Bossiness. Toy taking. Unkind words. Hitting. Behaviors like these are particularly common between siblings but can happen with peers as well, and they’re frustrating and disturbing for us to witness. How to we address them? Separate the warring factions? Issue a mandate? Negotiate a settlement? Perhaps just let it play out? In this episode, a parent writes that her four-year-old loves his 2.5-year-old sister dearly, but “he is insanely jealous, obsessed with having the same or more than her, whether it’s food, toys, Easter eggs, crayons… It seemed like a phase, but it’s become an obsession.” This mom describes all the strategies she’s tried to deal with her son’s behavior, but to no avail. After considering the causes and conditions of this boy’s behavior, Janet offers a respectful approach she believes help alleviate the situation for all.
Transcript of “How to Handle Our Kids’ Obsessive Jealousy”
Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.
Today I’m going to be responding to a parent who’s worried about her son’s obsessive jealousy. He’s jealous of his sibling. And I’m going to offer her a few bits of feedback based on what she shared with me and some ideas that I think will really help her and help her son. But I just want to say that I’m really offering one major suggestion here, that will not only help with our children’s rivalry when we have more than one child and the older one often is having a hard time with the younger one and maybe not treating them as we want them to, and it can be very distressing.
But this idea I’m going to share also applies to almost every situation with children, because it’s just something that we often forget to do. And it’s usually less than we think we need to do. Maybe that’s why we forget about it: it’s actually easier and simpler than the kinds of things that we try to do to help kids with behaviors generally, where we want to empathize with them and comfort them, help them to feel better when we’ve set a boundary. Or we might want to talk them out of something they’re doing. And a lot of these things, of course, we do reflexively, so we’re not even thinking about it.
Yet if we could just simplify this for ourselves to this one idea, it can make everything so much clearer for us and make it one step easier for us to stay calm and centered in any situation with kids, whether they’re defying us in certain ways, whether we’re seeing them act out with their sibling in ways that we don’t like, whether they’re saying things to us that are unkind.
This one idea: acceptance. Just acceptance of a point of view, a feeling; not behavior, not we’re just letting you do whatever you want. But we’re accepting what’s behind the behavior, accepting that they want to do the behavior, because that’s the part of us that nobody can change, right? Somebody can help us change our behavior, they can stop us from doing certain things. They can’t change us wanting to do that. But if we can share those thoughts and feelings, that point of view, with somebody we trust and love, and have them accept that, that makes it so much easier for us to feel relief, feel better about it. We’re still going to have those feelings that we want to hurt our sibling or yell in our parent’s face or do all of that. But it’s easier for us to actually not follow through on it because we feel safer, calmer, better ourselves, as the child.
Here’s the interchange I had with a parent in, I think it was Instagram messages:
Janet, you’re one of only a few voices I listen to when it comes to how to parent my spirited boy. I was hoping you might need some content inspiration because I’d love some advice. He’s four years old, his sister is two-and-a-half years. He is insanely jealous. Loves her dearly, but is obsessed with having the same or more than her. Whether it’s food, toys, Easter eggs, crayons, he obsessively rushes over to see what she has first, to make sure he has more. He will swindle things off of her and trick her to ensure he ends up better off than her. He will harass her until he gets his way.
It seemed like a phase, but it’s become an obsession. He loses his ability to enjoy these simple things because it ends up becoming about what his sister has and why can’t he have the same or more, leading to tantrums and fighting.
If you had any insights, I would absolutely love to hear. I’m guessing it is probably something many parents will resonate with, or maybe it’s just us. Love your work. Thank you.
I wrote back to her:
Hi, how lovely of you to reach out. I think that’s a great idea for an episode. Would you mind giving me a bit more information as to how you handle these situations?
And this mom wrote back to me:
Thank you. I’m so grateful.
Well, we have just had a shocking morning, so perfect timing. My son had taken these little dog toys off his sister, leaving her with none. (They should have had four each.) When I tried to give her share back to her, he got very angry. So I took him into his room as he kicked and screamed, and I held him or wrestled with him to stop him running back to his sister to take hers. This went on for about 10 minutes. He really did not like me holding him, kept screaming for me to let him go, but I don’t know what else to do. I ended up taking his four toys away and saying he can have them when he is calm. He went looking for them, still very angry, but he seems to have calmed now.
Usually his sister will give in and give him what he wants to keep the peace. But I’m trying to make a stand, as hard as it is.
I wrote back:
Oh gosh. I’m sorry, that sounds like a not fun morning for you. How was your daughter doing throughout this? And generally, how does she react when she’s giving in, etc.?
And she wrote back:
My daughter was in the room with us just doing her own thing. Not fazed, as this reaction isn’t out of character. She’s an exceptional communicator. If he takes something from her, she will yell in protest and I will intervene. Usually we can negotiate an outcome they’re both happy with, but sometimes, like yesterday, it spirals. Sometimes these negotiations drag on and my daughter moves on and will say, “Here you go” or “Of course you can have it,” enabling the behavior, but also showing kindness.
They play well together mostly. They are very cliquey, want to do most things together, definitely are each other’s best friend. He looks out for her and can share, but naturally wants to control the play. This doesn’t often bother my daughter, who doesn’t really know any different. She’s still very happy to play with him and will sometimes even take his side, even when we’re trying to defend her from whatever he has just taken from her.
Then I wrote back:
Oh my gosh, this: “She’s still very happy to play with him and will sometimes even take his side, even when we’re trying to defend her from whatever he has just taken from her.” Very, very common, and so interesting, right? I’m excited to respond in full for a podcast episode. Thank you so much for all of this. It’s helpful to me and hopefully will help others.
So her daughter’s reaction is very interesting, right? And her daughter’s whole take on this is very interesting.
Here’s what can happen, though, as parents. We see this behavior we don’t like, and then we see that it’s become, as this parent says, an obsession. So when something becomes an obsession like this, when a child seems really stuck in a certain kind of behavior, it usually means that our responses or our lack of a certain response that our child needs is fueling this behavior somehow.
Now, I say this not to blame parents or that we should bag on ourselves and feel bad about things when our child has this kind of behavior. Actually, it really doesn’t have that much to do with us in itself. The good news about this realization that we probably are fueling it in the way that we’re responding or not responding is that this is a power that we have. Maybe there’s something more we can do. It doesn’t mean that what we are doing is wrong or that we should feel bad about it. It just means there’s something different or more that we can do that will really help our child to get unstuck out of this obsession.
That is this note that I want to give in this podcast today: accepting the point of view of the child. And maybe this parent has done this in some ways, but she didn’t share it with me, so I don’t know. But it’s normal for us as parents to overlook that and just say, “Hey, what are you doing there? You’re not being nice. Be good to your sister,” or “This isn’t fair. You’re taking her stuff!” When, as this parent realizes, he’s insanely jealous.
Now, I’m always so interested because I think I get confused about jealousy versus envy. Maybe you all understand it, but I confuse those two a lot. And so I actually did a search on the difference between jealousy and envy, just to make sure I was getting it right in this case. And the perspectives I was led to were really spot-on for this.
Here’s one, this is by William and Mary Morris in the Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage, Second Edition, 1985. “There are three different ways in which ‘jealous’ can be used. The most common is where the meaning is ‘fearful of losing attention.’ Another broad sense is ‘possessive or protective.’ Third usage is in the sense of envious, as of another person because of his or her belongings, abilities, or achievements.
So the first one is spot-on, right? Where the meaning is “fearful of losing attention.” That’s what happens when we have a second or third or fourth child. The other children who are already there can get this irrational fear—well, it’s actually a rational fear, because they are going to lose some attention, the attention that is now going to their sibling. It doesn’t mean that they’re losing any of our love or high regard or anything else, but they are losing attention. So they’re losing, and that doesn’t feel good.
This other explanation was from Theodore M. Bernstein from The Careful Writer, 1965. Wow, these are pretty old. “One might almost say that these two words are used as if they were interchangeable. The words are scarcely synonymous, however. ‘Envy’ means discontented longing for someone else’s advantages. ‘Jealousy’ means unpleasant suspicion or apprehension of rivalship.”
So in this case, I think we could say that this child, and a lot of siblings, feel both envy and jealousy. Because envy is discontented longing for someone else’s advantages. And that younger child has the advantage of being the younger one, being the littler one that we’re going to naturally want to defend as parents or take the side of. And also they have the advantage that they came into life already sharing their parent’s attention, and they didn’t have to make that adjustment. So we could be envious as a sibling about that. And then also the jealousy, which is the unpleasant suspicion or apprehension of a rival. Yes, we feel in competition with that child for attention.
I’m a younger and an older sibling, so I feel like I can relate to both. And I was also someone that I felt like was very much defended by my parent. My parent would step in and seemingly take my side a lot of the time. That actually didn’t help me as much as one might think, and I wish that she hadn’t. I mean, that’s my own point of view, but I think this little girl is showing that she doesn’t need her mother to step in as much as she’s doing or in the way that she’s doing.
But again, not to criticize this parent. I want to help give her a perspective that, when she embraces it, will give her son more of a feeling of safety. This feeling of jealousy will always probably be there or be there for a long time, but it will stop being an obsession once this parent can be more accepting of what’s going on with him, instead of just trying to deal with it.
That’s the thing: as parents, we don’t have that much time, we don’t have that much energy. So we just try to deal with it, we try to fix it, to make the child stop. But it keeps happening, so then we have to find another way. And that other way is seeing the bigger picture and realizing that every child has a valid point of view that at least makes sense to them and is reflective of their comfort level at any given time. And we also don’t have the power to change it, just as we don’t have the power to change our own feelings. And since we can’t change the feelings, all we can do is accept them. That acceptance alone helps the feeling to lose its strength. I think it’s Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson who said “name it to tame it.” That can definitely help us with our own feelings and with our child’s. And we don’t have to get them to name it, but it will help us to be able to name it and accept it and allow our child to feel it.
And then from that viewpoint of acceptance, helping them with their behavior. In a way that will look like we’re doing a lot less because we’re doing it from a place of not being alarmed and angry at our son for acting like this. We’re doing it from a place of getting why he’s acting like this and just trying to help him out. Because it doesn’t feel good to him to be doing that, to be stuck in wanting all this stuff. I mean, gosh, I can even relate to the panic of that. How awful that feels to be obsessed about anything, especially about stuff. You’re always counting and figuring and it’s never enough. So let’s help this poor guy stop feeling like this!
And here’s how I would do that. The biggest piece, of course, is this acceptance piece. Yes, he’s jealous. It makes sense, it’s par for the course for older siblings. Sometimes children will go to the extent where as soon as they see that child, they just want to hit him. And he’s not doing that, but he’s doing this other thing of trying to seize control in an area where he doesn’t have control. He doesn’t have control of the fact that his sibling is there. He really likes her, too. He cares for her. He sounds like a great big brother, actually. But he can’t control that she’s younger and seems more vulnerable and that she took all this attention away and that he has to share everything with her now.
And that he’s kind of doing this stuff that’s making him the villain here a lot of the time. It’d be hard not to think like that as a parent. Here’s this girl with this sweet, great communication, and so giving that she just lets him have things. She’s got her little angel halo on, right? And he’s got the horns on. It’s hard not to see it that way. But I feel sorry for the child that’s not looking like the angel. And I just know from my own experience, learning this the hard way with my children, the angel is participating. And they are being strong in the relationship, they’re not victims. They don’t want to be victims and it doesn’t help them when we see them that way, that one is the aggressor and one is the victim.
And taking a big step back, let’s look, what is this about? Things, stuff. This little girl who’s two-and-a-half, her position is so much stronger than his. It’s certainly a lot more comfortable. Her position is, This is stuff. I don’t care about it. And yes, her parent says “she will yell in protest and I will intervene.” So she’s yelling in protest, that’s strong too. Like, Hey, look what you’re doing! And she may also be doing this because it gets her parent running in. But nothing that this parent shares gives me the impression that her daughter is distressed, that her daughter feels a loss of all these things that he takes from her. Other than the yelling, which one could interpret as her being alarmed, she seems totally okay with all of this.
And I’m sure there are people out there thinking, How can you let this child act this way? And I’m not going to let him act this way. But the thing is, what will get him to stop and what will get them both what they want, which is to love each other and have arguments and have conflicts that they can resolve? This two-year-old, she already knows how to do this stuff. I don’t think she’s giving things up out of fear, I’m not getting that impression at all. And I’ve seen this enough times to know that the child doesn’t. And like this parent said about the horrible morning she had, “she’s not fazed, as this reaction isn’t out of character.” So she knows about all of these histrionics and things that go on with her brother, and it doesn’t surprise her when he goes off because this is what he’s been doing. And this is the guy she knows and she knows he’s not in deep pain when he’s getting upset about these things. That he’s expressing this dynamic that’s been going on for a while, but it’s nothing that she needs to fear.
Anyway, I know there are people probably thinking that I’m saying, just let it all happen and let the younger child deal with it, and maybe he’s going to start abusing her in other ways. And it’s actually the opposite. When we can intervene more calmly, which I’m going to explain how to do, and understand both children’s perspectives a little better, getting out of our adult head of He’s stealing! We just can’t let him do this. This is a terrible thing!, then he calms, he feels safe. He can handle more of these feelings of jealousy that will come and go for him, maybe throughout his life, about his sister. He will have more room to love her when he feels safe in terms of the acceptance that his parents have for him. That’s what every child wants, that’s what we all want as humans. You don’t have to empathize. You don’t have to feel sorry for me. Just accept.
Because the children that end up going into really dark places in terms of the way they treat their siblings, those are the children that are feeling overwhelmed by the judgments and the shame and the distance and the lack of acceptance from their parents. Hurt people hurt people, we’ve all heard that one. So what will help him to stop in the short term will also prevent this from getting any more serious in the long term.
Now let’s look at exactly what this is. “He is insanely jealous. Loves her dearly, but is obsessed with having the same or more than her.” Gosh, that just makes my head hurt, thinking about having to figure that out all the time. I can’t enjoy any of the things I have because I’m only comparing all the time. She said, “Whether it’s food, toys, Easter eggs, crayons, he obsessively rushes over to see what she has first to make sure he has more.” So I can feel as a typical parent that I’m really annoyed right away that he’s doing that, right? Ugh, this is so icky that my child is so obsessive about how much stuff and comparing and all that. It’s not attractive behavior, we can admit that to ourselves.
But from there, I would find my way to, Oh gosh, poor guy. That doesn’t feel good. Because it feels awful to be trying to do that. He’s not enjoying any of this, any of the food or the toys or the Easter eggs or the crayons. He can’t, when it’s all about focusing on who has more and making sure he has more and that that’s somehow going to make him feel better, but then it doesn’t. It never makes him feel better, it only makes him feel worse, especially when his parents don’t like what he’s doing.
“He will swindle things off her and trick her to ensure he ends up better off than her.” That’s mean, right? It seems like mean behavior. “He will harass her until he gets his way. It seemed like a phase, but it’s become an obsession. He loses his ability to enjoy these simple things because it ends up becoming about what his sister has and why can’t he have the same or more, leading to tantrums and fighting.”
So what I would recommend is noticing. “Oh gosh, you want everything she has, and you want to make sure you have more. Ah, that doesn’t feel good, right?” Acknowledging something like that, if it feels right to say anything then. But I would also try to leave more space for your two-and-a-half-year-old, who seems quite capable to handle this herself. Because when it escalates into the tantrums and the fighting, that’s usually because our child is feeling our two cents. They’re feeling our judgments, they’re feeling it in what we’re saying or doing.
When this parent was able to share with me what she’s saying and doing, she said that they had this shocking morning with these little dog toys. He took these toys off his sister, leaving her with none, and then the parent tried to give her share back to her. So I don’t recommend intervening to that extent. There is a way that she could stop this, not perfectly, but that would help him to not escalate like that. And would also help him to get the message that, yeah, it’s not that cool what he’s doing. And she also knows he’s going through this thing, that he has this obsession and it’s taken over him and it doesn’t feel good to him, and she wants to help him with that.
Let’s say she sees that he’s taken all the toys away, and maybe the sister yells. And she comes by, not rushing in, but she comes by like, Whoa, you’ve got all those now. You didn’t want her to have any of them. You just wanted to have them all, that felt better to you. If you could acknowledge with that kind of non-judgmental I’m sorry you feel this way, bud, that’s not fun attitude, instead of trying to pretend that we have that attitude when we don’t. If we’re not able to feel accepting of him, then it’s better not to say anything. But if we can, that’s where we want to get to eventually. Where we’re not making this big fuss about putting it all back and undoing what he’s done. We’re just calling his attention to it, we’re kind of opening it up as a little issue that’s going on here.
This also has the benefit for the two-and-a-half-year-old of not assuming she’s a victim here and trying to fix it for her. Knowing that she’s very capable of being involved in this conflict in an active way, not as somebody who we’re just rescuing in some way. That instead, maybe they could work something out that wouldn’t be your way of resolving it, but that would resolve it. Because this really isn’t about us, it’s about those two and their relationship. The more we try to get involved in that, the less opportunity they have to develop their relationship, and that’s what we want them to do.
So opening this up a little bit more by just commenting, “Oh whoa, you wanted all the things and now she doesn’t have any, and you’ve got them.” I’m not feeling terribly sorry for anyone, I’m not feeling mad at anyone. I’m noticing and I’m accepting and acknowledging what’s going on. From there, then we’re leaving space for them to do a number of things. He might even give it back to her in a little while, who knows? He’s getting caught up not only in the stuff, but in how this pushes us away. And he doesn’t want to push us away, but it’s like he’s just repeating and repeating and repeating something that he’s gotten stuck in. And the result is uncomfortable, but he keeps going there. It’s like any of us that has a bad habit or an obsession that’s not helping us to be healthier or feel better, but we keep doing it.
We can help to ease that cycle, or stop it even, by not playing into it ourselves with that same behavior that we’ve been doing. Which is, Stop doing this. You can’t do that. That’s not nice. Let me give it back to her. You won’t give it back, so now I’ve got to tackle you and make sure she gets it back because a terribly wrong thing has just happened. But we’re seeing it differently than even our two-and-a-half-year-old a lot of the time, and it’s really not about us. So I would consider all those things. I would consider that this really is between the two of them, and I’m just here to kind of mediate and help but not be the judge and jury here. You want this? Oh gosh, he got those away, huh? You really want to take those. And you were going to play with all of those, mister? What’s going on with you? I mean, we can be involved in this wonderful way if we refrain from going in there with our judgment feet first.
So she tried to give her share back and he got really angry, so she took him to his room and he kicked and screamed and she had to hold him and wrestle him. Yes, that’s kind of where we go when we see this through an adult lens. Which is really good to have a lot of the time, children can’t see into the future like adults do. They need us to help them to eat healthy because that matters for their bodies. They need us to see the bigger picture in a lot of ways. But when it comes to conflict and relationships, we want to be where the children are at because that’s where we can really help them. And not over-intervene or intervene in a manner that continues obsessions, which I know this parent doesn’t want to do.
So she ended up taking his toys away and saying he can have them when he’s calm. And if she really felt strongly that she couldn’t let him have those toys, she could still take them in a way that wasn’t judgmental. Where she opens her hands and says, “Do you want to give those back to me? I know it’s hard, but I don’t think you want to be this guy that keeps doing this, do you? It doesn’t feel good.” And then maybe he would or he wouldn’t, but he’d have a chance of doing it then because he doesn’t feel threatened and judged.
Then she says, “Usually his sister will give in and give him what he wants to keep the peace. But I’m trying to make a stand, as hard as it is.” And I understand this parent’s stand. Of course she doesn’t want him to take things off his sister. But that’s a symptom, it’s not the issue. The issue is he just feels really, really jealous and needs a lot of space for that to be heard and accepted and okay with us. And if she was able to do that just in these specifics, “You want all of them, of course you do!” And, “Oh gosh, she has more than you and now you’ve got to get more. Whew, and now you have to count it all and figure it out. That can’t feel too good, honey.” Being on his side that way. Being on both of their sides that way, because that will help her daughter too.
I think they sound quite capable of figuring this out for themselves and will probably do it. He’ll probably give things up more readily if we’re not even involved, because it seems like a lot of the obsession is about his relationship with the parents, not with the sister. It’s about the attention that he’s getting.
She says, “Sometimes these negotiations drag on and my daughter moves on and will say, ‘Here you go’ or ‘Of course you can have it,’ enabling the behavior, but also showing kindness.” So I wouldn’t consider that enabling the behavior. I would consider that actually helping to resolve the behavior, because she’s showing him, Hey, I’m on your side. I don’t really want to fight about this stuff. It’s not worth it to me. And as I said before, that’s a really, really strong position that I would want to encourage. Not that she has to give things up, but that she’s not threatened or bothered by this behavior about stuff.
But then this parent says something that just really hits home, because I went through this with my children. And I’m sure you’ve probably heard me mention it in a podcast before, I may have. She says:
They play well together mostly. They are very cliquey, want to do most things together, definitely are each other’s best friend. He looks out for her and can share, but naturally wants to control the play. This doesn’t often bother my daughter, who doesn’t really know any different. She’s still very happy to play with him and will sometimes even take his side, even when we’re trying to defend her from whatever he has just taken from her.
One of my children was very, very argumentative with her brother, and he’s four years younger. It was this constant picking on him, picking on him, picking on him. I knew to kind of let it go because he really wasn’t bothered. He was a strong kid, he wasn’t crushed by it. He was playing into it, I’m sure. He knew just how to get to her and bother her, and he did plenty of his own mischief with her. He would know how to push her buttons, it was a great way to get her attention. Magda Gerber had prepared me for staying out of sibling stuff as much as possible. And then I saw it with my own eyes and it made sense, because there’s going to be this rivalry, this jealousy.
But then one day it was just on and on and on, and I was in the room. I didn’t come in the room for it, but I was there and it was right in front of me. Just picking on him and picking on him and picking on him. And I said, “Enough!” And of course my son, the younger one, said, “Stay out of it, mom.” So there you go, that’s what this story reminded me of. The two-and-a half-year-old is taking her brother’s side when her parents are getting in there and trying to defend her from whatever he’s just taken from her. It’s almost like she’s saying, Come on guys, what’s the big deal? It happens. So what? And what a beautiful attitude that is, that we want to encourage, right? These children, they will teach us this overall message to just accept your kid’s behavior and come at it from that side. You can help them.
Maybe if we’re already there and it’s happening, then we just, instead of saying, “Oh no, give that back! You can’t have that,” we’re saying, “Oops, no, I’m not going to let you take more. I’m going to stop you.” And I’m blocking you from doing it, or I’m holding your hand. “You’ve got four of those and she’s got one left, and we’re just going to let her keep that one.” So there are ways that you can stop him, but if it’s already happened, I wouldn’t make a big show of getting in there and wrestling it all back and then having your daughter think, It’s just stuff, I didn’t care.
Minimal intervention from that place of understanding they’re both capable. He’s capable of stopping and giving it back to her if he feels the emotional space and safety to do that, space from us and our feelings. Or she might do it, just solidifying their relationship. And it could be a really positive thing if we weren’t there feeling really mad at him and all that judgment that, again, is so normal for us. But what’s really going on is a guy that doesn’t feel good about what’s happening and doesn’t want to be obsessed and doesn’t want to be stuck in this nitpicking. So let’s save him from that.
I really hope some of this helps. And thanks so much to this parent for reaching out to me and being so honest about everything. Like all of you guys are, I get the most wonderful notes. Thank you to everybody for listening.
And by the way, this podcast feels especially appropriate as one to remind you that my No Bad Kids Master Course is available. I give a lot of demonstrations in there of intervening in situations where children are hurting each other or taking from each other. And you should check it out at nobadkidscourse.com.
We can do this.
