How do I prevent my young child from having jealousy towards his newborn sibling?
Q. Do you have any advice on how to get your children to get along especially when you have a newborn and your first child is still very young? What can be done to ensure they grow up loving each other and treating each other nicely, and not having jealousy or malice towards each other?
1. Children Need Their Parents’ Love
A young child who has a new sibling will naturally fear that he might lose the love that his parents used to give him. This fear is natural because children have an emotional need for their parents to love them. Their emotional need for their parents’ love is akin to their physical need for food—without food, their bodies wither; without parental love, their hearts wither. You can observe the nourishing effect of your love on your children—grab your three-year old, cuddle him, kiss him, and watch his happiness. You have just nourished his heart and the happiness that you see is part of his emotional growth. Without this emotional nourishment, he will grow up feeling insecure and unable to trust others. If you leave this insecurity and lack of trust unattended, it will later manifest either as an apparent weakness of character and propensity to depression, or as an outward pretension of strength through aggressive behaviour.
In a healthy and truly religious family, this won’t happen because religiously healthy parents enjoy giving love to their children. This parental love comes from the mercy that Allah Most High placed in their hearts for their children. Showing this mercy is an essential part of our religion.
When parents show love to their children, Allah Most High has mercy on them—the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “The All-Merciful has mercy on those who have mercy for others.” (Tirmidhi)
On the other hand, when parents don’t show love to their children, Allah does not have mercy on them. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) once kissed his grandson al-Husayn b. `Ali in the presence of one of his Companions. When the Companion remarked that he had never kissed any of his ten children, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) looked at him and said, “Whoever doesn’t have mercy will not be shown mercy.” (Bukhari) In another hadith, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “Mercy is not removed from anyone except the damned.” (Tirmidhi)
2. Come Down to the Level of Your Child
When a young child displays negative behaviour to his new baby sibling, he is telling his mother, “I need your merciful love.” If his mother makes the mistake of punishing him for bad behaviour, she is telling their child, “I don’t love you,” and if she makes the even greater mistake of labelling him as being jealous or malicious, she is telling him, “You don’t deserve my love.” The child’s emotional need for his mother’s merciful love will remain unfulfilled, and his behaviour will not improve.
The mother should come down to the level of her child and recognize that her child’s negative behaviour is an appeal for her merciful love. She should take steps to fulfill his emotional needs and then, by her example, teach him to have mercy for his new baby sibling. These steps can include the following.
(a) Anticipate that when you have a new baby, your other child will fear losing your love. Proactively prevent your older child’s fear by showing him that you are giving him more attention than you are to the new baby. When you are not tending to your babies most immediate motherly needs (such as feeding him or changing his diaper), let the father, uncle, aunt, or grandparent enjoy the baby while you spend time with the older child. When the older child sees that his mother is giving him attention even when the new baby is around, he will be reassured that he will not be forgotten.
(b) Anticipate that when you have a new baby, your other child will fear losing his special one-on-one time with you. Proactively prevent this fear by having daily one-on-one time with him when (for example), the baby is asleep. Tell him a story, play a game with him, do an art project with him, or just run around the house and laugh with him. Your husband should make a point of doing this, too. If the older child regularly receives his own special time, he will be reassured that he still has his own special place with his parents.
(c) Give the older sibling a big brother role that is appropriate to his age. For example, you might let him hold the baby in his lap, feel the joy of seeing his new sibling smile or laugh, feed him a milk bottle, kiss him while he’s sleeping, or put on his socks. This will teach him to have mercy for his younger sibling. But note that he will only be able to have this mercy if you have filled his emotional needs by giving him the mercy that he needs.
(d) As the new baby grows older, teach him to respect his older sibling. The simplest way to do that is to teach him to refer to him with the title of an older brother rather than directly by name. In Subcontinental culture, for example, a younger sibling might call his older brother “Bhaijan” or his older sister “Apa”. This will give the older sibling a sense of relative importance and help him have mercy for his younger sibling.
(e) After you have done all of the above, if the older sibling happens to display negative behaviour towards the new baby, recognize that he is appealing for your merciful love. Reassure him by telling that you love him. Then gently teach him how vulnerable the baby is by explaining how delicate his body is, inspire him to have mercy for his new baby, and praise him when he follows your example.
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