# The "tag along" sister? What to do about friend/sibling dynamics



## LynnS6 (Mar 30, 2005)

Ds is 8, and has been spending a lot of time in the last month playing with our neighbor (let's call her Karen), who is 7. Karen has a twin sister who sometimes plays with them (but is usually not very interested in their games). Ds has a younger sister, age 5.

Dd often desperately wants to play with the older kids. 50% of the time, she does just fine. Another 25% of the time dd wanders away because she's bored. The problem is the remaining 25% where dd ends up screaming/crying because they're not being fair/doing what she wants.

We've tried to take a low-key approach to this, helping dd process her feelings without intervening too much. However, sometimes ds and Karen actively exclude dd, and that's when I'm not sure what to do. The two friends do deserve time to play without the little sister adding tension to the mix. On the other hand, some of the exclusion has gotten kind of mean. We brought ds in before dinner tonight because all the kids except dd got a popsicle and then they wouldn't let dd in the neighbors' playhouse. (FWIW, after dinner was fine, dd did her own thing and ds and Karen played frisbee.)

Dh and I are both youngest children, so I'm afraid our natural sympathies may lie with dd. I don't want to force dd on the other kids, but at the same time I really hate exclusionary play. Ds and Karen do get time to play when dd isn't around. They do have some time to play where dd isn't interested.

What can/should we do about this? Nothing? Something?


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## ChetMC (Aug 27, 2005)

We face something similar. Our girls are 16 months apart and play well together, but when our older DD plays with a friend her own age or older the dynamic isn't always great. Often younger DD does okay or just leaves eventually, but about one quarter of the time things crash and burn.

So far, we've been handling it on a situation by situation basis. Often I'll try to get younger DD engaged in something else to give the older kids some space, or we'll let things go and then do damage control as necessary.

I wish I had some good advice for you. Hopefully somebody will have some good advice for both of us!


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## KweenKrunch (Jul 25, 2009)

In our house, siblings come first. If a friend is over, siblings must be included. Usually it either works out great or the "third wheel" drifts away and does something else.


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## sebandg'smama (Oct 29, 2005)

Kind of tricky, because I feel that the neighbour's mother should be dealing with this and not really you!

I think that exclusion of anyone is mean (I was the youngest child) HOWEVER I do believe that children need to play with their friends without a younger child interrupting.

So with my dd who is 4, I remind her that her brother has a friend over and they need big kid time. Then I try to gently remind ds (10) to include his sister for a bit.
I think when it is forced then there is resentment, hence mean exclusion techniques.

Sooo, if I was the mother in your situation, I would do my best to have a little friend over to play with while big sister is playing with her friend.

-Melanie


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## BellinghamCrunchie (Sep 7, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *LynnS6* 
Dh and I are both youngest children, so I'm afraid our natural sympathies may lie with dd.

I was the oldest child, so my sympathies lie with your DS









I had to go everywhere with my brother. I spent more time with him than my parents did. I was expected to take responsibility for him to some degree. In psychological terms this is called "parentizing" the older child and while a little bit of that is considered okay, too much is harmful to the older's child's development, especially around social relationships and play.

I had to develop my own friendships. My brother didn't. They were provided to him. He missed out on his own social development because of this.

I felt resentful and angry, and unfortunately sometimes took this out on my little brother in subtle, sneaky little ways. I sure couldn't let my parents know that I was pissed off that I couldn't have my own friends by myself. They would shame me into feeling selfish.

As soon as we hit high school, we totally went our separate ways. Our togetherness hadn't been by choice so once we felt "big" enough to meet our own needs and stand up for what we wanted, the sibling relationship declined.

I would strongly work on developing friendships that are your DD's alone, and let any mixing be by the consent of both children. Find a friend that DD can have come over when your DS has a friend come over, and help them stay separate if ANY one of them wants separateness. Let the siblings enjoy each other by their own mutual choice.


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## hempmama (Dec 16, 2004)

I was the oldest child, but still my sympathies lie with DD! We have a similar dynamic right now. My oldest DD and DS are 17 months apart(5 and 3.5), play extraordinarily well together when alone and with many friends. But we have a 6 year old neighbor girl, only child, with mostly friends who are her age or older, and they often exclude DS. Probably 50% of the time. Girls' only clubhouses, speaking in secret languages, that kind of thing. I had been staying out of it, but recently decided that when they are over here, they have to include DS. They can play by themselves at the neighbor's house (they are pretty free to pass back and forth, but DS is not yet old enough for that), and often DS will wander off, but if they are here, they may not engage in deliberately exclusionary games, though they don't have to do what he wants to do, obviously. We'll see how it goes, but I am very interested to hear other replies to this thread! I am completely stymied. We haven't run into this before this summer.


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## Beppie (Oct 24, 2005)

My kids are still really little, so I don't have much experience with this, just a little bit. dd#1 is 4, and dd#2 is 20 months old (but verbal and very active, walking, running, riding bikes, etc.). There are 2 little boys who live next door. One of them is 4 years old and one of them is 5.

dd#1 loves to play with the neighbor boys. dd#2 really wants to tag along too. But in our situation, it's just a fact that dd#2 is really just too little for us to leave with them for long. And I think she can be annoying for the 4-5 year olds, too, who just want to play together. But we're fortunate in that dd#2 is still little enough to be distracted with us, her parents. Sometimes I'll let her tag along with her older sister if they are doing something that she can also do, like riding bikes in front of the house. But other times I really just want dd#2 to leave the older kids alone... then I try to do something else with her, like push her on the swing, give her a snack, etc. But as I said, this may not be very helpful since our kids are still so young. I'm interested to hear what other mamas have to say!


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## EFmom (Mar 16, 2002)

We face this sometimes. I guess I take a mixed bag approach. If the kids are to be at my house, I'll usually discuss it with them beforehand and lay down some ground rules depending on the situation, as to whether or not the younger one needs to be included.

If the play is at somebody else's house, I generally don't let the littler one tag along unless it is specifically requested that she come.

I had a younger sister that I had to take everywhere and I did often resent it. I'm sure my older brothers also resented having me tag along with them sometimes.


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## Ruthla (Jun 2, 2004)

I'm still dealing with this, and my daughters are teenagers.

I really feel that it's unfair of DD1 to ALWAYS have to include DD2 in everything. Especially when she has an overnight guest, it seems unfair to force them to include DD2 in everything.

I generally insist that they include both younger siblings in some of the stuff- often we'll all play a game together (including me), but I also allow the older ones to go off alone and exclude DD2.

Really, it's no more painful for DD2 to feel excluded because they won't spend time with her than it is for her to feel excluded because they're including her only because I made them do so. If they don't want her around, it's going to hurt anyway. Why should I let her sabatoge DD1's whole time with her friend if it's not going to make DD2 feel any better anyway? DD1 deserves some time alone with her friends, period.


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## 34me (Oct 2, 2006)

While the popcicle incident would have made my head pop off because of the blatent meanness, I would side with your ds (and I was the youngest







) There is actually a pretty big difference in how 7/8 year olds and 5 year olds play. I'm sure it is frustrating for her but it wouldn't be fair to them to make them play with her either. If it disrupts their play too muck/often, Karen may drift away and then everyone looses. Not nice? probably but true....


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## Tigerchild (Dec 2, 2001)

At home, I always try to arrange playdates so that the buddies can have at least half of the playdate to themselves. Either the other sib(s) are at another activity, or *I* do something special with the 'tagalongs'.

And maybe it's because I do have twins, so in my case deciding to invite along "the younger sibling" means that I'd show up with 3 kids instead of 1 at a playdate, but I never not once ever dreamed of "making" my eldest take her younger brothers on a playdate!

Anyway, even though my singleton and twins are 17 months apart from each other, I've always tried to separate things out a bit. At first it was because most of DD's buddies as a toddler and preschooler all happened to be mostly only children, or didn't have siblings close in age, and they would get totally overwhelmed by having not only DD excited to have them over but two unexpected little brothers who were equally, if not more, excited.

Yes, I sometimes had to deal with unhappy siblings (and I've had to intervene on behalf of one or both boys and try to keep older sister occupied as well). That was a major pain in the butt for ME, but not only am I protective of individual time with each child for myself, I am also protective of each child getting to have some personal space with friends as well. Now that everyone's grown up doing it, it's not that hard to say, "Okay, guys, time for some individiual time now." I have a special box of activities for the child(ren) who don't have a friend over. And sometimes it's not an issue at all, because the child(ren) who invited the friend are fine with all playing together the whole time.

So I don't MAKE them separate. But I try to be sensitive to the fact that even though my kids all love each other, sometimes it's nice to have your friend all to yourself for a bit, especially if frankly the other sibling is messing up or incapable of playing the game you want to play. I don't tolerate rudeness, teasing, or meanness, but I don't think wanting to have some friends time is rude, teasing, or mean in itself.

And yep, my twins have had "individual" playdates separate from each other, both at other people's houses and at ours. We even do "swap a twin" playdates with their friends who are twins (one twin comes over here, one of mine goes over there...then we switch positions the next week).

So I guess I have a lot of experience protecting that individual time both with twins and closely spaced siblings. I don't get why people think that's so hard or mean. But again, I started doing that when I was too dumb to know any better or think about it differently, so since I've always done it it's probably a lot easier for me!


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## alexsam (May 10, 2005)

I'd focus more on the "meanness" than the exclusion. It sounds like they generally don't have a problem with her if they play nice 1/2 the time (I don't think anyone would blame them for not wanting to play with her if she is screaming at them, though). It sounds like two things 1.) they are "trying out" the various exclusionary emotions and techniques just to see what buttons can get pushed, etc. and 2.) they want some time to play their own thing without being forced. If you focus on finding ways for them to gently and politely communicate that they need time on their own, then you address both issues. You can teach them how to interact as well as enable them to self-regulate how much time they all need together.

Letting a younger kid know that they want to play something alone for now but they can all play together in a couple hours is totally legit and a good skill to develop. Being mean an exclusionary to be cruel or test is not. We do it all the time ("Oh, today is not a good day for me to meet up at the coffee shop. I have a friend from high school dropping by and we were going to catch up. But maybe we could all meet later for dinner?"). So, I'd give DS good words to let DD know when was and was not a good time to join, and if it was not a good time, I'd find something to do with dd.


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## LynnS6 (Mar 30, 2005)

Thanks for the perspectives. I knew a few older sibs would chime in!

A few clarifications:

The child in question is our next-door neighbor, and so these aren't organized play dates. For play dates, we've got a set precedent that protects ds' time with his friend (or dd's with hers). This is much more of a "Can you play?" kind of thing with the kids drifting back and forth between the houses.

They're at our house about 80% of the time, though, so there on dd's turf a lot. They tend to run over to the neighbors when they want to exclude dd (but don't tell her that).

The other thing is that dd is in daycare 3x a week, and so ds does have lots of time with the neighbor kids where he doesn't have to worry about dd at all. and dd is in her own milieu. One of the reasons I kept dd in daycare these last 2 weeks of summer (though I'm done teaching) is because she doesn't have a ready-made set of playmates in the neighborhood and I felt she needed her own outlet with her own friends. (OK, and because it's easier for dh, who works at home, to have to deal with only one child, not two.)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *alexsam* 
I'd focus more on the "meanness" than the exclusion. It sounds like they generally don't have a problem with her if they play nice 1/2 the time (I don't think anyone would blame them for not wanting to play with her if she is screaming at them, though). It sounds like two things 1.) they are "trying out" the various exclusionary emotions and techniques just to see what buttons can get pushed, etc. and 2.) they want some time to play their own thing without being forced.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Ds is definitely trying out these behaviors and has a willing accomplice/co-instigator.

I think working with ds on finding ways to politely tell his sister that he wants to play his own thing with Karen without her is the best route. We're working a lot on polite talk between siblings, so this won't come out of the blue, either. I can work with dd on accepting rejection with something other than a full out scream as well.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *BellinghamCrunchie* 
I had to go everywhere with my brother. I spent more time with him than my parents did.

We're definitely not encouraging that, and ds is not required to take responsibility for his sister. In fact, we have frequent conversations about that. "Remember, it's MY job to worry about your sister..." Ds tends to worry and want to control her behavior a bit too much.

BUT I am sensitive to the overall dynamic and don't want to set up the dynamic that they HAVE to spend time together. They do well when they're on their own and there are no other kids present. They do well a lot of the time with other kids.

I'm 95% certain they will develop independent friendships (they already have a few). The real problem is the neighborhood where there are kids ds' age allowed to come over to our house on a whim, but only one child (who dd doesn't get along with well) dd's age allowed to do that.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *EFmom* 
We face this sometimes. I guess I take a mixed bag approach. If the kids are to be at my house, I'll usually discuss it with them beforehand and lay down some ground rules depending on the situation, as to whether or not the younger one needs to be included.

If the play is at somebody else's house, I generally don't let the littler one tag along unless it is specifically requested that she come.

This is our general strategy with everyone except the neighbors. Because there is so much back and forth between the two houses, it's hard to say when they're playing at 'our' house and when they're playing at 'their' house. They tend to go over to the neighbor's for about 10 minutes and then come back to ours for long periods. I guess we're more interesting?

Quote:


Originally Posted by *34me* 
There is actually a pretty big difference in how 7/8 year olds and 5 year olds play. I'm sure it is frustrating for her but it wouldn't be fair to them to make them play with her either.

Dd is actually remarkable able to 'keep up' with the older kids. She rides a bike better than some of the 7 year olds, she's an incredible verbal child, so she can keep up with the verbal negotiation and role play. She can play the same board games.

The real differences is emotional - she just doesn't have the emotional maturity to handle differences with any kind of grace when she's tired/frustrated.


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## aspenleaves (Oct 23, 2008)

This is all very interesting.... I have only one child who is 5 and it seems I also have a very low tolerance for sibling play. Its funny but we have one friend, who now that her 3 year old sib is old enough to play with her (I guess since she is bigger herself and can hold her own), the mom seems to want to have both girls come over whenever we invite the 5 year old... hmmm, I don't care for this. The playdate is hugely different in dynamics and I don't really ever want to have both of them over. Why would I? Am I being mean? Why is it expected that the sib is automatically to be included? I am really curious.

Needless to say, I am pretty direct about this and have actually told the other mom no when asked if both girls can come. Not in a mean way, but rather just explaining that my dd wants a one on one etc... (which she does). Anyway, we don't see these friends that much because this issue creates tension I think. This is unfortunate as we really like them as friends.

Just a note, that we have another set of sibs with our friend being the younger sib by 3 years... and we always have them both over becasue the dynamics work.


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## Epona (Jul 20, 2009)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *KweenKrunch* 
In our house, siblings come first. If a friend is over, siblings must be included. Usually it either works out great or the "third wheel" drifts away and does something else.


Wow, I wouldn't force my kids like that.


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