The feeling of jealousness is a natural emotion everyone gets. You probably might think your child at an early age doesn’t experience a sign of jealously. But, they feel discontented either with their siblings or with their peers. So you have to learn the ways to deal with your jealous child.
You might have also gone through jealousness in your childhood and know-how being lonely feels. Based on your experience of jealousness, don’t give any sign to make your kiddo jealous.
The initial point for jealousness comes with siblings. As you give birth to a newborn, your attention drags towards the new member. You believe you are giving enough time and attention to your children, but unfortunately, the attention among kiddo splits into halves. Though they love their brother or sister, insecurity is common.
Another measure for the cause of jealousness in your child is when they get better competition in their schools. Having a friend with good academic grades, talent at sports, and the one who gets more attention from teachers makes your kid jealous.
As soon as you feel your kid being disturbed due to insecurities caused by jealousness, comfort them. Don’t let jealousness control your baby, for they are hampered physically and mentally.
Symptoms of Jealousness You See in Your Child
I have listed a few jealous symptoms that children show when they are jealous. Have a look at these signs of jealousy in children and see if your child is suffering from these difficulties.
- You can visualize anger and violent nature in your kid.
- They hate their siblings, and when their siblings come close, they become irritated.
- You can always see the sadness in your kiddo’s face.
- They feel unhappy with their friend’s success or when they get higher marks.
- Children start to be choosy while eating.
- They are often possessive.
- You can find your child staying alone and depressed most often.
- Your kid no longer enjoys your company and share things with you.
- They no more are fond of going to school and meeting friends.
How Can You Deal With a Jealous Child?
Though jealousness is common for every individual, a timely response to signs of jealousy is required to make a person mentally stable. If you think your child is insecure, soon talk to them and clear their cause for anxiety.
Here are some of the tips and tricks you can implement to deal with your jealous child. Please have a look and suppress jealousy in children.
1. Analyze the Attention You Give
You know that your time for kiddo depletes with a newborn. Get to know you are differentiating unequal time between first-born and second-born before they do to discard the jealousy issue in your kiddo.
When they start to ignore and show anger towards you, be sure they think their brother/sister is important to you. In such a situation, talk to your child and be around them. Keep your children together and give equal time for pampering, manage the playtime and eat time, and display no sign of more and less attention among children.
2. Prepare Them
You need to deal with the insecurities of your child with a newborn. Before birth, make your child prepare for upcoming changes. Teach them basic principles about sharing and caring. Let them know happiness is on the way that comes with their new brother or sister.
When you make your kid familiar with the changes they are about to encounter with a newborn, there will be no jealous factors, and they can easily adjust to a new family situation. Sharing toys with little brother/sister, playing together, sharing cribs, etc., no longer becomes an issue while handling both of your children.
3. Reassure That Your Kiddo is Important
When your child feels low because of a lack of attention from family members, reassure them about their importance. Tell them they are loved, and you never have an intention of hurting them or neglecting them. Remind them of the time they were the reason for everyone’s happiness.
Never think of exercising discrimination based on gender. Treat your son and daughter equally. Often, a child becomes aggressive when they are less wanted and have no expectation for doing well in the future. Thus, console your kid about the priority and significance they are positioned within your life.
4. Listen to Your Kid
You can solve most of the problems when you express your feelings and talk about them. Simply ignoring your kid’s mental state of insecurity keeps things unresolved. When you notice any of the symptoms of jealousy in your child, forward a conversation with them.
Act as a friend while talking with your kid to easily share what they are going through. Read their mind and expression while talking as through tone and reaction you get to know how mentally disturbed your child is.
Talk to your child about positive aspects of life regarding success and self-esteem. When you listen to envious behavior and talk about positive aspects, they gradually start to surpass jealousy towards others.
5. Teach Them About Success
Success is something that comes with hard work, dedication, and enthusiasm towards specific things. Child jealousy towards a competitive friend with good grades, sports performance, or being more wanted by teachers is normal.
If your kiddo is anxious about their friend, define success for them. Comfort them by assuring them that success is accomplished with hardship. Console them that it was your friend’s day for success and your’s is in the way. Tell them to try other ways to know one’s talent instead of wasting time by remaining depressed.
Let your child know good days are waiting for them and all they need to do is try hard and never give up upon failure.
6. Appreciate Your Child
Most parents have a habit of comparing their child’s achievement to academic performance with other children. Getting better grades doesn’t define overall progress in life. If your kid gets low marks in exams, instead of screaming at them, appreciate their hard work. Let them play football, volleyball or any game that interests them.
A person supported in their field of interest is more likely to succeed than the one pressured by their parents to choose a specific career.
A child who gives more attention to music than study should be encouraged to indulge in music. If your child is fond of traveling, playing video games, and interested in movies and animation, let them explore their enthusiasm. Admire your kids’ interest to reduce the risk of feeling jealous.
7. Accept Their Feeling
When you get to know your child feels jealous of their siblings or friends or someone having a better profile than theirs, appreciate their feeling. Comfort them reacting to their jealousy to be okay.
Would you mind helping them to build confidence using their jealous factors as weak points? Tell them about the normal emotions of human beings, like being jealous and angry. Acknowledge the guts they have to share what they are going through instead of being strict towards them.
8. Deal with aggression
In the first place, never let your child feel left out because of a new sibling. If they get a hint for lessened care and attention, they act aggressively.
A jealous child during playtime with siblings denies sharing toys. They hit their sibling with a ball and throw toys away from them. If you face such a situation, ignore the actions of a jealous child and comfort the baby who is hurt. Negligence is a good lesson for jealous kids as a child understands the importance of care to gain attention rather than showing anger.
Conclusion
Jealousy in your child is not a big deal until you acknowledge their feelings and thoughts in time. Don’t try to ignore the aggression and anger of your baby towards siblings or friends, for it may ruin their mental stability.
Parents need to help you deal with a jealous child. Here, I have rounded up 8 parenting tips to comfort your baby. Follow these tricks to secure children’s emotions and deal with jealousy.
Happy Child, Happy Family!
