13 year old has no relationship with 4 year old sister

[Purplekittenfurball]

my 13 barely has a relationship with her 4 year old sister. They also have an 11 year old brother.

13 yo is close to the 11 yo. 11 yo interacts with, is pleasant too, and has a positive relationship with the 4 yo. He will play a bit with her on occasion, engage her in conversation, do a puzzle with her (For example) or admire her dollies when she brings them over to him etc.

13 year old rarely speaks to the 4yo. The only occasions when she will is if she is asking her to stop doing something. In a disgusted or angry tone she will ask her “stop that” or “be quiet” or “cover your mouth”.

I am not expecting the 13 yo to have the same relationship with the 11yo and she has with the 4yo. They are naturally going to have very different interests, where the 13 yo and 11 yo have more in common at the moment. But I would love for them to have some kind of positive relationship. I worry that if they have nothing now- then in a few more years they will still have no relationship and will have lost the chance at a sibling bond.

a 13 yo is always going to be very self centred. I get that. And 4 year olds are kind of annoying when they sing the same song over and over or get upset because they can’t have any more bluey episodes or whatever. But they are both wonderful people. Funny and inquisitive and lively.

am I being ridiculous to ask the 13 yo to spend 10 minutes on each weekend day interacting with her sister? As simple as colouring with her? Or playing with her with some of her old toys?

the 4yo has learnt not to bother talking to her tbh as she just gets snarled at-but loves it when 13 yo has friends over who want to interact with her. 13 yo says that 4yo doesn’t like her….but the 4yo has never had 13 say anything nice to her or play with her, so she probably feels the same- even if she hasn’t said it. Because 11yo does act positively towards her she interacts with him and both enjoy it.

just for clarity- if the 4yo is being naughty or over the top annoying we always intervene. She’s not allowed in 13 yo room. She’s generally a good kid though! ( as is the 13 yo!)

I have tried my best to ensure 13 yo doesn’t feel jealous of her sister. 13 yo has own room. She has at least (usually more)an evening a week with each parent doing activities/ watching films. She spends 1 night a week at grandparents ( which she loves) just her and them. She does extra curricular clubs and recently requested tutoring, which I got for her. She has friends over and I would say is happy in her life.

I love both girls so much and would adore it if they could be friends. I think they could potentially get so much out of building a relationship.

I would never expect or ask 13 or 11 yo to do any parenting of her. They have never been asked to watch her or fix her food or dress her or anything like that. I want them to have a sibling relationship, not a parent/ child one.

is this futile? Is it useless to insist a 13 yo builds a relationship with her sister?

should I just settle for ignore her completely, just don’t be rude to her? Loads of people don’t like their siblings and it doesn’t matter.

should I wait this out and 13 yo will come round when she’s through this tricky stage of puberty? She’ll be nice to her when she’s maybe 15+….or is that too late?

I think you are being unrealistic to expect a 13 yr old to find a 4 yr old interesting

don’t force it - that won’t make things better at all

Im 11 yrs older than my younger sister and we really didn’t have a relationship until she became an adult.

Ok, so fairly unanimous that asking her to spend some one on one time with her sister is a no go. I won’t ask this of her.

I was just worried that if in future she wants a relationship with her sister there won’t be one there.

I know not all sibling relationships are positive- but I know far more people who enjoy having a sibling relationship (of some kind) and are genuinely pleased they do, than don’t and are pleased they don’t have any relationship with their sibling ( of course, some people have abusive or unpleasant or toxic siblings they rightly decide to cut out - but I honestly don’t think either of my girls are unpleasant or toxic! The teenager is being a teenager and the 4 yo a 4yo).

Positive sibling relationships can be a blessing and I want to facilitate it as much as possible.

I know they are at different life stages - I didn’t have them for each other, I just thought (hoped) it might be nice for them anyway.

we do activities as a family- walks, trips to theme parks/ zoos, swimming, trips that have interesting and engaging elements for all (like centre parks or family festivals) but day to day life is sometimes tricky and think everyone would be happier (13 yo included) if there was some mutual enjoyment and respect of each others company.

It's too big a gap to have a normal sibling reltionship imo. My DH has a brother who's 9 years older. His brother did actually spend time with him when they lived together, but by the DH was 9 he had moved out of the house for uni and that was that. They aren't close and don't speak outside of family gatherings.

@Branleuse no- she don’t have to give up her bedroom. We had a three bed- and me and husband moved in to lounge to make sure each kids got a bedroom. We have now moved to a bigger place( nearer all schools as well) where all kids and parents have a room.

You say the middle child, your son, gets on with both. Part of this is probably because he's the only boy. Your DD4 started competing with DD13 when she arrived, as another girl.
Have a chat with your DH and be really honest with yourselves about your language with both girls, any differences in the way you speak to them or treat them, any aspects of their lives that would be seen as competition ground.

Oldest children usually feel they have more responsibility, stricter parenting, higher expectations. Dd13 is dealing with puberty, GCSEs, etc and seeing DD4 getting to be the cute little baby one who just plays.

Apart from that, I would just give it time as pps have said, and definitely don't try to force anything.
The dynamic will change as they get older amd maybe they will become friends. Maybe not. Nothing you can do

I have a large age gap. The oldest was very maternal to the youngest. Do you think your oldest is jealous?
Could you spend one to one with her before you try to fix this.

With kindness OP, you’re just not listening are you. The interests of a 13 year old are clearly not going to match those of a four year old. I agree with a PP who said you basically are putting your 13 year old in a parenting role if you force them to have time together. Just let both of them tick along and make sure that as a family, each child gets some special time with you, hard I know.

This might be better spend a bit of time with the both together without your 11 year old , you could do a mix and match so maybe leave the toddler with dad and take the older ones out just to try and get a bit of harmony between them all.

I also meant to say they might get on fine when they older im in my 50s my sister early 40s we get on, there is no malice or resentment and would say we are close enough,

Not playing with each other now doesn't mean they won't have a good relationship as adults. I have a sister and a cousin around 10 years younger than me. I didn't have much interest in them when I was in teens and early 20s but we are close now and the age gap doesn't feel as big now we're all adults.

My 3 are 17, 14 & 9 now. When youngest was 4 & her eldest sister was 12, eldest definitely wasn't interested in being around the youngest much. I expected her to be civil, but didn't want to force a relationship as they weren't interested in the same things & it often ends up with the older child "looking after" the younger child during play, as it has to be at the level of the youngest one. Now they're getting older, they're getting on better (& eldest is keen to get paid to babysit 😆), but I would never push it. There's only 20 months between me & my sibling, & we're not close as adults, despite being very close as children. Honestly, I think personalities & lifestyles come in to it a lot when they get older.

I had siblings 6, 9 and 11 years younger than me. Age gap was too big for any meaningfully close relationship at the time. I had my own interests and friends and the younger children were in my mind annoying and meant we couldn't do things as a family that were suitable for teenagers like active sports/walks.

I would have hated it had anyone forced the relationship. The 13 year old is doing the best they can and the 4 year old and 13 year old will have the relationship they choose. Civil is a good starting point and anything beyond that is a bonus. I became closer to my sister as she grew - she was 7 when I went to university but we still speak only every few months and see each other twice per year.

My younger brother was born when my sister was 11 and I was 8. Whilst my sister and I would play with him when he was a baby by the time he was 4, we just regarded him as a bit of a nuisance. The age gap meant that we really had nothing much in common until we were all adult. We all get on well now.

I think you need to do the opposite- make sure you have some quality time on your own with her doing something more ‘grown up’ with no talk of the younger dd. The family things you mention sound more focused around the younger ones and pretty boring for a 13 yo, she will start to resent being dragged to babyish things if she hasn’t already. I wouldn’t expect them to have a close relationship until youngest is much older and it will never have the same dynamic as siblings close in age - the aren’t experiencing mh the same things in the same way and won’t have many common memories. IME this kind of relationships develop much later (when youngest is late teen and oldest is through uni and settled) and often with the older sibling have more of an aunt / aunt uncle sort of bond. But this can only happen naturally.

Could you and her go on a city break?

And I don’t think it’s that your eldest is at the tricky stage of being 13 but from her viewpoint the youngest is at the tricky stage of being 4!

As the annoying little sister of brothers who are 10 and 12 years older than me, leave the older ones to it. We are all adults now and very close. It will be fine 😊

I was the youngest of 3 - my eldest sister was 10 years older than me and middle sister was 8 years older. Despite the big age gap, we have always had a very close relationship, from my childhood right through to adulthood. When I was a child, my sisters had lots of responsibility for me - I remember them serving my dinner for me, holding my hand when out in busy places and lots more. Their interest in me never waned, when they were adults and I was a teen, they still took me out to the cinema, shopping etc. We are now all in our 30s and 40s and our parents have died. I’m so grateful that we have such a strong bond because it has kept us close despite the absence of our parents. We all have our own families and our children are all close cousins too.
I say all of this just as an example of a large sibling age gap that did forge a strong bond. Someone else has suggested that your 13yo might benefit from having more responsibility for their sibling - I think that’s a good idea and was probably at the foundations of my relationship with my sisters.

Its a big age gap and they are at different stages with nothing in common. Leave well alone, forcing anything could hinder not help. They may grow closer with age (of course, they may not - it’s up to them).

I had pretty much the same gap between me and my younger sister. Unfortunately we really weren’t that close, my life was totally different from hers, esp once I was a teen. And she was also really rather self-centred and selfish growing up. I left home at 18. At one point - due to various external issues - I did return home for a few months when I was about 19/20 maybe and she actively hated me being back there. She was still uoung(ish) at the time and more than ince told me it wasn’t my home and I shouldn’t be living there. It would’ve been just her and our mother after my older sighing and I had moved out, but even when we were both at home all our mother's attention had always just been pretty much solely on her from minute she was born, so everything revolved around her so she never liked having her attention shared. I soon moved back out, carried on with my life, uni, child etc. So we never had a relationship of any kind really.
Many, many years later, after she had her first child and got married she did then grow up a little bit and started to slowly become a bit less self centred and was slightly easier ti have a relationship with, but we’re talking not until mid 20s/30s. Unfortunately, although we’d be there for each other if needed and have had periods of being closer, we’ve never had that proper sibling relationship. We both had such different experiences growing up in the same family that it’s hard to relate to each other I think. We did have to share a room at various times, and with such a huge age gap, esp when I was a teenager, it was really hard. For both of us, I assume. It’s a really different experience when you have large age gaps, for many reasons really. As soon as I was a teen and started being more able to be out and having fun I sort of tried to tune family life out as much as possible, as it wasn’t the easiest situation for various reasons. I’m sure many manage to have a much closer relationship but I just had my own life, own priorities, none of which were hugely family related, if I’m honest.

Personally I wouldn’t try and force a formal ten minute a week activity, because it’ll be very unlikely to work. I’d try and include both of them in doing something sometimes - depending on interests/personalities of your children then you’d know best what type of things may appeal. I’d say inclusion of both of them, and not always prioritising the younger one will also help. I know it’s natural to concentrate on the younger one, because the older one is far more independent and will seem not to need you, but from her pov she could be seeing a disparity between the two of them, with her getting less time. I know you say you do something with her once a week, but it’s the rest of the time that she’ll be seeing. My younger sister always wanted full attention on her at all times, even when she was older and that kind of thing can really resonate with the older child more. And I’m sure a lot of it is subconscious and mostly banal and normal day to day stuff that you may not even notice.

Don't force playtime, but start lots of positivity.
Try to get 4 yo to draw a picture for 13 yo, then before she gives it to her tell 13 yo she spent ages drawing a picture for 13yo and said she will love it. Ask 13 yo if she wants to bake cakes with 4 yo (with you helping so she's not having to look after 4 yo)
Get 4 yo to pick something at the shop for 13yo and give it to her (frame it as 4yo said you'd like this and picked it out for you)
Basically need to work around 13yos self centered attitude to make her feel positive about 4yo. If she's got a big ego then pandering it to an extent may make her feel more favourable to 4yo.

Sorry for typos, my keyboard went a bit weird whilst I was typing!

I can see why. You wouldn’t expect a 13 year old to be friends with an unrelated 4 year old. Why that should be different just because they’re family is beyond me.

Is the 11 year old in year 6 rather than year 7? A year 6 is more likely to be friendly with preschoolers than a year 7 IME.

Tell the 13yo off if she’s rude to the 4yo but with an age gap like that, it was always going to take a few years before they become friends. I have a 16 year age gap with my younger brother and we weren’t friends before he was adult tbh because that was when our life stages matched.

Yanbu to think that the 13yo and 4yo are just being their ages. Even if 4yo was 8, I think you’d be in the same situation.

Yes, I agree that concentrating things for the youngest will not help the relationship. I always called it “the lowest common denominator”, in that all activities, trips had to be suited for the youngest, so the older two never had any say and it was mostly always just a disaster and we absolutely hated the activities. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be suitable for the youngest, but more that it shouldn’t be aimed purely at the youngest, in somewhere/thing that was boring or totally unsuitable for the elder teens. My older sibling, obviously, had an even larger gap. I can’t recall when they left home, but probably same age I did. Neither of us left for reasons of uni at that time, but I think it was just a case of leaving as soon as possible. And I certainly didn’t leave and go into an easy situation either, just that at one point all the other stuff came to a head and I’d just literally had enough and just walked out. There were many reasons for all this, but unfortunately none of it helped the relationships in the family.