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Raising PCs When You Have a difficult child in the family
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<blockquote data-quote="SuZir" data-source="post: 598617" data-attributes="member: 14557"><p>We only have two children so we basically gave both boys one adult. That was done mostly because of practical reasons. Both had many hobbies and needed to be driven around a lot. And some of those hobbies also required heavy parental involvement. To keep all that going, we separated activities and boys and I took care of some and husband some. While easy child's school and music was my responsibility and difficult child's one sport husband's responsibility, mostly it ended up with difficult child being my problem and easy child husband's. We live just enough outside of the city that we spent a lot of time in car with kids and that is very good place to have talks with kids. I also tried to have private time with easy child few times a week. We also did whole family activities, but they of course were often dominated by difficult child being difficult. </p><p></p><p>That was of course, when boys were little older. When easy child was a baby and toddler I did whole attachment parenting (Sears type, not the other one) thing and he was literally attached to my hip till he was three. I mean that all baby-led feeding, parenting etc., co-sleeping, baby carrying and so on. And when difficult child started school, we of course had some alone time with easy child. And when they got little older, it somehow ended up so, that I and husband basically split kids. easy child has always had most of husband attention and I have tried to make a point to spend some positive time with him alone. Well, till now. He just turned 17 and doesn't have much time for me or husband. We still drive him around quite a lot (our kids can't drive before 18), require him to be there for dinner times every now and then and difficult child being away from home two and half years now, he of course has more of our attention than he would like, but to get him actually schedule some extensive time for us, we almost have to get also difficult child there and tell him that this or that day/weekend is whole family activity, then he is happy to join. Other than that, we are there when he needs us and comes looking.</p><p></p><p>easy child has had some issues with difficult child's reputation and there are some things it's hard for him to get his head around. He has also had some trouble deciding how to define boundaries and his loyalties with some difficult child related matters. How to be his own man and loyal to his brother at the same time. I need to say that easy child and difficult child have surprisingly good relationship. difficult child is very proud of his little brother and while easy child is little ambivalent with how he sees and relates difficult child, when push comes to shove, he trusts and relies on difficult child and for example calls him for help, if he has an issue he doesn't want to bring to me or husband and which he believes difficult child could help - or if he doesn't know what to do. One thing I'm not happy with is, that both of my kids seem to firmly consider easy child to be literally the perfect child of the family, our golden boy and star and difficult child being the black sheep and somehow always little inferior. It's not good for difficult child even though he takes it very matter of fact way and as I said, is very proud of easy child, but it is even worse to easy child to always have that superior feeling compared to difficult child. Though lately he has been struggling with that believe because he has noticed that there are things difficult child does better than he and hopefully learns to reconsider whole attitude when he grows up. While struggling with the issue he has had some jealousy issues etc. but as I said, luckily they do have a strong relationship, so I'm sure they can overcome those issues.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="SuZir, post: 598617, member: 14557"] We only have two children so we basically gave both boys one adult. That was done mostly because of practical reasons. Both had many hobbies and needed to be driven around a lot. And some of those hobbies also required heavy parental involvement. To keep all that going, we separated activities and boys and I took care of some and husband some. While easy child's school and music was my responsibility and difficult child's one sport husband's responsibility, mostly it ended up with difficult child being my problem and easy child husband's. We live just enough outside of the city that we spent a lot of time in car with kids and that is very good place to have talks with kids. I also tried to have private time with easy child few times a week. We also did whole family activities, but they of course were often dominated by difficult child being difficult. That was of course, when boys were little older. When easy child was a baby and toddler I did whole attachment parenting (Sears type, not the other one) thing and he was literally attached to my hip till he was three. I mean that all baby-led feeding, parenting etc., co-sleeping, baby carrying and so on. And when difficult child started school, we of course had some alone time with easy child. And when they got little older, it somehow ended up so, that I and husband basically split kids. easy child has always had most of husband attention and I have tried to make a point to spend some positive time with him alone. Well, till now. He just turned 17 and doesn't have much time for me or husband. We still drive him around quite a lot (our kids can't drive before 18), require him to be there for dinner times every now and then and difficult child being away from home two and half years now, he of course has more of our attention than he would like, but to get him actually schedule some extensive time for us, we almost have to get also difficult child there and tell him that this or that day/weekend is whole family activity, then he is happy to join. Other than that, we are there when he needs us and comes looking. easy child has had some issues with difficult child's reputation and there are some things it's hard for him to get his head around. He has also had some trouble deciding how to define boundaries and his loyalties with some difficult child related matters. How to be his own man and loyal to his brother at the same time. I need to say that easy child and difficult child have surprisingly good relationship. difficult child is very proud of his little brother and while easy child is little ambivalent with how he sees and relates difficult child, when push comes to shove, he trusts and relies on difficult child and for example calls him for help, if he has an issue he doesn't want to bring to me or husband and which he believes difficult child could help - or if he doesn't know what to do. One thing I'm not happy with is, that both of my kids seem to firmly consider easy child to be literally the perfect child of the family, our golden boy and star and difficult child being the black sheep and somehow always little inferior. It's not good for difficult child even though he takes it very matter of fact way and as I said, is very proud of easy child, but it is even worse to easy child to always have that superior feeling compared to difficult child. Though lately he has been struggling with that believe because he has noticed that there are things difficult child does better than he and hopefully learns to reconsider whole attitude when he grows up. While struggling with the issue he has had some jealousy issues etc. but as I said, luckily they do have a strong relationship, so I'm sure they can overcome those issues. [/QUOTE]
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