Sibling jealousy big age gap. Any tips?

[toomanyleggings]

Does anyone have advice on this? I have two girls, 3 and 10 and they just don’t get on. The older one is very jealous of the younger one. They constantly bicker and argue. I know it sounds ridiculous as you’d think the ten year old would know better but it’s like she’s regressing. I make sure I spend lots of one on one time with the older one and have done since the youngest was born. I make a point of spending at least an hour with her after the three year old has gone to bed daily and we have girly days out just me and her but it makes no difference. It’s really draining . The little one’s face lights up when her sister is nice to her but it’s so rare. She’s mostly shoving her out of her bedroom and doing sneaky things like stealing her food or poking her. The little one is no pushover and will scream and tell me what’s happened. How can I foster a better relationship between them? I have two siblings myself and I don’t recall feeling jealous of them but the age gaps were different. I think dd1 had got used to undivided attention because it was just her for so long.

I don’t have much advice, I have the same age gap between my Ds’s who are currently 6 & 13 and have similar issues and have had for the past few years. The only things that I have found to help is ensuring that you have time alone with each even if it’s just 20 mins a week to do something they are interested in or just to talk that cannot be interrupted and give the eldest some responsibility for the youngest we started with just asking him to read a bed time story while I had to do a really important job and during the last school holiday I asked the eldest to look after his brother while I worked for a couple of hours (I wfh) they clashed to start with but I have learnt if I don’t step every time they can resolve issues his has improved things and they are asking when ds1 can babysit next. It’s really hard to navigate.

@loz12345 Thanks for replying. I definitely do the individual time thing but I haven’t had much luck with giving the oldest responsibility. I also wfh and the times I’ve tried it there’s been absolute pandemonium and tears. I actually very rarely leave them in the same room together alone. Maybe I need to persevere with that a bit more.

Then you teach her responsibility.

Set out your expectations. Well behaved gives reward - not well behaved loses privileges.

To be honest I see a lot of parents divide the children instead of fostering good relations. Perhaps try showing them how to play together?

Rather than separate them?