The two biggest girls are very helpful around the house. Soul, gets tired after like 2 minutes, and it’s mostly playing and complaining from her. She’s still only 4, so she still gets a pass once in awhile, but getting passes isn’t going to be an ongoing thing. She better not get used to it. I can see how oldest siblings can sometimes feel more pressured with responsibility than the rest. True’s my to-to gal in helping out, but I need to make sure as all the kids mature, that they all become my go-to gals. Brave’s pretty helpful too and they (True and Brave) have the same chores list to do around the house, but I think I just automatically ask True to do things more often because she’s the oldest.
I think I’ll need to work on being intentional to have the same expectations from Soul and Glow when they’re ready for it. I could see how babies of the family can be babied because they just seem younger than the older ones, and aren’t given the same expectations and same level of responsibility. Birth order (typically) plays a role in things, doesn’t it?
So for now, the big two work as the little two play. Yesterday evening, the girls and I had good conversations at the dinner table and then we (True, Brave, and I) worked together to clean-up. It was a calm evening of quick obedience and no fighting, and I’m thankful when those moments happen. True and Brave were singing as they were working and I left my camera on the counter on to catch them; they laughed and suddenly got shy when they discovered my secret filming.
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love this! seems like you are raising some well-rounded little ladies!
xxoo,
nikki
http://www.dreaminneon.blogspot.com
I agree birth order does seem to play a role in things. We are trying hard to have similar expectations (when they reach certain ages) for all our kids, it’s hard though.
Oh I can totally relate! In my case my oldest is a girl (she’ll turn 6 in a few days) while my “baby” (who is nearly 4) is a boy… so that’s even more of a challenge… My daughter (Marysa) is usually very eager and helpful and likes to take up chores from others at times. She is certainly my go-to kid. My son (Philippe) relies on his sister’s eagerness and willingness to help around so he becomes lazy, or pretends he doesn’t understand what’s to be done. That and having several not-too-active around the house male models #grandpas-cough. So I need to both snap out of seeing him as a baby and I should learn to expect a big deal from him, as I did from Marysa when she was his age (although this is impossible cause Marysa would go as far as take care of a baby back then) while I need to quench this image of his that males can get away with it, ha! It’s good enough they both like to play “kitchen” and “groceries” as well as “ironing” and “washing machine”. It’s a start I guess for later life! Plus my little one likes to use the vacuum cleaner 😉 Daddy tries to help towards this but it’s not always as efficient as daddy is usually at work and only comes back to play at dinnertime, hmmm! We’ll get there, I am sure 🙂
So true. Sometimes I find it helps if I can pair up my little guy and my big guy to work on something together. The oldest is proud to teach the little one something and the little one feels so big to do what the big one does. Love the secret filming idea, by the way. I’ll have to try that…
I know what you mean, being that I was the oldest in the family. Though I seem to do the opposite (not purposefully). My little ones are only 20 months apart, the boy being the oldest. I often find myself giving his very helpful younger sister the same responsibilities I give him and often have to remind myself (and he) that she in fact is younger and we need to give her some slack.