Giving New Meaning to Parenting

I reached back to tickle Pack Rat and she laughed. Then I reached back to tickle Copy Cat only to notice she had her head down and she was pouting. No amount of tickling got her to smile. I asked Copy Cat, “Why are you sad?” She said, “Because I wanted you to tickle me first.”

Of course I didn’t know that Copy Cat wanted to be tickled first because it was a spontaneous action on my part. The “Me First” competition started a few weeks ago. I think it has been building for years, though. It’s natural competition, I know. Why is it so important to be first? My husband is a very competitive person, but I am not, except with myself. Are they learning it from him/us or is this just a normal phase of being a kid? Many people believe that winning is really important. My thought is that winning isn’t everything as we can grow so much from the process.

As a kid I remember yelling “Shot Gun” with regard to the front seat in the car, however, I rarely won as my brother was almost 7 years older than me. I’m guessing this is just a phase, but I’m struggling with how to equalize things between my two children more than I already have.

So far, I’ve been trying to “manage” the me first and competitiveness brewing between my girls with explanations about how each of us have a talent. For example, Pack Rat is a much faster runner than Copy Cat. However, Copy Cat tends to pick-up on swimming strokes a lot easier. They are starting to notice they are different as I explain their natural abilities. Thankfully, my mom gave them a book that I was able to pull this idea from. In the book, the fairies all have “talents” each fairy has a different talent and cannot perform the other talents very well, if at all.

I’m wondering, how long will the “me first, me first” phase last? If it is basically forever, what tools do you use to manage it?

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by Kelly Damron

Photo graciously provided by robbed, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved