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?

Four year olds are annoying and the expectation put on teen girls to be "maternal" towards children is annoying.

This is a tricky one, OP. I think you're doing everything you can to facilitate a good relationship between the girls and the most likely thing is the 13yo is just at a tricky age. In fact maybe both are? When they're both a few years older I think it's much more likely they'll be friends rather than just siblings. As adults, there's no reason to think they won't be. The age gap is a lot smaller when you're 26 and 35.

You sound like a lovely mum by the way.

I wouldn’t force the relationship it will just cause resentment. My DH is the youngest of a big family, his oldest sibling is 10 years older than him, he says he can barely remember him from his childhood as obviously they had absolutely nothing in common, they’re very close now as adults and have the same friendship group in their 30s and 40s so I wouldn’t say they will never have a relationship it may just take time!

16 year age gap with me and my brother i couldnt be bothered with him then and still not bothered now.
Mum tried to force it but i told her you wanted a baby i didnt, she tried to get us to bond lol she wanted a baby sitter.
She would try to get me to play games with him etc it was hell i was in my 20s i didnt want to play baby games.
I moved out quite quick, i moved in with my sister.
Im way in my 30s my sister is in her 40s my brother is in his early 20s we have nothing in common with him we just find him dry and boring we dont click at all.
However im very close to my sister 2 years between us.

Your Daughter was the only girl for 9 years and then you brought home another baby, not just any baby but a girl baby and took away the crown. Don't try and force a relationship. They may have a great bond in 5 years time but right the eldest is not interested. My brother hated me until i was 10 and he left home, now we have a fantastic relationship.

I am confused but what relationship do you expect to have with such an age gap? The one is almost a teenager and the other one is a toddler. I hope for the little one to one day develop a relationship with the older siblings and it’s not going to always be two of the close and the other one alone. Maybe have another one?

I don’t know any siblings with such.m a large age gap who played together. It probably won’t change until they are adults, if it does at all.

My family is like flamingbiscuits. Four children spread over 7/8 years. This thread has revealed to me that their relationships are precious and unusual! They love and care for each other- and the 11 yo PLAYS regularly and delightfully with the 3 yo. They are of course not peers or really even friends. But have a sibling bond and deep understanding and love for each other. As a family we function as a team- not doing everything together, but each having responsibilities that help the team. It’s quite Enid Blyton adventuresque here!

The way the 13 year old speaks to her sister is absolutely a problem. She can’t talk to her like this.
However, you do need to accept they probably won’t have a close relationship with that age gap. It’s OK if their relationship is a bit more like a cousins relationship, or if they get closer as they get older, great. But you can’t force a relationship. You’re better off doing a ‘girls’ afternoon, out to bowling, meal out, bonding activities. And hopefully your son can have something similar with his father at the same time.

my brother is 8 yrs older than me and pretty much hated me throughout childhood.

I’ve found that talking about how much the younger one loves the older one works well. Not to force anything, but like the odd comment to your DH, in earshot of the DC, of “oh isn’t it sweet how much DC4 loves DC13?” Or “aww did you draw that picture for your big sister? You love her don’t you?” (in earshot of the older one), or tell the older one her little sister looks up to her. Don’t over-egg the pudding. But it might help to thaw the frost a bit…

Wait until your 11 year old is 13. It’s a massive difference

I had ds when dd1 was 11 and dd2 was 10, neither were particularly impressed and only interacted with him when necessary. I then had dd3 when dd1 was 16 and they all loved her. Ds is now 22 and both dd1 and dd2 have a lovely relationship with him. You can't force it!

I would just like to add that neither dd1 or dd2 were expected to help with ds or dd3 besides occasionally keeping an eye on them if I had to do something as I didn't want them to have a parent/ child relationship.

Honestly what do you expect??

They are worlds apart

Very similar ages to me and my siblings growing up.
4 year olds are annoying (sorry) especially when you are 13 and going through the teenage hormones.

I remember when she was a baby I was sort of interested, but when she got older but still to young to be left - I’d find it annoying that I was always the default babysitter/helper. Selfish I know, but it to a 13/14 year old me I never asked for another sibling!

BUT we got closer when she was older, I would take her swimming, cinema etc she was less annoying! We also very close now as adults, shifted around when she was around 15.

I think you need to get creative here.

I'd offer to pay the 13yo a bit of extra pocket money if she takes charge of doing the 4yo's reading with her.

You can insist on civil behaviour and speaking nicely to each other. But you can’t force the 13 years old to want to spend time with a 4 year old. She gets on with her brother who’s a couple of years younger so it’s clearly not an issue of her just being unpleasant and unreasonable. She just has nothing in common with her sister. You had another baby when your older ones were 9 and 7 and already had an established relationship and tbh it’s not a huge surprise that there’s just no common ground. Maybe that sounds a bit harsh but did you really expect it to be any different?

I think you have to accept that such a big age gap is very likely to result in an extremely limited relationship. I have 4 siblings, I'm close to my closest in age sibling but have next to no relationship with the other 3, they were annoying little kids when I was a teen and then I left home for uni and barely saw them.
I don't hate them or anything just have a very neutral relationship with them and barely see them.

It would have been worse if I'd have been forced to have regular interaction with them, then I'd just have out right resented them.

That. When her only interaction with her sister is to tell her off or sneer at her, she needs to know that that is absolutely unacceptable.

You can't make her play with her, but you can absolutely stop that behaviour.

I have a 5+ age gap between my two, they get on fantastically and my 8yo is constantly asking for another sibling (one of his friends has baby twin siblings and he thinks that would be the best thing ever). Yes, 13 is very different from 8 but it's not a given that sibling relationships will pan out this way.

I think you're a bit out of touch to be giving advice on what's considered appropriate for 13 year olds! Do you actually know what a theme park is if you've never been to one? They aren't babyish at all, if anything they're more focused towards adults than children.

Most 13 year olds would far rather go to a theme park than an art gallery or museum! I was a very geeky teen who ended up doing a classics masters and I'd still have preferred the theme park at that age.

Same with going for a bike ride with your family - unless you're a very keen cyclist that's mortifying at 13. Like being part of the von trapps.

And while some 13 y/os are obviously horse mad it's not a standard interest. I'd think of swimming as being far more typical.

Late - I have teens so no, not out of touch. Mine would indeed enjoy a theme park - but they’d want to do that sort of thing with their friends not much younger children. It sounds like OP’s daughter is having to do things that are more focused around her little sister, OP asked for some suggestions for more grown up activities so I gave some. Mums and daughters going into town together for some shopping and something to eat or drink is surely not unusual? My kids do enjoy museums & castles - again, not uncommon. They also enjoy city breaks - we each choose one thing we’d like to do. They’ve doing that since age 10 or 11. And yes I do know what theme parks are despite not having been to one! Bike riding is also a very common activity - mountain biking trails, long distance routes plenty of teens enjoy those (but not with the 4 year old in tow!). One parent could take the older two and let them have a blast.

I have an almost 12 year and an almost ten year gap and my 3 DC have always been close. They are all adults now and have great relationships with each other.

My DH has 4 siblings all with tiny age gaps and they aren’t at all close.

I think it’s pot luck if siblings get on.