I have a lot kids, but you wouldn’t know it if you stopped by my home while my older kids are at school. I mean, you probably would know it from the amount of laundry waiting to be washed, or the dishes stacked on the counter, but you wouldn’t hear the kind of chaos that has defined my life for the last decade or so. My five oldest kids are at school for various amounts of time during the day (preschool through middle school) and it’s just my littlest son and me.
I am not used to this.
When my oldest son was our only child, I had no idea what I was doing. He was a high-maintenance kid who wanted to be chatting with someone every waking moment of the day. He NEEDED brothers and sisters to hang out with. ASAP. He was two when we added our next child (via foster care and adoption) to the mix.
My youngest is pretty calm and quiet, happy to sit next to me and play cars by himself. This is new to me.
As I’m adjusting to this new world, I’m noticing something. I rarely have to discipline or redirect this child. He is so easy to manage and easy to please. At first I thought that might have been because he was an exceptionally good child. But I don’t think that’s it. I think he just isn’t getting into the same kind of mischief as my other kids were who were constantly having to deal with a sibling. He’s almost four years old and he’s been the baby his whole life, with people deferring to his needs and involved in other big kid activities so he could have more of the attention. I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s not that he’s just a good kid, it’s that we’ve made his life easy. . . maybe too easy.
When his siblings get home, that’s when his issues come out. He’s fighting over toys, he’s calling someone a name (his current favorite is to yell, “You a DUMB!” when he’s upset), he’s crying when he doesn’t get his way. . . he’s being an entirely average three-year-old boy.
In those moments I can feel a little frustrated that my angel child has turned into a wild, raging monster. But I’m starting to reframe that for myself. His siblings aren’t turning him into something he isn’t, they are just helping reveal something he is. Once I see it, I can work on it.
This is the beauty and the challenge of sibling relationships. This home is where my kids learn some of the most valuable lessons and their brothers and sisters are the best teachers. In my home my kids are learning how to share, how to take turns, and how to listen. They’re becoming empathetic, planning for their futures together, and learning what it means to be loyal to another person.
They’re also horrible to each other. They practice their most cutting insults, are manipulative in ways that exhaust me, and melt into sobs when they don’t get their way. I hate seeing these behaviors from my kids, but I’d rather know that’s what’s in their hearts than go on thinking they are model citizens because I haven’t seen their character truly tested. Having siblings seems to be a God-designed way to reveal our most ingrained sin patterns and character flaws.
I’m sure children who don’t have siblings reveal these things in other ways. I’m not sure what that looks like, but I know in our house a lot of my job is mediating sibling disputes and helping my kids learn how to mediate them for each other. This is the kind of practice my kids need for having healthy marriages, knowing how to successfully navigate coworker relationships, and becoming nurturing parents. This also sets the groundwork for the sibling relationships they will have into the future. I don’t know how many times I’ve joked with my boys they need to be more thoughtful to their sister because she’s the only one of this bunch who expresses any interest in cooking the Thanksgiving turkey and they don’t want her to spit in it some day. We want these relationships to last a lifetime, which means helping them learn to be kind even when they’re frustrated. I’m asking them to imagine a future and behave today in ways they’ll be proud of twenty years from now when they’re raising their own kids as cousins together.
Your siblings see you for who you are. They see you when the mask is down. They didn’t choose you, but over the years you begin to choose each other. This is what we want for our kids. Seeing their worst behaviors directed at each other shouldn’t make us question our choice to give our kids siblings, but remind us that revealing and refining our character is exactly what the sibling relationship was designed to do.
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