I say occurring as it is still happening. The phenomenon started almost a month ago now ( not that I’m counting or anything) and seems to have become the norm in our house. The very strange thing is that this phenomenon has never occurred before in our house, and when I say never I mean NEVER.
Oh I have heard of it of course but never actually experienced it first hand and was almost jealous of those who had. In fact I had resigned myself to the fact it would never happen and was open an honest about it.
Recently I have been asking myself this question virtually everyday.
I have two boys, one aged 13 and the other is 11.
THEY DO NOT GET ON.
In essence they are very, very different personalities, which I think is great. They like different things but also like some similar things too. So why can’t they get along together?
I truly do not know.
Now, I don’t just mean a bit of sibling rivalry, or fighting one minute and then friends the next. NO they are never friends. EVER.
My youngest is a very loud and outgoing character. He has a lot of personality and loves to be centre of attention. My eldest is quieter, more mellow generally and tends to go with the flow, until it involves his brother.
But it is starting to affect the family dynamics.
A family day at home or out is just horrendous. We know it will end in tears, namely ours. It seems as a family we cannot simply enjoy time together, just chatting, laughing and having a joke. My eldest can get very stressed by the whole thing.
At the moment our family life is generally our boys taking themselves off to their separate rooms and shutting their doors to be away from each other.
As parents we try to be fair with their disputes. However, we have noticed more and more that it generally stems from our youngest. He makes fun of his older brother and although we all have jokes at each others expense, his delve into what we believe to be bullying.
Whenever my eldest says anything, and I mean anything, he will be sneered at, or laughed at or belittled as though what he says has no relevance.
We have approached our youngest and explained how he is behaving.
What makes it worse is that our oldest has very mild Asperger traits ( not fully diagnosed, but noticeable). Again we have tried explaining this to our youngest and have used some books to show him how his brother thinks.
IT DIDN’T WORK. IN FACT IT MADE IT WORSE.
Now, I know you will all be thinking he must be attention seeking. However, he gets a lot more time devoted to him on a 1 to 1 basis because of his acting. I am always with him for auditions and shows. Everything tends to revolve around what he is doing, our Christmas this year was dominated by the fact he was acting in Panto everyday of the holidays.
So I need help. Where are we as parents going wrong?
I cannot see any other reason for it other than our total parent fail!
We try everything, we take things, such as, Ipods and TV away. There have been times were we have stopped him going to a party or to friends if he has been particularly bad. We also stand by our word and if we threaten something, and we ALWAYS carry it through. So you would think he would get the message.
Our main concern is how he treats his brother.
SO I will ask again. Is it A PARENTING FAIL, or just life as we know it?
Where do we go from here?
It’s quite depressing, for everyone apart from my youngest son.
