one I am probably most like. I like to argue and strop too so at least I have some sympathy for my feisty hellraiser.

but she does need different parenting. we do have to be much firmer with her as she likes to push boundaries and challenge, and doesn't give up easily.

Fennel, I can sympathise. Do you think she notices that you are firmer on her? I worry that mine has started to notice that she is usually the one getting reprimanded (only for what she has done though) and I now worry what she thinks. I'm sure she doesn't realise that she gets told off more because she misbehaves more ! I want to try and stop us fighting and shouting but I don't have a clue how to as it stems from her behaviour. I have tried the good old starchart and positive praise thing but maybe I need to go back and try that again, do any of you do either of these?

In my epxerience, it comes in phases. Dd was much more difficult than ds as a baby/toddler/young child; he was always sunny and easy-going. As they grow up, it feels a bit like the roles are reversed.

But even when they are stuck in the difficult role for a long time, there is usually another side to the coin, a sort of upside to being difficult. With dd her tendency to be a drama queen were offset by her obvious intelligence and sheer zest for life. With ds, his touchiness and stroppiness are obviously part of him being such a sensitive and caring little boy. I try to take the rough with the smooth.