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Siblings stealing each other's friends
My cousin, has 3 children, a boy aged 19 who is away it school, a girl
aged 16, and another boy aged 14. The youngest boy has always been kind of shy and had trouble making friends, he often has a small number of friends he is really close to as opposed to alot of casual friends. His problem is his sister. He feels she often tries to steal his friends away from him. This started a some years ago when he made a good friend who would come over to the house alot. His sister would often come along and strike up a conversation with his friend and eventually, he'd end up spending more time with her than with him! It wasn't a bf/gf thing, it was just like two friends. She found some commonalities between his friend and eventually excluded my cousin from the conversation or other activities. She also got his friend to start belittling my cousin's son's taste in music, and got him to go to her room to listen to some of her's. One time he tried to compete with her by offering some of the same things his sister does, but that failed. In fact, with the music thing, he tried putting on an album by a certain band and his friend listened and his sister than invited his friend to listen to her album. When my cousin's son asked what the difference was, his friend said "Not your kind, her kind." My cousin's son also once told me of another incident in which his sister came in and struck up a chat with a different friend of his about a couple of books he hadn't read. The result is his friend started chatting with his sister and ignored him. In fact, this same friend would come over to the house to talk to her instead of him, which he really felt hurt about. My cousin has tried talking to her daughter about this, but without success. The only solution that really worked was arranging for her to be out of the house when the boy has his friends over. In fact, all three of them sat down together and he brought up how when she has her friends over, he doesn't in any way disturb them, other than introducing himself if it's someone he hasn't met, and then going about his business and leaving them alone to do their thing. His sister responds to this saying she isn't disturbing them! My cousin wants to do something about it, but her husband thinks they should take a hands off approach to this and let the two siblings work it out amongst themselves and find their own solutions. He takes the point of view if parents solve every one of their kids' problems they won't have the skills to solve problems themselves when they are out on their own. What also worries my cousin is one of the boy's solutions, simply not bringing his friends around and painting a picture of them as people who don't allow him to have friends over. My cousin doesn't like this because she wants to know who his friends are and doesn't want to look like a bad mother. He has one close friend of a few years named Steve. My cousin wanted to have Steve come over and have dinner with the family, but her son resisted. The only way to get him to go along with it was to do it when his sister was out of town for a week, and even then he wouldn't go along with it until he not only saw his sister's plane tickets, but accompanied her to the airport and saw her plane take off! Although I do think kids need to learn how to solve some problems on their own, I think they need help now and then and intervention from the parents. The boy has confided to me he thinks there is something wrong with him because she is able to turn his friends away from him, thinking he is inferior to her or something like that. Sometimes he doesn't want to have any friends and be left alone. He also wonders if he ever tries to have a girlfriend, will his sister try to take her away from him too? This has gone on for around 5 years that I know of and something needs to be done. Any suggestions? Tammy L. |
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Tammy L. wrote:
My cousin, has 3 children, a boy aged 19 who is away it school, a girl aged 16, and another boy aged 14. The youngest boy has always been kind of shy and had trouble making friends, he often has a small number of friends he is really close to as opposed to alot of casual friends. His problem is his sister. He feels she often tries to steal his friends away from him. This started a some years ago when he made a good friend who would come over to the house alot. His sister would often come along and strike up a conversation with his friend and eventually, he'd end up spending more time with her than with him! It wasn't a bf/gf thing, it was just like two friends. She found some commonalities between his friend and eventually excluded my cousin from the conversation or other activities. She also got his friend to start belittling my cousin's son's taste in music, and got him to go to her room to listen to some of her's. One time he tried to compete with her by offering some of the same things his sister does, but that failed. In fact, with the music thing, he tried putting on an album by a certain band and his friend listened and his sister than invited his friend to listen to her album. When my cousin's son asked what the difference was, his friend said "Not your kind, her kind." My cousin's son also once told me of another incident in which his sister came in and struck up a chat with a different friend of his about a couple of books he hadn't read. The result is his friend started chatting with his sister and ignored him. In fact, this same friend would come over to the house to talk to her instead of him, which he really felt hurt about. My cousin has tried talking to her daughter about this, but without success. The only solution that really worked was arranging for her to be out of the house when the boy has his friends over. In fact, all three of them sat down together and he brought up how when she has her friends over, he doesn't in any way disturb them, other than introducing himself if it's someone he hasn't met, and then going about his business and leaving them alone to do their thing. His sister responds to this saying she isn't disturbing them! My cousin wants to do something about it, but her husband thinks they should take a hands off approach to this and let the two siblings work it out amongst themselves and find their own solutions. He takes the point of view if parents solve every one of their kids' problems they won't have the skills to solve problems themselves when they are out on their own. What also worries my cousin is one of the boy's solutions, simply not bringing his friends around and painting a picture of them as people who don't allow him to have friends over. My cousin doesn't like this because she wants to know who his friends are and doesn't want to look like a bad mother. He has one close friend of a few years named Steve. My cousin wanted to have Steve come over and have dinner with the family, but her son resisted. The only way to get him to go along with it was to do it when his sister was out of town for a week, and even then he wouldn't go along with it until he not only saw his sister's plane tickets, but accompanied her to the airport and saw her plane take off! Although I do think kids need to learn how to solve some problems on their own, I think they need help now and then and intervention from the parents. The boy has confided to me he thinks there is something wrong with him because she is able to turn his friends away from him, thinking he is inferior to her or something like that. Sometimes he doesn't want to have any friends and be left alone. He also wonders if he ever tries to have a girlfriend, will his sister try to take her away from him too? This has gone on for around 5 years that I know of and something needs to be done. Any suggestions? Tammy L. -------------- That family is totally and completely inept and insane, and their kids' friends are stupid. Forget about all of them and quit trying to get the rest of us on this group interested. That family is simply hopeless and absurd, as are you for believing such completely ridiculous crap. Steve |
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In article , R. Steve Walz says...
Tammy L. wrote: That family is totally and completely inept and insane, and their kids' friends are stupid. Forget about all of them and quit trying to get the rest of us on this group interested. That family is simply hopeless and absurd, as are you for believing such completely ridiculous crap. Steve Um, Tammy - never mind the Steve guy. Post if you need help on setting up newsgroup filters. He's in most of ours. Cheers, Banty |
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