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It all started off very sweetly. My daughter, Joanna, was 18 months old when Benjy came into the world. She greeted her new baby brother as the most fun doll a little girl could ever have. She cooed at him and tried to feed him his bottle. She kissed him, and pretended to be his mommy—“Oh, Benjy, it’s OK, honey,” she would say when he cried, and they have gotten along beautifully ever since.
Sounds sweet, right? Well, yes and no. Over the years, their cooperation has increasingly become a problem. Instead of doing what we tell them, they have become partners in crime. Benjy, for instance, has developed an excessive attachment to his pacifier (“Bobby”) and his bunny-blanket (“Nunny”), night-time sleep soothers that we would like to gradually wean him off of. Joanna has made herself the primary obstacle to our campaign. Last year—with Benjy approaching 3—we started to confiscate and hide Bobby and Nunny during non-sleep hours. Joanna indignantly sussed them out and delivered them to her brother.
When I said he couldn’t take them to the pool because they would get soaked, she appointed herself his counsel. “OK, I’ll give you a deal,” she told me, very business-like. “We’ll give Benjy his Nunny now, and we’ll take it away when we get to the water.” Not long ago, my wife reminded him of his commitment to give up Bobby altogether when he turns 4. “I have to discuss it with my sister,” he said, and they returned with a counter-proposal. Instead of 4, how about 87?
You can find a stack of books giving parents advice on how to stop sibling rivalry. But what about the constituency that needs to increase sibling rivalry? The parental-advice industry has ignored us completely. I am not arguing for excessive competition between children, only a healthy middle ground. Imagine that your children are Coke and Pepsi. You don’t want them to drop dead rats into each others’ bottles or send out hooligans to beat up anybody seen drinking the opposing product. On the other hand, you don’t want them colluding to set prices, either. You want a healthy middle ground of competition without enmity. Many families are in dead-rat territory. My family is with the colluders.
Sometimes I can foil them with artificial ways to foster competition, and drive a wedge between them. Who can make it upstairs for bath time fastest? Who can put on their shoes first? It’s a race! Compete for Daddy’s approval! It’s my best technique for breaking up the duopolistic behavior cartel. (Alternatively, I could increase competition by adding a third supplier to the market, but I’m faced with heavy barriers to entry, including, but not limited to, the pain of childbirth, the cost of adding another bedroom to the house, and future college tuition.)
The most common way they fail to respect our authority is through acts of passive civil disobedience. In our family, there is no such thing as asking the children to put on their shoes or brush their teeth and then having them do it. They will respond to any such command not with rejection, but a kind of vague, detached agreement, as if I had expressed a generalized wish for nice weather or world peace. Sometimes I can force compliance through repeated requests escalating into threats of punishment. But usually when I am concentrating on one of the children, the other will cause a distraction elsewhere—Joanna will demand a hair accessory we don’t have, or Benjy will start to remove the shoes I’ve forced him to wear —and so the process will continue, back and forth.
A family is supposed to be a dictatorship, with the parents collectively playing the role of Khamenei (only without the nutty figurehead and sham election). Any dictatorship can be brought down if the people decide to band together and disobey the established rules. This is why the people must be divided against each other.
Jonathan Chait is a senior editor at the New Republic, and author of 'The Big Con: Crackpot Economics and the Fleecing of America.'
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Comments
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Wrong Problem!!!!
By: Thomas Lord | Sun, 06/21/2009 - 20:24
Your problem is not that the kids support one another.
Your problem is that both of your kids disrespect your authority.
You describe, basically, being consistently outwitted by kids under 10. The problem is not with the bonds between your kids but in your failure to develop meaningful discipline.
Simple notion: bad behavior by either or both merits quick, certain, negative consequence. Take away favorite toys. Take away TV or DVDs or video games or what have you. Make it very clear why. Make it very clear what standards of behavior must be met for privileges to return. Be consistent, calm, unflappable, and fair. They are not (ideally) in a negotiating position with you.
You worry that your kids will decide they live in an oppressive regime. Well, that's what they should think. Not "oppressive" as in "unkind" - you can be a "benevolent dictator" but as a parent you are most definitely in the business of oppression. Kids are born feral. Parents civilize them. You "oppress" their uncivil tendencies and you nurture and protect their growth into civilization.
I wouldn't discourage you if you thought of maybe seeking a little bit family counseling with a good therapist, probably one with some cognitive behavioral background - but I fully admit that it's hard to figure out how to find a good one and there are plenty of bogus ones.
I know this is a weird suggestion but: consider contacting the "Dr. Phil" organization for referrals. I don't mean "write in and get on the show" I mean that that org seems generally somewhat sane on issues like this and can probably help with referrals. (I have no affiliation with them.)
I worry, based on your stories, about your kids. I worry any time I hear about kids of such young ages acting so badly with parents who can't figure out what to do (or mis-identify the problem, as you have here) because they want to "be nice" and negotiate with their kids. It's a big mistake, the path you say you're on, and it sure doesn't help your kids.
-t
Bobby and Nunny
By: bodhikai | Sun, 06/21/2009 - 13:43
My son had a blanket and sucked his thumb. You know, eventually he got over the blanket and, faced with the possibility of his older cousins seeing him suck his thumb, he quit.
No amount of coddling or negotiation would have weaned him from them sooner. Why not just let him have his bobby and nunny - as long as you're pushing him to give them up, the longer he'll hold onto them. It's a bit much for a 3 year old.
You don't have to acquiesce you know. If your daughter tries to negotiate, just say no. Endure the whining and crying. Be firm but kind. Mom and dad can band together too, and present a strong united team and draw firm lines in the sand.
Not sure you should be fighting this battle over bobby and nunny, and it's not even about them specifically.
Every time you let your daughter get away with countermanding you, it only makes it worse.
How about acting like an adult?
By: mustireallyweighin | Sat, 06/20/2009 - 23:36
You see...the dictatorship angle (i.e. being overthrown) only works when the individuals band together AND don't need the dictator.
Your little monsters have zero leverage. They have nothing to offer you and you have everything to take away.
I'd bet anything that "If your shoes aren't on in 3 minutes, then no TV today" was actually backed up, you'd get what you want.
I had a work colleague who threatened to cancel Christmas when the kids were being ungrateful and then actually did it. Kids woke up Christmas morning to no tree, no presents, nothing. Guess whose kids behaved a lot better after that one?
Too many parents think the kids are in charge and they aren't.
This is what you SHOULD WANT
By: flpndrox | Sat, 06/20/2009 - 11:51
This type of cooperation is what you should want. When my sister and I (15 mo apart) began spatting as toddlers, my parents decided the only way to bond us was to provide both a common enemy (them and their discipline) and a common goal (beating them by getting away with it). It didn't happen often, but our parents always subtly encouraged us to work together and look out for each other in the house, the neighborhood, the playground, and the school. Soon we were behaving like your kids. I can only imagine what a pain that was for them, but it *worked*. When our sister was stillborn, we mourned almost as much as our parents. When our baby sister was born years later, we experienced not concern but euphoria. We now our long desired dream of numerical advantage on the adults in the house. We helped raise her like she was our own.
Now we are all adults, I am older, wiser, and see what they did there. I had an excellent relationship with my mother until she passed a year and a half ago. I still have a great relationship with my father. But most importantly, my sisters and I would take a bullet for each other even now.
Keep encouraging them to work together...but from the sound of it, you and the wife need to step up your game to give them the competition they're going to need. =)
My brother and I were like
By: law school sophist | Sat, 06/20/2009 - 11:15
My brother and I were like this when we were little. I was 3 when he was born and I was always fiercely protective of him and wanted to play with *my* baby. Heh.
It may be a pain now, but in the future, it will probably be a good thing. I'm 23 now and he's 19 (almost 20) and quite a few times, he's asked me for advice about things he probably wouldn't ask my parents about. I've stopped him, a few times, from doing the stupid things teenage boys are wont to do. Sure, we still cover for each other sometimes, but I would never let him do something truly stupid or dangerous. So while they gang up on you now, you should be happy your son has his big sister watching out for him and vice versa!
A beautiful thing
By: FatherOfTwo | Sat, 06/20/2009 - 09:21
The bond between you son and daughter is a beautiful thing that should be nurtured, not discouraged or undermined. The world needs more cooperation, not more rivalry. I grew up an identical twin, and shared the kind of bond you describe. To this day I find I am a natural bridge builder and am exceptionally good at fostering cooperation. As we got older, our emotional dependence on each gently loosened naturally over the years; the only thing our parents did to foster this was by arranging for us to be in different classrooms from grade 3 onwards, and by dressing us differently. Both these will occur naturlaly in your case.I suggest you take a leaf out of my parents book. Any time our cooperation was getting in the way of discipline, the "rescuer" would be told firmly but kindly that "it is your brother that is in trouble not you, but if you continue to interfere, then you will both be in trouble" - natural consequence, it worked (most of time)!.
Separate them
By: vlr2014 | Sat, 06/20/2009 - 01:05
My brother & I were very close when we were little. As time went on, we got our own lives- different friends, interests, etc. Of course, we barely speak now . . . don't take a disciplinary approach- unless there is an immediate cause. You will simply teach them to dislike each other. Foster their differences in positive and healthy ways, but bring them out clearly and quickly. They will still conspire from time to time, I suggest you settle for them conspiring less.
Maybe it's not so bad...
By: orDover | Fri, 06/19/2009 - 17:19
My sister and I are three years apart. Rather than banding together in sibling camaraderie, from an early age we establish a relationship of competition and rivalry. We were far more likely to tell on each other and do whatever we could to get the other one in trouble than we were to play together. There weren't any dead rats involved, but at no point in our lives would anyone have called us "friends." Everyone figured we would grow out of it, and while the tattle-telling certainly stopped, we've never been able to build a healthy relationship. We're now 23 and 20. I'm dying for her to become my friend, but no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to make up for the childhood wrongs. I fear that a true sisterly relationship will always be out of reach for us. I'm so jealous of my friends who had good relationships with their siblings as children that allowed them to remain close as they reached adulthood. Rather than attempting to create rivalry, maybe you should just let it go and be glad that this childhood bond will likely result in a strong and loving friendship between brother and sister that will last a lifetime.