Monday, January 14, 2008

Sister Sister

How do you balance [fairly] the "friend coming over" with "including the sisters/siblings"?
I try to be fair to the child who has a friend come over/spend the night and let them have their "alone" time. But I find that it's kind of hard at times. I want them to include their siblings in some of the things they do. But you know how younger ones want to do everything that their older sister does and it might as well be their friend who's over. And I feel that tug at my heart when they're crying 'cause "so and so won't let me play!"

Just wondering what you do in this situation...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, you might not like it, but if we have someone come over to play, I make sure that there are always 2 kids coming - one for each of my kids to play with. I;m really trying to teach them that we don't do things alone - if only one child is invited somewhere, they usually don't go. And we don't do sleepovers!

Sarah Faith said...

I would plan a fun activity for the odd man out (and other siblings) and give the older one and friend a choice to have their alone time during that, or they can join together with everyone. That way they have the choice, and nobody is truly left out.

Motherhen said...

With my boys, I encourage them all to play together, but if the odd man out gets ugly or leftout, then I'll usually let him do something alone that he normally doesn't get to do, like play his video game alone.