"First Born Syndrome"

Yeah, the blog comes as a surprise due to the name it holds, what is this syndrome that exists only for the first born child having a sibling at their house. I have two kids, one is 7 years old and the other is 2 years old. This topic in my belief is huge and cannot be expressed in one phase of life, and we might have to edit it many times to refine it. So the things i did face and i feel i could have rectified early our mentioned below.

"First Child Should Share Syndrome :

Most of us if not all of us, we always have this notion, that once the second child comes the first child would automatically learn to share. Are we sure that is the right thought in the first place ?Are we bringing another human into this world to rectify a character that cannot be changed otherwise ? This is the first "MYTH","BELIEF" "Thought Process" we need to change before we even give birth to our second kid.

Now even if we dont have that notion , though, belief in our heads, many of us, second time moms, suddenly become the strictest humans to our kids. All of a sudden a tiny human enters our life and somehow this 3 year old or this 4 year old becomes very very big in our eyes and we expect the world from them, thinking we taught them better and they are born from us. But sometimes as a mother of two, we often times forget that the little one we are holding in our hands and the little one standing next to this little one is also a small little kid, and has just entered the world. Most of us as parents would be advised, get another child so the elder doesn't feel too pampered and he will learn to share and let go of things. But what is the actual truth ? Read on to know.

Sharing - "give a portion of (something) to another or others".

|| He is become too self obsessed, and he is not at all sharing, we need to get another child to teach him "Sharing".||

|| Look at his heart, he always says "Mine", "Mine" and "Mine" ||

|| Learn to share with your younger brother, see how bad your heart is? ||

So coming to sharing, a genuine question i would like to ask all parents out there, the minute your second kid is born into the world, you first child has already shared the 3 most important aspect of his entire small life on planet earth, "Mom", "Dad" and "His Home". Its an immediate change from you are the only child to you are one of the child, everything in the house is divided after that for them. The time, the affection, the food, the play time, the alone time spent with you, the attention they had. If you would really look deep into this, you would realise, that your first kid really entered a crazy difficult phase of his life, which he never realised he would ever enter. Some kids express themselves and their feelings, but many dont. Our Ian loved his baby brother, but silently watched things being taken away from him, later there were bouts of anger and frustration coming out of a 5 year old, and we didn't know what was wrong, we were similar to other parents, and were asking him to be a good big brother to his younger brother, but that was not the case happening, he wanted to but he didn't, he tried snatching things from him and doing many things, which was so not ian.

That is when, i got on my knees and prayed hard, to make God explain what I am doing wrong, and the answer came on my head, are you being fair to ask the world from your first child? If you can't love a five year old, the way he is and complain about him, then there is no way you can understand the world. I realised, now, knowingly or unknowingly my world revolved around the second kid, i didn't spend as much as a time with my elder kid, and i expected him to give up everything for the younger brother, the conversations with ian was always "keep this away from shawn", "dont play this when shawn is awake", "I dont have time right now, can't you see i am with your brother" and so on and so forth.

Lets understand as parents, that they have shared the most precious things they held on to, and so asking them anything more, would really not be right from us.

Sharing is something that cannot be taught but it should naturally happen and trust me it will happen, you just need to give it time.

Another Major Syndrome encountered is

First Born Growing Up Too Fast Syndrome:

Below are some commonly made statements to our elder children.

Growing Up: "You are a Big Boy Now, so you need to behave that way" || "You need to setup examples for your younger brother" || " what is your age?, what is your brothers age, lets give up things for your brother"

We as parents are overwhelmed with parenting process all over again with our second child that often times the first child grows up too soon. He has to be on bed on his own, he needs to take a bath on his own, sometimes he doesn't even get time to talk to his parents properly to even share his feelings. He basically becomes a grown up after his siblings entry ! My child had to give up bedtime stories with me after shawn was born, he had to give up morning time with me before his school, he could hardly get solid 2 hours play time with me everyday anymore. When asked after nearly 2 years of none of this happening and also no personal talks happening , he said "He badly missed all of that, but he didn't have a choice so he learned to become independent"

Now coming to the fact, children will grow up and become independent and that is a good thing, but we as parents need to understand when the growing up and independence is taking them far from us at a very early stage. Our connect with out children need to be there everyday no matter what. No child should feel they are forced into it, they should be wanting to become independent, that is healthy learning and healthy growing. When they are forced, no matter how early they learn, they will never like it at all, but when it is their choice, they will love it. Bottomline let us not make our kids feel lonely and pushed to an unhealthy independence in the name of becoming a "BIG BROTHER". Lets also make sure our younger children learn to respect, care, love the elder brother.

As the saying goes, kids imitate us more than they ever would learn. So lets show them to respect, love ,care for their elder brother without shaming our elders in front of the younger siblings.

First child syndrome is a slow poison we add into the minds of our kids, that disrupts their trust in themselves and in their parents, lets break it and love them the same way and not expect them to become super humans overnight cause we have another child in our hands.

Things we can do as parents to avoid this :

1. Be Polite, Loving With you First Child through all the conversations with them regarding and involving the second child. Politeness and softness goes a long way in parenting.

2. Give Individual Time as parents for each Child, this way they have a time dedicated for them to be open, themselves, and be heard by you.

3. Never reprimand a child in front of the sibling, always correct them in another room, or in an another environment.

4. Be Fair, dont judge a situation solely based on Age :)

5. Give time and love to your elder son to really adapt to the new Life he has been offered.

When we look at the above, it might seem easy, but we all as parents know how things get and what we can and cannot control! I am no saint and I am learning from my mistakes as a mom and would like to share my learnings here in this portal. I am trying to reboot my parenting system as i might have failed in many aspects. So its not easy, but its the only way we can avoid the "First Child Syndrome" that really affects the minds of the child and can lead to long term mental illness.