Sibling rivalry is not new. Even, the first humans had it. At the end of the story, Habil died in Qabil’s hands because of jealousy. Nabi Yaakob’s sons sent their brother Yusuf into a nowhere well, for their jealousy toward him.
Usually, sibling rivalry stalk out from their perceiving of losing parental love. Even if a parents may claim that their love is abundance, but most of the time the children can’t see it. Thus makes sibling rivalry is inevitable.
Actually sibling rivalry is normal and natural. It is a phase of children’s development. And it is a bit tricky for parents in facing this situation. Example, when 2 children quarrel, usually the parents would ask the elder to ‘beralah’ for the reason that the other one is still young. But for some kids, this will leave a feeling of ‘mommy loves my brother more and don’t love me anymore’ for the ‘biasness’ shown by the parents.
I am yet to face this. Yes, Hafiy showed his jealousy towards Fahry, but I took it as an introductory remark. So we showed him that ‘Fahry is your little brother, you have to take care of him, befriend with him, love him, protect him, etc.
A little boy like Hafiy sometimes can’t stop himself from hitting his brother. But I don’t take it as threatening. He is just a small child after all. He even has to be reminded over and over again to take care of his belongings, and I don’t expect he’ll take a good care of Fahry at such tender age.
To avoid hitting, biting, spanking, or anything that might injure Little Fahry, I never leave both of them alone. Even if I put Fahry in his cot and Hafiy is doing any business of his in the same room, I’ll make sure that either me or Bibik is there to observe. Its not that Hafiy is jealous, or hate, or doesn’t like his brother, but he just doesn’t know ‘who’ and ‘what’ Fahry is.
Usually when we are together, I put Fahry on Hafiy’s lap and show him how to hold Adik, how to pat Adik, how to kiss Adik, the right ways. But I don’t expect anything on him. So far so good. He even tried to ‘breastfeed’ Fahry!
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When Fahry cries, he’ll let me know if I’m away from the room. If we are in the same room, Fahry is crying while Hafiy is breastfeeding, I’ll say “Fy, Adik nangis, jom2 kita tengok kenapa dia nangis!” dengan suara cemas. Usually Hafiy will stop suckling and rushes to see what’s going on with Fahry. He’ll unremarkably pat Fahry’s leg (and sometimes Fahry’s head!) to make the lil’ fella stop crying.
At Fahry’s side, I see that he loves his brother soooo much. If Hafiy did anything on him, hit, spank, etc. he won’t cry. And when Hafiy wants to be fed at the same time he is suckling, he wants to share with Hafiy. So I have to breastfeed both at the same time. If I refuse, usually Fahry will cry. Bagus kan? Tak pening kepala nak layan mana satu.
But I know that sibling rivalry is not sequential. They might not having it today, but in future, we have to prepare. Small quarrel is good, as they might learn to tolerate with others and stick to their stands. Hopefully they won’t go beyond the line, as what has been said about what had happened to Nabi Yaakob’s sons. They saw Nabi Yaakob gave more attention towards Yusuf, and make them jealous. In fact, Nabi Yaakob did that because Yusuf had no mother, so he needed more attention. But they didn’t see it, did they?
Yes, of course I hope Hafiy and my future children will not have jealousy toward each other, especially when they grow up. For kids, it is one of their nature, but sibling rivalry between adults is really really bad and sangat keji.
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