Do all 6 yr olds find their 3 yr old siblings massively annoying ??

[Tillyscoutsmum]

DD has just turned 3 and DSD is 6.8.

My dd absolutely adores her half sister. On the days she is coming, she is excited from the moment she wakes up and asks all day "when is x coming ?". DSD generally walks through the door, rushes straight past dd and goes to cuddle ds (who is 6 months old). My dd looks so sad at being ignored . She then desperately tries to get her attention whilst dsd is short with her and generally seems to find her immensely irritating.

They seem to spend the whole time they are together bickering and arguing.

I don't know if it bothers me more than it should because dsd is not my daughter ? I love her very much and we get on well but ultimately, it upsets me to see dd so hurt and left out and it is affecting how I feel about dsd

I don't really know what I'm expecting here but just needed to moan/rant a bit.

Btw - I'm not under any illusions about dd. She is 3 and therefore can be bloody annoying ! I suspect I am expected too much to want dsd to at least humour her sometimes ?

I don't think there is a general rule. Some 6 year-olds love smaller children and are very kind to them. Others can't be bothered with smaller children or worse - are actively mean to them. I think if they were full sisters that spent all their time together they'd have found ways to rub along by now because you, as parent, would be insisting on it. And that's the way I'd take it forward. Don't tolerate it thinking 'all sisters do this'. Step in when there's any unpleasantness and sort it out.

I agree I think part of the issue is that they don't spend all day, every day together.

I (and DH) do try to step in, both to encourage dsd to be nicer to dd and to try and stop dd when she's being particularly irritating but ultimately, we can't force dsd to play with her if she doesn't want to, can we ? She is not actively mean to her (in any physical way) she is just not interested in interacting with her much

Thanks for the response

"we can't force dsd to play with her if she doesn't want to, can we ?"

Actually, I think you can engineer this. Call it 'team building' if you like. Group activities where you're all working/playing together cooperatively are really helpful at getting family members to appreciate each other and become more of a unit. I think it would be a good idea to initiate baking a cake, for example.... give everyone a little job that is age-appropriate, lots of praise when anyone helps someone else. Even something as simple as a country walk as a family ... getting bigger children to help smaller ones over stiles etc. I'm sure you can think of others.

Thank you. We have tried things like that but they are quite different I suppose. DD loves being outside - country walks etc. whereas dsd really isn't keen. DD is a bit boisterous and dsd is much more sensible. DSD would take baking a cake very seriously and would want to do things perfectly whereas dd would much prefer making a mess - and that would irritate her

I'm sure there must be something they could both enjoy and do together though. Will have a think