Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

To Deal With Sibling Squabbles_Parents _ Nuture Yourself

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If you have siblings with issues between them, look to yourself. Are you running on empty? Most young mothers I know don’t really nurture themselves. Between work, parenting and household chores, they never put themselves on their own to do list.

 

If you are a Mom or Dad of teenagers or young children and your kids are struggling with sibling rivalry, avoid a future sibling “I Hate You” story- 40 years from now by caring for yourself. Taking care of you as the caregiver is key to caring for others.

 

The catch phrase is to “balance work and family”. I am talking about balancing three things-work family and you –filling up your own self- before the other two plunge out of balance

Try joining-enrolling in activities that help you care of yourself will help your kids move through the shoals of sibling issues because you feel healthier. You might choose yoga, massage, journaling, meditation, a book club, or a gym membership. Mindfulness could be a practice you could investigate.

 

Keep a diary; just a few sentences a day to tell yourself what you did that day to care for yourself. Just taking a walk, getting your nails done or sitting alone for 15 minutes can count as self-care.

 

Don’t tell yourself you don’t have time. Caregivers of the elderly end up the hospital before the person they care for. That’s one caregiver taking care of one person. Mom’s care for multiple kids and at times sparing siblings.

 

Delegate household tasks to the whole family- give siblings chores like setting the table taking out the trash, starting basic meals. Forming a sibling team actually helps build healthy siblings relationships plus helps you – balance your needs and theirs.
Young children who have brother and sister problems, demand time and attention from the parental caregiver. Your first job is to care for them, but you cannot do that if you’re not emotionally strong and centered yourself.

 

Getting to that point means caring for the caregiver and using caregiver tools to make yourself the best mom, dad, step mom, or step dad you can be. You can help yourself overcome present and future sibling rivalry issues by making a list of activities to nurture yourself so you have all the energy and centeredness it takes to deal with sibling issues.

Being parent/ caregiver, who nurtures yourself, brings your nurturing skills with your young siblings, back into your life.

Parenting With a Broken leg-Parenting in General- Use Extended Family

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My daughter has 14-month-old twin siblings. She works for the SCAN Foundation at a job that take her to Washington DC frequently. Her husband has a demanding job administering the 3500 kids in the LA Jr Guards program  part of the LA Lifeguards, the largest Lifeguard service in the world.

 

Where does extended family come in? My son in law Dan just broke his leg. My husband Pete had been in LA down taking care of their twin siblings along with help from their part time nanny since July.

 

With the broken leg of this week, Pete will have to have a longer stay to care for our twin sibling’s grandsons and help Dan and Kali.

They will have aide. To the rescue will come extended family including me, several aunts from both side of the Murphy/ Peterson family and even teenage cousins, who are all coming down next week.

Added this is Dan’s Dad who took him to the doctor after the break, drove him home after the operation and brought dinner for everyone last night and took him to work today, broken leg and all- on crutches.

 

The moral is —it takes a village, as Hillary Clinton said. Raising siblings, kids, twins, multiples takes asking for help from extended family, which includes friends, aunts uncles, grandparent’ great grandparents. neighbors and godparents.

 

They can help with this heavy parent life, by picking up after school, shuttling to activities, driving to doctors appointments, running garage sales, home repair, broken legs and dinner for exhausted parents . You name it – you need them.

 

My first husband is at my older daughter’s home right now building a new fence, replacing doors, and helping with kids as she recently got divorced and needs his support. He builds film sets and so can do really fine carpentry.

 

I have said involve Dad’s more but my message here is also involve granddad’s more too- they are terrific.

 

Extended family can blow up like an air mattress. They can come in a crisis, like my son- in laws broken leg and my daughter’s divorce – take over or just help with tasks, and then deflate and fly back home.

 

You say – I have no close family- then ask friends or neighbors, people in your church, folks in any group you are in, like a twins group. Raising children, multiple siblings twins and multiples (like triplets or more) – takes that Hillary Clinton Village, whether you like Hillary Clinton or not-

Ask and ye shall receive- if you don’t ask- well you might be there with a broken legged husband and 14 month old twins ( who can both walk- fast on four chubby legs )

Is Your New Baby Causing Sibling Misery?

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Are you are a Gen X or Y parent expecting a baby? Want to avoid sibling rivalry with your other kids who feel wretchedly neglected?

One answer- do parental sibling marketing to each of your other children to blunt the jealousy of the new arrival.

Work hard to sell self-worth to older siblings before and after the birth. Encourage harmony among all the siblings, who are no longer that special baby and probably feel family nest is way too crowded.

Pay attention to the role the baby has taken in your family.

2012 parents Kaila and Taylor were consumed with their newborn on top of earning enough cash to pay the bills in this rotten economy. The overwhelmed parents had little time to make for their other two kids.

In fact teen Lucy felt like she was the least favorite child now that her parents ended her piano lessons due to the tight family budget. Having new baby Ella arrive as the star of the family, made Lucy and eight year old Jack feel like Neptune and Pluto compared to the shining Venus of Ella.

One critical parental step was needed – involve father’s more. Dad Taylor took that step by making more bottles, changing diapers and doing late night feedings for his new daughter. He attended all of Jack’s baseball games, exhausted and bleary, but always there as a cheering Dad.

His paternal involvement allowed Mom Kaila to spend more time with Lucy, who was careworn after she had to give up music lessons plus her Mom’s attention. Kaila found cheaper activities by calling her daughter’s guidance counselor for help. Lucy had shown an interest in working backstage at the high school theater, where her best girlfriend was the stage manager.

The high school counselor prompted Mom Kaila to ask Lucy to join the theater company and work backstage. Mom Kaila, who sewed, volunteered to help the seamstress make costumes for the theater group so that she and Lucy could interact more.

So with a new baby make sure you spread love evenly and show each sibling that he or she is special and important.

This parental marketing will pay off in big dividends in the here and now and future by preventing a sibling  “I Hate You” story many years down the line where the “baby “ remains the least favorite sibling decades later

 

 

 

 

 

Do You Compare Siblings in Your Young Family?

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Don’t make comparisons between two siblings. It can set up sibling rivalry in the future and cause parents unnecessarily worry in the present. My daughter Kali has twin boys and they are developing at different rates. They both crawled and walked around the same age but one twin talks a mile a minute and the other does not talk. This has caused parental anxiety that is not necessary, as a speech therapist told Kali. The talking twin is talking for the non-talking twin. He just needs more one to one time and some exercises that the therapist showed Kali and her husband.

 

But in the future, as siblings age, these comparisons of this can leaded to sibling wars 40 years in the future. Parent’s recall and say out loud, who got the first tooth, who walked first, who rode a bike first or who did better in school -subconsciously pitting siblings against each other.

 

As siblings grow up and reach midlife, after they have raised their own families, baby boomer siblings’ come back together. Midlife siblings celebrate family rituals, socialize together and critically care for aging parents. Deep-rooted sibling rivalry from early comparisons between siblings can cause estrangement begun in early childhood. Deep down in the sibling psyche, these feelings of sibling rivalry have sprung from comparisons the parents made decades ago.

For anyone who has read East of Eden, or seen the iconic James Dean film you say see the brutal battles that play out later in life from early sibling comparisons. This unintended consequence of early parenting creates alienated siblings who can’t form that sibling team to socialize together or work as a team to manage aging parental care.

So calm your parental present and give your young siblings a future without sibling’s rivalry- don’t make comparisons.

 

 

Parenting Twins- You Need Father’s More

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Young families today need to involve Dad’s more my daughter Kali and husband Dan have 14-month-old twin boys , born here in Redondo Beach (LA), Ca. . So I would like to dedicate this blog to Dad’s of twins and offer a few important things that Dad’s need to do to support twin siblings.

To say the least –if you are the father of twins, you need to give to extra support to your wife- much   more than you do with the birth of a single baby. Raising twins is grueling all along the way to maybe ages two or three – 24/ 7 with two babies, two feedings, two diaperings huge loads of laundry and two exhausted parents. After three I suspect there are new overwhelming duties to divide.

Twins, turn your life upside down. If you are or your wife are type a -get ready to switch to type C or D. Twins hit your house like an earthquake.

 

Through tension and fog of bleary-eyed stress- there is a very good rule of thumb for Dad’s of twins.  Both the Dad and Mom must show respect for each other, remember they love each other and work as a team.

 

My daughter and her husband Dan play tag team with their twins Dylan and Liam.

Kali works all-day and so does Dan. They have a nanny three days and family coverage on other days as the Murphy family lives nearby. My husband is also here for two months this summer and I come down every 10 days from Santa Cruz, Ca.

 

Both Dan and Kali care for the twins as soon as they get comes from work, because it takes a parent team to get dinner, play, bathe and get two babies to sleep. Dan reads them to sleep every night with Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. I love that.

 

Both Mom and Dad get up at night as needed. You need 4 arms to manage twins at this stage.  Both Dan and Kali put those schedules together as a team and change them together as more or less family is available.

 

Now that’s just if you simply have twins.  In spite of the tsunami that has hit your life, if you have new twins, plus other kids, you as a Dad have to offer the whole young family, a secure. nurturing environment.

 

It can test any relationship to the limit. So Dad’s need to keep romance alive and strengthen their relationship as a couple by keeping channels of communication open through all the stress. Children learn from this openness and gain respect for themselves and others by the way their parents interact. My husband and I are babysitting tonight so the parent’s can go to a much-needed party.

 

So involve Dad’s more especially new Dads of twin siblings and congratulations to my son in law Dan for being such a wonderful new Dad.

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