Child Spacing

Love or hate, they are all that you have - siblings! Love or hate, they are all that you have - siblings!

You fight, scream, scratch at them yet these animosities never seem to last long. You and your siblings have had a love-hate relationship from the beginning of time. You despise them one minute and completely adore them the next. Sure, this may not be wholly your story, but you know that deep within your sibling relationship, this is indeed the case.

Have you ever stopped to think that the relationship siblings have with  one another maybe be affected by the difference in age among the two? Actually it plays a major role.  In addition factors such as gender, personality and physical distance also affect the relationship, but here we focus on the age difference.

Child counselor, Sumitra Dhakal says that the parents are looking to find the perfect age gap between children, must understand that the concept of perfect gap that is applicable to everyone doesn’t really exist. To find the ideal age gap, you must take factors like the time you can spend with your children, your physical and financial health, and other family factors into consideration.  For some parents a gap of one or two years is perfect while for others it’s five or more.  So instead of looking for this answer among others you should decide the perfect age gap for your family by yourself.

The 1 - 2 Years Gap

With this lot, the relationship is mostly based on squabbles, petty fights and secretly loving each other. It’s like the two of them were born with the same taste (in almost everything!) and the mutual feeling of not wanting your sibling to own the same things you do. You like the new shades that hit the stores and so does she! You like the new model of bike in town, so does she! Hence the squabbles.

On a positive note, with only a year or two of difference in age, the siblings can find a playmate, a best friend, a partner in crime and numerous different relationships in a single person. They could have a healthy dose of competition between them push each other to their limits, which would lead to both of them shining to their truest potential. They could also grow up to have an amazing relationship.

But with love comes rivalry and with the age gap being very narrow, the older sibling could still feel that she is a kid herself but do not receive as much attention as her younger sibling. The older sibling could cultivate feelings of anger and hatred towards her younger sibling.  So, the parents must make sure that they are providing similar amount of love, care and attention to all their children regardless of their age.

The more than Five-year Gap

The siblings who are more than five years apart generally turn out to be more understanding of each other.  Being the older sibling for five or more years, they can handle the responsibility of looking after the younger sibling for a few minutes or more. This trust exercise builds a sense of responsibility towards their younger siblings. The older siblings have better confidence in themselves and they usually tend to have better social skills in their life later on. These things would ward off the overly jealous feelings siblings can have towards each other, unlike that with the smaller age gap.

The younger siblings will have a general sense of respect towards their older siblings as the elder ones know more things, and also because the older siblings usually assume the role of a teacher, teaching the younger ones various skills.  

But this relationship could sometime go haywire for older siblings.  They might feel intense jealously when they perceive that they are not getting as much parental attention as the younger ones.  And at the same time, with all the pampering, the younger children could face the risk of being dependent on their parents for everything, but could also turn out to be more social than their siblings.

The parents must provide enough attention to all of their children so that if and when there is a spark of negativity, it doesn’t manifest into something ugly. The parents need to make the elder siblings understand why the younger ones require more attention and that the younger siblings are their playmates not their rivals.  And that providing more attention to the younger ones doesn’t mean that the parents don’t love the older ones.

The siblings can find a playmate, a best friend, a partner in crime and more different relationships in a single person.