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Best care and nutrition,
I have two children: ‘Orel’, nine years old, and ‘Claire’, four years old. We have a garden, a few trees in that garden, and a few squirrels that live in the trees. Over the past year, Orel has made it his project to befriend the squirrels.
He will feed them, and although they are not exactly tame, they will run to him if they don’t let anyone else get within 10 feet before running away. Sometimes a squirrel even sits on his shoulder for a moment. It upsets Claire that the squirrels “belong to Orel” and that he doesn’t want to “share” them. It makes her furious that they are running away from her. Orel has in fact tried to teach her his methods of befriending them. He’s tried to get her to start at the beginning, by throwing some nuts at them and then eating a few others himself, while the squirrels eat theirs. But give Claire a handful of nuts and she’ll eat them all – I mean, she is 4. Then Orel gets frustrated because she can’t follow directions, and they both run to me, both claiming the other is stupid.
I’m not sure how to handle things at this point. I can’t get the squirrels to like her and she doesn’t really seem to understand what Orel does to get them to like him, or at least not well enough to turn down the instant gratification of a snack if the hair is offered. I tried to explain why she needs to give some nuts to the squirrels, and she says she understands, but she still eats them as soon as she gets them in her hands. I think her own squirrel taming days are still in her future, but I want them to get along until she figures this out. Right now we have a major squirrel shaped problem between them. How do I ensure that the situation becomes calmer?
— Sibling squirrel situation
Best situation,
I hope you know that not every situation between siblings can or should be resolved by their parents. What you can do: Tell Orel that his sister is too young to understand his methods, and that there is no point in trying until she is older (but thank him for trying – that is sweet big brother behavior). Tell Claire that the squirrels aren’t ‘his’ so he can’t decide whether or not to share them. They are living creatures in the wild who, amazingly, come to him because he has trained them slowly, which requires skills she doesn’t yet have (you could name other things she isn’t old enough for yet, but also things she couldn’t do before and that she can do now). is old enough to manage). Then distance yourself from the dispute. If the kids still come running to you and yelling that the other person is “stupid,” tell them that’s not a good word and ask them to be more specific: stubborn? selfish? irritating? (only because I can never resist a language lesson myself), let them know that it is up to them to solve their problem. (And maybe make an effort to invite friends of the same age to play with each of them. Playing between a 9 and 4 year old is undoubtedly fraught.)
—Michelle
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