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Dear care and feeding,
I have two children – “Orel”, 9 years old and “Claire”, 4 years old. We have a yard, several trees in the yard, and squirrels live in the trees. During the last year Orel made it his project to befriend the squirrels.
He feeds them, and even if they aren’t really tame, they will run to him when they won’t let anyone else get within 10 feet before running away. Sometimes the squirrel even briefly sits on his shoulder. Claire gets upset that the squirrels “are Eagles” and he “won’t share them”. It upsets her that they are running away from her. Orel actually tried to teach her his methods of befriending them. He tried to get her to start over by throwing them some nuts and then eating some more himself while the squirrels ate theirs. But give Claire a handful of nuts and she starts eating them all – I mean she is 4. Then Orel gets frustrated with her for not being able to follow directions and they both run up to me and each claim the other is stupid.
I’m not sure how to handle things at this point. I can’t get the squirrels to like her, and she doesn’t really seem to understand what Orel does to make them like him, or at least not well enough to refuse the instant gratification of a snack when it’s presented to her. I’ve tried to explain why she needs to give the squirrels nuts and she says she’ll get them, but she still eats them as soon as she has them in her hands. I think her squirrel taming days are still in the future, but I want them to get along until she figures it out. Right now we have this big squirrel-shaped problem between them. How to get things to calm down?
—The Squirrel Sibling Situation
dear situation
I hope you know that not every situation between siblings can or should be handled by their parents. What about you be able to to do: Tell Orel that his sister is too young to understand his methods and that there’s no point in trying until she’s older (but thank him for trying – that Yippee beautiful behavior of big brother). Tell Claire that the squirrels aren’t “his” and therefore he can’t decide whether or not to share them – they’re living creatures in the wild that strangely come to him because he’s slowly trained them to do so, and that requires skills that he still doesn’t have (you can mention other things she’s not old enough to do, as well as things she couldn’t do before but now Yippee old enough to handle it). Then you withdraw from the dispute. If the kids keep coming up to you crying that the other person is “stupid,” tell them that’s not a great word and ask them to be more specific: stubborn? selfish? irritating? (just because I can never resist a language lesson myself) then let them know it’s up to them to solve their problem. (And maybe try inviting friends of a similar age to play with each of them. A game between a 9 and a 4-year-old is sure to be challenging.)
—Michelle
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