Good Inside with Dr. Becky - The Most Powerful Intervention for Siblings

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

We all want our kids to love each other. But having a sibling is hard. Especially in those early years. And when one of your kids complains about the other or wishes that their sibling was different, its triggering. Today, Dr. Becky talks to a mom about sibling dynamics that play out in her household.Join Good Inside Membership: https://bit.ly/3PT3ftbFollow Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinsideSign up for our weekly email, Good Insider: https://www.goodinside.com/newsletterOrder Dr. Becky's book, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, at goodinside.com/book or wherever you order your books.For a full transcript of the episode, go to goodinside.com/podcastTo listen to Dr. Becky's TED Talk on repair visit https://www.ted.com/talks/becky_kennedy_the_single_most_important_parenting_strategyToday’s episode is brought to you by SEED: It feels important to speak to the very real things in life that parents are dealing with. Overall immunity is one of those things — we want our kids to feel good in their bodies no matter what… to feel physically Good Inside. And one way we can support this is with a daily prebiotic and probiotic. PDS-08 from Seed is a clinically studied 2-in-1 Pediatric Daily Synbiotic that supports digestion and helps kids with easy, frequent poops. It aids in filling the fiber gap for most kiddos and is formulated with strains that support immune health, which starts in the gut! And bonus for busy parents… the container has a built-in daily tracking system, so you never miss a day. To get 20% off plus free shipping on your first month’s supply, use code GOODINSIDE at Seed.comToday’s episode is brought to you by KiwiCo: Not much matters more than helping our kids develop confidence. Confidence comes from watching yourself work hard, tap into your creativity, and do things you may not always do. KiwiCo is like a conduit to confidence. Each month, kids gets a box delivered right to them with a hands-on project designed to spark creativity and engage problem solving… but kids don’t know this is what’s happening, they just see it as a form of play! The projects cater to all types of kids: kids who like science, sensory play, games, or geography. KiwiCo is a win for kid fun, and a win for long-term confidence. And now, you can get your first month free on ANY crate line at kiwico.com/drbecky.

I'm Dr. Becky and this is Good Inside. I kind of got sidetracked by my oldest a couple of weeks ago when he said, no, why didn't you have my brother sooner so that I would have someone my age to play with? You know, I know they love each other but I really want to help them have a good relationship. Having a sibling is hard, and when one of your kids complains about the other kid, or wishes that their sibling was different, it's tricky. Do we hold space for those feelings? What about defending our other kid?

How do we manage the feelings our kid has about their sibling? This is exactly what we're going to get into. More after this. Not much matters more than helping our kids develop confidence. And the way I see it, confidence comes from watching yourself. Work hard, tap into your creativity, and do things you might not always do. So if confidence is where we want our kids to get to, what is a tool to get them there?

Well, KiwiCo is a tool to develop confidence. Each month, my kid gets a box delivered right to them with a hands-on project designed to spark creativity and engage problem-solving. But my kids don't know this is what's happening. They just see it as a form of play. I've watched all my kids love their KiwiCo crates because the projects cater to all types of kids, kids who like science or sensory play or games or geography. I love that KiwiCo is a win for kid fun and a win for long-term confidence. And now you can get your first month free on any crate line at KiwiCo.com slash DrbECKY.

Hi Anna nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. So tell me a little bit about you and what's on your mind. Yeah of course. So I have two boys at home. I have an eight year old and a two year old. Two boys very hectic. Pretty good age gap between them. So I have two boys at home. I have an eight year old and a two year old. Two boys, very hectic, pretty good age gap

between them. So different stages of both growth and just maturity all the way around. I had my oldest very, very young, definitely not planned. Kind of came as a surprise. So we did decide to wait before bringing him another sibling and becoming a bigger family. And right now what I'm currently struggling with is helping them develop a healthy relationship

given their age gap. My eight-year-old is very independent. He is a very social person. He's great with other kids as age, but when it comes to his little brother and sharing and having an eight-year-old try to understand that what a two-year-old does is never personal, has really been a rough spot for us. I know he loves his little brother, but helping nurture that relationship is what I'm really struggling with.

Having to explain to him, hey, he doesn't mean to break your Lego that you spent an hour building isn't personal. He very much just wants to play with what you're playing and you know just trying to give them both equal space and attention without comparison. The biggest question I have for you is I kind of got sidetracked by my oldest a couple weeks ago when he said, no, why didn't you have my brother sooner so that I would have someone my age to play with. And that one hurt a little bit just because, you know, I'm not going to explain to my old financials and all that whole process,

but I am kind of just was left speechless as kind of his awareness of the age gap and how he's struggling to play with him, but I have other siblings as well that have a big age graph, and I do, you know, we did my sound a lot of time, but we did catch up. And as I navigate this world of being a parent of two, it's definitely been a learning experience, especially as I have to into two, it's definitely been a learning experience, especially as I have to second-grader versus still-in-day care. And when we're all home, having not these outbursts of, this is mine, no babies in my room, I don't want you touching my stuff. And, you know, I know they love each other, but I really want to help them have a good

relationship. I know that that comes with time, but I'm open to all the possible advice. Well, thank you for bringing this to me, really. And I know you're not alone in this struggle. And it could relate to the similar age gap that, you know, someone else listening has as well, yeah, my kids aren't exactly close to age. That's tricky when they're young. I know someone else is probably thinking, yeah, I have, I don't know, two boys in a girl and my daughter is always saying, why don't I have a sister or, you know, and someone is, it's not that dissimilar when a kid says,

well, why aren't you living in the same house as mommy anymore? And I want that. We all have times where our kids say something to us, where it feels like they're questioning decisions we made or they're speaking up for a wish that we can't gratify. So, the first thing that comes to mind is I think when our kids say things to us that we feel, it sounds like you feel this, and you're, I don't know if it's your heart

or your chest or your stomach, it's like, oh, I don't know, is that what it feels like? Yeah, it's everywhere. Yes. I definitely felt almost like it was a personal, not I don't want to say a tag, but I did felt like it was something that instant regret just steeped into me.

And so maybe I messed up, maybe I should have shipped on the sooner that I ruined his childhood. Am I not doing a good job by giving him a sibling sooner? So it was a lot of regret and guilt after we made that comment. And that's so poignant, Anna, just to realize because what you're saying,

and this is gonna be a can of understanding that's gonna help us with an intervention, is, you know, I hear something my son says, to me, it's helpful when we hear something from someone else who almost visualizes it is like a thing outside of us. No one besides you who's listening can see this right now,

but you can see I actually have my hands in front of me. Like here are these words, right? Like why didn't you have my brother sooner? Why didn't you have another kid so I could actually have a playmate, you know, who's around my age. So, okay, I'm visualizing this thing as like an object outside of me. And what you're saying is, like, it comes into my body then. And no longer

feels just like something my kid is saying or experiencing. It actually comes into me. And when it does come into us, it often shifts a little bit what we hear. It feels like our kid is like saying something a little different to us. So when your son says, why don't you, you know, why didn't you have a kid who's more around my age? What does it feel like he's saying to you? To me it feels that he's lonely, that he really just wants someone to be with him and play with him consistently. And that to me hurts because I'm like, you know, you're not alone. It's, and it's also hard because I'm trying to help him understand that we don't, you

know, it's okay to have individual play. Mm-hmm. But I'm going to jump in there for a sec because what you said, it's so many powerful things already. It seems like he's almost saying, I'm lonely. But you're saying it also is associated with your grant or your own guilt. And so I wonder if it also feels like he's saying,

and you tell me, just because I say something, definitely doesn't mean it's right. I say wrong things. Most of the things that come out of my mouth are wrong, ask my husband, okay? But it can feel like our kid is saying, you made me lonely. It's your fault, Unonly.

Does that resonate at all? Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's, again, all guilt. I'm like, maybe we should have done it sooner. And I just, I start to question, am I taking, like, should we have done this? Should I start doing this? I try to find solutions when there's nothing

I can't go back into. And I can't go back. So I need to go adopt a seven and a half year old child right now. Right? Like almost like we start to think about these things are like, wow, that was not my life plan. But suddenly I'm looking up adoption agencies.

Exactly. Right? Exactly. OK. So I want to separate a couple things. We all do this with our kids. Honestly, we do this with our partners. We do this with our mother and laws.

We do this with people at work all the time. We take something someone set outside of us and the thing that we actually react to is a version of it that we've translated to ourselves that often kind of connects to our own insecurity or our own worry. And then when we respond, we're not usually responding to the thing the person said or what it might mean to them. We're responding to the translation. We're most worried about inside ourselves.

And this is the essence of why communication goes wrong between any two people. Because we think we're talking to each other. We're just responding to a version of what someone said that most reflects our own insecurities and worries, right? So it feels like he's saying You're making me lonely. You made a mistake. Your decision to have a kid six years after me is making my childhood A lot worse than it could have been and you did this to me. I'm being extreme, but it is that

Yeah, that's exactly what it feels like. Right. And so no wonder in your body, you're overwhelmed with pain. And it's like, oh, any amount of my own conflict that I felt about that decision or my own looking back and wondering about different choices I could have made, that's all surfaced, all of the pain. And I feel immense urge to fix the situation, but here's the kicker, okay? What we really feel the urge to fix is nothing about what our kids said.

We actually feel the urge to fix this way we've translated it inside our own body to kind of soothe our own pain. And then in that way, and by the way, let me tell you, every parent does is I do this with my kids too, our kid and whatever they're going through, it almost becomes like a pawn in our own game. Like now I just need to soothe myself and all my own guilt.

So maybe I am gonna go adopt that seven and a half year old child just to make me feel better. But like, what was it my son said? I don't exactly remember. He was just, I feel like my son's over here and be like, whoa, mom, I was just feeling a little lonely today. Like, I don't want a third kid in this family, right?

Exactly, yeah. So what I wanna do here together in this short time, but I know we'll be able to do it, is I wanna just practice with you really separating what your kid saying, what your kid might actually be feeling, what gets evoked in you, and then a dual set of coping skills. For you to manage your own feelings and worries, and really separating that from the coping skills you can help your son build for whatever's he is actually

feeling and really separating those two things so they don't get collapsed into one. Does that make sense? Yeah, and I think that that'd be super helpful because he's just, he's a very sensitive child. And I think we, I think now that he has a sibling, it's been amplified even more. Yeah. So let's start with you. Right. I know we're here to talk about what your son's bringing, but to me, sturdy leaders always actually start by gazing in to access more of their sturdiness, and then they can give

more of that to anyone else. So let's start with you. It sounds like you have mixed feelings about this age gap between your kids. In a different world, if things had, I don't know, gone a different way, would you have said, yeah, ideally, if situation was different, I would have had my kids closer together. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That was definitely the ideal scenario, but again,

it happened unexpectedly. We were both young. It just did not seem like the right time as much as we did. Think about it. It just didn't seem right. That's what happens to our plans. So that's what happens to our plans. Right. Reality happens. And we're like, oh, I guess I have to adjust my plans. Exactly. And it's almost like his comment to me was almost like an acceptance of what the current situation is. And I think I still struggle with that sometimes of, this is my age gap.

And if I choose to have another one, like it's going to be even bigger. And, you know, I think I struggle with that's not what I wanted. That's not the family I wanted to create. So that's what I am still working through, especially as I see them grow. I'm thinking about two of the most powerful phrases I often teach parents to use with kids. And I'm thinking about them both now as versions of self-talk for yourself. Okay, so one of them is just, you didn't want that to happen. And the other one is, you weren't expecting that.

So often our kid falls or something and they get really hurt. And we're like, it's fine, it's fine. Our kid just doesn't seem fine, but the scratch wasn't that big. And what they really need to hear is some version of, you didn't want that to happen. Or you weren't expecting that. It's just a violation of expectations that we need to validate. And I'm thinking about that with you, Anna,

just the power of saying to yourself even right now, I didn't want this. This is not what I wanted. Or this is not what I expected. What resonates more with you, which version of those? This is not what I wanted. Yeah. So, and I just want to pause on that. Validating that in its simplest form. This age gap isn't what I wanted. That's what I have. But this HGAP isn't what I wanted. What comes up for you when you say that?

What do you notice? The main thing that comes up to me is just all these expectations of having small children close in age. My sisters and I have a 13 and 14 year HGAP and that was hard. It was great because we caught up to each other and we have great conversations now as adults, but no 20-year-old wants to spend time with like their 10-year-old little sister.

So it definitely, to me, brings back flashbacks of, you know, what if we did go to high school at the same time or what if we did have the same kind of friends? So it's almost like I want to get my children like a more connected childhood than what I had. And you were the younger one? Yeah, I'm the youngest. Who was there for you when you were sad

about your siblings not wanting to play with you or to do who was there for you for that? Honestly, it was a lot of friends. It was a lot of my neighborhood friends. I kind of kept myself very preoccupied to hunt in sports and other clubs that I tried to do. So it's almost like I forced myself to not focus on that as much.

Did you have anyone to talk to about that? Anyone who understood those feelings? No, definitely not. Parents were very much like, this is what it is and it's what we're going with. It's always been important to me to speak about the very real things in real life that parents are really dealing with.

And overall, immunity is just one of those things. We want our kids to feel good in their bodies no matter what, to feel physically good inside. And we all want fewer sick days, am I right? Well, one way we can support this is with a daily prebiotic and probiotic. PDS-08 from seed is a clinically studied two-in-one pediatric daily sinbiotic that supports digestion and helps kids with easy, frequent poops. It aids in filling the fiber gap for most kids, and it's formulated with strains that support

immune health, which actually starts in the gut. And bonus for busy parents, the container has a built-in daily tracking system, so you never miss a day. So easy. To get 20% off plus free shipping on your first month supply, use code GoodInside at Seed.com. So there's a couple of things there and this is going to end up coming full circle as things you know often do. You have this large age gap with your two kids in the same way that you experienced

the younger kid end of a large age gap with your siblings. And I think you remember, Anna, and you do feeling I sad and lonely and full of unmet wishes around that. And yes, when your son comments on that age gap, it makes sense that all of that comes up. But I wanna point out a really, really big difference, okay? We often remember pain from our childhood, and we find it very triggering when we think about our kids experiencing a version of that same pain today.

But here's the thing, it's not the pain of certain events from our childhood. It's actually the pain of being alone with those events in our childhood. Events themselves aren't traumatic or aren't the things that really give us a lot of distress, is actually feeling very alone, not having someone to talk to, not having someone to understand, not having someone who validates. Yes, that is hard. And of course, you want your siblings to be here.

And that would have been amazing if you cut it down to high school. And that's very real. And you're allowed to feel mad. And you wish we had you sooner. Like, I know none of those things happen for you. And so it's so easy to say, oh, and then look, I did the same thing to my sons. Like, why did I do that? And this is awful.

But I think it's really important to slow down and say, wait, there's a huge difference. And reminding yourself that I think we'll make it less triggering. There's a huge difference. I can learn to be there for both of my sons in a way that no one was there for me. And so on the surface, the age gap looks similar. But actually, how that will play out and how they feel, I have

the power to make very, very different. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it definitely does. And before we move to how to manage this with your son, I think it's important for you to give yourself permission. I'm sad. Like, I'm sad.

Forget my kids that I didn't have siblings who were closer in my age and were around and that's real and that feels like a loss of my early years and I'm a lot to feel that way. Yeah, I think having kids and seeing it in real life definitely brings that back. Yes, I think that's right. It brings those feelings back, right, when we see our kids potentially feeling similarly to a painful feeling we had. It's so hard.

We're like in my responding to my kids and my responding to that inner child and myself. Well, I don't even know what, you know, what year I'm living in anymore. Yeah, we get, it all comes together. And I'd give yourself permission to to to say to that little girl inside you, probably words that adult wasn't equipped to say to her. Like, yeah, it's okay that you feel sad. And it makes sense. Your jealous of your friends who have siblings with them in high school. And those are hard feelings. And those are feelings that makes sense. Yeah, I definitely feel like you're right. It's definitely full circle even like now seeing the kids

do it go through it and then just reflecting on everything. I think like I said it's a hard acceptance because it's not this isn't what I expected. It wasn't what I envisioned. I didn't want them to go through it and then having to relive it again after not thinking about it for such a long time as a mother, you just have really high expectations of across the board. So I definitely need to be kinder to myself. And separating those things, right? Okay, I didn't expect this, I didn't want this,

that's hard. I'm allowed to feel, you know, my feelings about that. No one likes when things don't go the way they plan or wanted, okay, so that's real, right? It's always hard to hear that our kids feel distressed or lonely. Okay, that's hard. I'm allowed to have feelings about my own childhood and maybe the support I could have used. Okay, and just because on the surface, my kid has a similar experience to something that was painful to me on the surface that might be similar. But what's very, very different is I can help out both my sons in a way that no one was there for me.

A big thing I think about all the time, and I think it's applicable to so many situations, is just feelings don't give us problems, feeling alone in our feelings gives us problems, and this kind of connects to your aloneness, right? But I think about your son and him saying, I wish I had a brother closer in my age. And you're noticing an urge to fix it. Whenever we intervene from a place of fixing for someone else, ironically,

that person is often left more alone than they were before in their feeling. Because they're like, I feel lonely and we're like, I feel lonely and we're like kind of running circles trying to come up with solutions. And I always picture a kid just saying, like, yeah, like, I don't know what you're doing.

Like, I just need you to be here with me. Like, you know, you're, now I feel alone because you're running circles around it. And so I wanna go over some other things you could do because you can't change his lonely feelings. You can't change his wish to have a brother his age, but you can help him feel less alone about both those things,

and that makes a massive difference. I wanna share with you one of my favorite lines, whenever my kid, one of my kids says something to me that's pretty painful, I try to say this, I'm not always successful, because I'm also triggered and have my moments. But it's a really simple line. I'm so glad you're sharing that with me. I'd love to hear you say that back to me.

I love that you're sharing this with me. For bonus points, it's so important. It's so important. I's, it's so important. Yeah. I'm going to say, I'm going to be your son. Oh, so annoying. He's so young. And I wish you just, you know, had another kid who was closer to my age. This is, this is important that you're sharing with me. Thank you. Great. And now, just watching yourself, I have this too. I have to fight it.

Watching yourself, it feels so incomplete. It's like, probably on your head, you're like, okay, Dr. Becky, is that like the best you got? Like, and then what? And then do I, you know, go, I don't know, get a toy for him or go set up a play date or something else. And there's nothing wrong with like, really come through with those adoption papers. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Is that, you know, what do I do? And it's not to say we can't like do certain things. Of course, like, there's moments to be like, okay, what. What do I do? And it's not to say we can't do certain things. Of course, there's moments to be like, okay, what can we do about this? But if you jump to the doing before the sitting with the feeling, you end up moving at a faster pace than your kid, and they're alone behind you being like, hey, remember how I was feeling? Nobody's here. And so, to me, just being prepared with certain lines, I'm so glad you're sharing this with

me. This is so important. Another one that is similar to that is just, look, that makes sense. Like, it makes sense that you'd want to have a playmate or you're right. Right now, your brother really can't do any of the things with you, that you would love a brother to do.

You're right. I'm just kind of surrounding my kids' distress, like with my presence and my understanding and my validation. And again, this is a big difference for your son and you, Anna, because when we have a powerful feeling like loneliness or jealousy or distress. And we don't have a loving adult in our childhood who can kind of surround it. And in that way, almost put like a loving boundary around it, like a hug, then the feeling balloons. It's like it gets bigger and bigger, because no one's there to help us contain it. By contrast, when a kid is able to share a feeling and when is a parent, you kind of picture yourself, whether you're literally giving them a hug or not, you're almost like putting this hug around the feeling.

You're kind of saying to them, like I'll make sure it doesn't get much more overwhelming than this because I'm here with you. I'm gonna kind of, in part, hold that feeling for you. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, it definitely does. And I think I always want him to feel like we have time for him no matter what. And I think I always want him to feel like we have time for him, no matter what.

And I feel like that's so hard when you have more than one child. He also, and I'm sure you've gotten this before, but who's your favorite? You know, what was the best day? Was it when I was born or when he was born? So. And look, I can hear from you that you have a superpower. Like you can really hear his distress and worry under his complaints. And that's something I'd encourage you to share back with him.

That's powerful. Like you can definitely feel free to say to him when he says, who do you love more? Which was your favorite day? I think you can say back a lot of what you said to me. Look, I think you're really telling me, it's really hard. Still do adjust to having a sibling.

You had six years of it just being you. And it probably sometimes feels like, and this is just your words echoed back, it probably sometimes feels like he gets all of our attention and you don't get it anymore. Often when our kid hears that, like they kind of hear what's really going on for them under there on the surface question, right?

They feel much more seen. And then the other thing I would say, and I'm guessing you do this, right? It's just carving out a little bit of time in your week to have a lone time with each of your kids is truly the most powerful intervention for siblings. And saying that, hey, you're right, I do spend a lot of time with your younger sibling,

and I understand that's annoying for you. Six years, will you add us all to yourself? And then this guy comes and is like, needing me to do his food and needing me to do this thing. I get it, right? Like it's annoying. You know what? Me and you need to do a better job

carving out time in the calendar. It's just us, just us. Let's look at our calendar. Let's do some of those things and it doesn't have to be anything spectacular. I don't have to take them to like Disney World. It can be, let's do a Lego together or it could be, hey, let's do anything you want. Let's go out for a quick ice cream, right? 15 minutes here and there because in that time, essentially what you're saying to him through your actions, not through your words is, like, you have my full attention, you really matter to me. Exactly. Yeah. I just want to tell you, one of the benefits from a big age gap

is that you have so many years with a sibling to become friends and playmates. Like you said, like eventually, it all catches up. One of the big benefits is your older son will develop a different sense of kind of empathy or sense of even personal responsibility. In a way that could be super beneficial to him. So I think this same set of skills will be really helpful, is really asking yourself in these painful moments,

wait, what did he say? Let me keep that outside of me. What do I worry he's saying about me or what are my own fears? And I want to listen to those fears. But you can even say to yourself, I'm going to journal about that tonight. I'm going to ask myself, that's not really what he said, right? So clearly, something's coming up for me, but I'm going to put that to the side. Not throw it away. I'm going to put it on the shelf and I will return to it. And then for these things, he says, just having like sometimes I parent check, I write them down. So those lines, thank you so much for sharing this. I'm so glad you're sharing this with me. It's so important. Tell me more about that.

Tell me about a time you felt that way. I want to figure this out. You're really sitting with him in the feeling. And that's going to help him so much. And I just know talking to you that you've got this. I know it. Thanks for listening. To share a story or ask me a question, go to goodinside.com slash podcast. You could also write me at podcast at goodinside.com. also write me at podcastatgoodinside.com. Parenting is the hardest and most important job in the world. And parents deserve resources and support so they feel empowered, confident, and connected. I'm so excited to share good inside membership. The first platform that brings together content and experts you trust with a global community

of like- like valued parents. It's totally game-changing. Good Inside with Dr. Becky is produced by Jesse Baker and Eric Newsom at Magnificent Noise. Our production staff includes Sabrina Farhi, Julia Nat and Kristen Muller. I would also like to thank Erica Belsky, Mary Panico, and the rest of the good inside team.

And one last thing before I let you go. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves, even as I struggle, and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside. you