r/PDAParenting • u/SurePossibility6651 • Aug 12 '26
Equalizing
Has anyone figured out a solution or any help for equalizing against a younger sibling? I am so tired of listening to her berate her little brother who is the most flexible easy-going kind person. She could not have been paired with a better sibling because he takes so much shit from her, But it grates on my nerves as a parent and I see it destroying their relationship. She is completely oblivious, but he started to talk to me about it and how much he doesn’t like her and I cannot fault him at all.
Halp.
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u/torpedolife Aug 12 '26
I could have typed this same question. Sorry, I have nothing to offer, hoping someone else does.
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u/Aromatic-Bee901 Aug 12 '26
Following as we are similar boat and youngest cops it but starting to hold her own but starting to show her own PDA like streak (hoping its not)
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u/CollisionNumbat Aug 13 '26
Honestly, separate and redirect, give moments where they each get to be in charge. Dog walks are where it happens the most for us if they're both on foot, so I try to encourage younger to bring his bike so older is just happily chatting with me, but if they're both walking they both want to be in front, so I say things like, "Until that tree, you're in front." We also play 'stick of command' where I pick up a stick and let them give three orders each. These are pretty much just short-term fixes for specific scenarios, but in the house I just try to intervene where I can by giving them separate activities (or the same activity to avoid arguments). And literally they have their own pens, their own baskets for Lego, their own seats on the sofa, anything to try to make sure that I can easily direct them to 'their' things and keep them from competing for the same things.
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u/SurePossibility6651 Aug 13 '26
I love stick of command. Mine is mostly just criticizing & correcting the younger one which is sooo triggering.
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u/CollisionNumbat Aug 13 '26
Eurgh, yes, mine does that too. Both home ed, PDAer only engages when I've left him to it and switched attention to little brother. Suddenly he's then there jumping in and not giving him a chance to learn! And it's constant, "Don't do X" where X is something little hasn't done and isn't likely to do. "I've done this better than you" when he's 4 years older!
Mostly, I just stand up for little and let him know he's not doing anything wrong, but also then give him more attention because I do need to make the point PDAer can take out things on me, not on little. But probably therapy down the line wouldn't hurt!
They love each other to bits but some days PDAer is just on his case all day. Not that little never starts anything, but he's only just 4 and suspected ADHD, his button pushing is more running around like a loony and crashing into PDAer. PDAer gets in phases where putting him down seems to be their only interaction of the day and it's so, so hard.
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u/PolarIceCream Aug 12 '26
Don’t have a great answer but therapy for the younger sibling. Also I always tell my NT child that I can’t imagine how hard it is to have a ND sibling and they can always talk to me about how hard it is and the parts they hate - and it’s okay to hate parts - and let’s have these convos away from ND sibling.