How do you teach the non-dominant one to stand up for himself?

Hi, I haven't posted for ages, and I have 4.5 year old non-identical boys. The 1-5 year posts looked more to be about baby/toddler issues and I thought I might consult Mums who have already been through what I am experiencing.

My twins Hamish and Lachlan are very close, but at preschool they have separate friends. They have differenmt interests. Lachlan has always been more dominant, can be aggressive and has a very quick temper. He often is aggressive towards his brother, which we discipline him for and try and stop. Our 20 month old baby girl is at that age where she is starting to hit, pinch, pull hair etc. They both hurt Hamish but he just sits there and cries, or calls out for us, or comes and tells us what happened.

How do I continue to protect him and discipline his siblings, but also teach him to deal with it himself a bit (do I sound tough?)

I just want him to push his baby sister away, have tried to tecah them both to say "No Prue" and push her away gently but firmly, and I guess I want to know, am I being a bad mum by wishing that sometimes he would just hit his brother back and not sit there crying or come running to me????
He is very gentle, smaller than his brother, sharing and caring, but can be sneaky and often triggers the viuolence by stealing his brothers's things or teasing him. How have you Mum's of older twins dealt with this. i don't want to change his gentle nature, I do want his brother to be less aggressive, but I want Hamish to stop being teh victim and stand up for himself!!! Arggghh....

I want them to learn their own conflict resolution i guess, without abandoning Hamish to be constantly dominated. Sorry this is so long!

Nicole, SAHM
Hamish and Lachlan 20/7/02
Prue 6/4/05
Australia

 

Hi, I haven't posted for ages, and I have 4.5 year old non-identical boys. The 1-5 year posts looked more to be about baby/toddler issues and I thought I might consult Mums who have already been through what I am experiencing.

My twins Hamish and Lachlan are very close, but at preschool they have separate friends. They have differenmt interests. Lachlan has always been more dominant, can be aggressive and has a very quick temper. He often is aggressive towards his brother, which we discipline him for and try and stop. Our 20 month old baby girl is at that age where she is starting to hit, pinch, pull hair etc. They both hurt Hamish but he just sits there and cries, or calls out for us, or comes and tells us what happened.

How do I continue to protect him and discipline his siblings, but also teach him to deal with it himself a bit (do I sound tough?)

I just want him to push his baby sister away, have tried to tecah them both to say "No Prue" and push her away gently but firmly, and I guess I want to know, am I being a bad mum by wishing that sometimes he would just hit his brother back and not sit there crying or come running to me????
He is very gentle, smaller than his brother, sharing and caring, but can be sneaky and often triggers the viuolence by stealing his brothers's things or teasing him. How have you Mum's of older twins dealt with this. i don't want to change his gentle nature, I do want his brother to be less aggressive, but I want Hamish to stop being teh victim and stand up for himself!!! Arggghh....

I want them to learn their own conflict resolution i guess, without abandoning Hamish to be constantly dominated. Sorry this is so long!

Nicole, SAHM
Hamish and Lachlan 20/7/02
Prue 6/4/05
Australia

 

My girls are the same way and I know ewxactly what you mean. There is no way to teach them to be more dominant that I have found. I did tell her to say no and stop. I had to learn to let the one being bullied fight her own battles, to an extent. They have to learn to stand up for themselves. You may find in time that they do a role reversal, where the dominant one is now being bullied. Sorrynot more help.

 

I did not set about to teach my more passive twin to be more assertive, but separating them in kindergarten helped to accomplish this for him. He had to learn to speak up for himself without his brother at his side. But this was not really a huge issue for my boys anyway. They have both always been quite independent.

 

I have 7YO boys, and they were much like yours, and not too very long ago. First, separate them in kindergarten! Mine were together all the way through preschool, and I think they kind of neede to be together while they were young. However, by the end of their last year, their teacher was VERY relieved when I said I was splitting them up in K. She said that both would benefit -- the more dominant of the two was holding himself back to soothe his brother, and the less dominant wasn't given any real motivation to mature, and stand up for himself.
Second, it could be a maturity issue. My less dominant twin is VERY gentle and caring and thoughtful. Pleasing people seemed extremely important to him, maybe too important in that he sometimes seemed to measure his own self-worth by how much he pleased others. (Not that his brother is insensitive, it's just that pleasing others isn't his first priority, and for a seven-year-old boy, I don't think it should be!)
Putting him in class away from his brother forced him to make his own friends and communicate all by himself. Which changed for the better his own confidence, his speech, and his maturity. His teacher (he's in first grade) told me that he's made great strides just this year alone in maturity.
So, don't despair. Just keep an eye on them both. Maybe they'll grow iinto their personalities. Consider putting them in diff. classes if you can. I know the preschool I could afford was too small to do this, so I waited until Kindergarten to do it.

 

The boys used to run to me all the time "Isiah hit me!" or "Michael kicked me!" etc, etc. I finally had to tell them that they needed to learn to work out their problems on their own and stand up for themselves. I told them that if someone hits you, you HAVE to defend yourself. (They used to go to an after-school program and most of the other kids were older and would sometimes pick on them.) I told them that if they got into trouble at school for defending themselves, that they would NOT be in trouble at home so long as they didn't start the fight. Now, I occassionally get the "He hit me!" but for the most part, they usually work it out themselves. I also told them that if they're out somewhere and someone is picking on their brother, they should have his back and help him, if he needs the help.

Oh, just thought of something else. On our way up here to Kansas, we stopped in Atlanta for 2 nights to hang out with one of my best friends who has 2 little girls (ages 6 & 4). Her girls wrestle with each other ALL the time and are very aggressive and rough and tumble girls, my boys are not aggressive like that and don't wrestle around all the time like her girls. The girls immediately started "tackling" the boys and my guys didn't know how to react to this b/c they know not to hurt girls even tho the girls were jumping all over them and sort of hurting them. (LOL) Finally, Michael had had enough and when one of them tried tackling him, he basically just flung her off of him. She got right up and still wanted to play but she finally realized that if she was going to dish it out, he was going to give it right back to her so she calmed down.