As many of you already know in a little over a month our son Jon will have a little brother, Aran. For a few months, one of the usual questions people have when they hear the news is: "How does he take it?"
"Good", we always respond, really I don't think there are many children who misbehave before a brother or sister is born, but of course, if before being born everyone is interested in the subject, I do not even want to think what will happen when Aran is with us.
The theory of the dethroned king, so accepted in society, is not entirely true, or at least it does not seem so to me. Children are not kings, they don't even feel that way. They live the lives they have lived and against what people think they rarely do what they really want.
They get up when they go to school or daycare, put on the clothes that their parents have chosen for them, go to the centers that the parents have decided and eat what they have prepared. They go to visit the homes of families even if they don't feel like it and go out to shop even if they get bored in stores. At home they play with their toys, they play with their parents, but they know (or learn) that dad and mom also have other things to do at home ...
As you see, kings, what is said kings, they are not. Another thing is that if they are alone with dad and mom they have to spend time sharing with a little brother. Depending on how it happens, it is likely that the dreaded jealousy will end up appearing.
Too often it is blamed that "is jealous" whatever the older person does than is normal and we should not stay there, tempted to say that "it is normal, it is jealous", but go beyond and try to know why it acts like this.
Have the parental attention is for a child a positive feeling that shows him that he is an important person for them, that they care and care about him, that they enjoy him, etc.
If they see that parents pay less attention, children may feel bad and end up feeling jealous.
The arrival of a newborn at home is a change, with capital letters and all the letters, of the family dynamics that will affect the parents, once again, and that will inevitably affect the children who are already part of the family.
All changes generate uncertainty and often anxiety, and children experience it in a much more intense way. They will feel out of place and they will need to find their place in their home and in the hearts of dad and mom again.
Singing, complaining, crying, interrupting, asking for help, making noise ... all of them are some of the tools children have to get attention. Often the advice in these situations is "don't pay attention to him, he just wants to get attention", but the desirable thing is precisely the opposite.
Calling attention does not have to be something negative. A wake-up call is a child's need to be attended, is his way of expressing that he feels bad, that he needs something or that something bothers him. If I could say, “Mom, with the arrival of the new brother, I feel weird, you are with him for a long time and you don't play with me anymore and I don't know very well what to do or what to think. I think you still love me, tell me it's like that, ”I would say.
Adults, among us, complain a little: "Honey, you don't give me so many kisses anymore." Sometimes we complain a little more and in a more aggressive way making authentic tests of love to our partners in the form of anger and anger, usually by nonsense, simply to see how it reacts.
The children act the same. They taste the love of dad and mom doing things that attract attention that can be drawing, singing or doing things that mom and dad like a lot like things that bother them so they can prove they love him.
Our role, of course, is to show them that we are still there and that of course we still love them.
In a few days, following the topic, I will publish some recommendations to avoid jealousy or to minimize problems arising from the birth of a new baby.
