Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Some concerns about making sure the kids feel treated equally

One thing that has been sitting in the back of my mind for a while now is a concern that one or more of the kids will feel left out down the road.

I'm seeing the youngest 3 complaining that Logan gets to do all kinds of stuff they can't, because he is 4 years older.

Likewise, I can see Logan complaining because so much of what we end up doing in terms of Kid-related stuff is geared toward the age group for the Twins and Madelyn. (I'm assuming right now that Madelyn and the twins will probably be very close together in age, unless we get referred a child who is much older than we expect.)

Likewise, when we do stuff to help Madelyn learn more about Chinese culture, or when we go to something like the annual nation-wide gathering of twins in Twinsburg, I can see the other kids feeling left out.

I know that this is the sort of thing that almost every parent of more than one child has faced in the past, even if our situation does have a little asterisk beside it.

And I know that to a certain point, some feeling left out is going to be inevitable on a temporary basis. They are kids, and who is better at randomly being whiney and irrationally jealous than kids are?

But I really want to make sure that none of my kids grow up thinking that I didn't appreciate them as much as I did someone else. I know we won't be able to do everything, but I don't want them thinking "We always did stuff that wanted to do, but I never got to do the stuff that I wanted to do."

But I know with 4, we aren't going to be able to do everything. But hopefully all of them get to do enough that they know they are loved, both as part of our family, and as a unique individual.

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