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Big Kids, Little Kids
By Dr.
Marvin Berkowitz
Little kids look up to big kids. It’s just natural. After all,
big kids can do some amazing stuff. Like tricks on their bikes
or skateboards, or hitting a ball over the house, or playing an
entire song on a trumpet or piano. And they know really
interesting stuff too. Like facts about insects. And how to
assemble a computer. Or the difference between hip hop and rap.
When you have more than one
child, you already have this dynamic happening in the family
among brothers and sisters. But even if you have only one child
(like I do), this happens with your child’s friends, neighbors,
cousins and other bigger and littler kids.
So if all of this is so
natural, what is the big deal?
Well it comes naturally to the
little kids to look up to the big kids. But it doesn’t
necessarily come naturally for the big kids to deal with that
admiration, even hero worship, well. Sometimes they get
impatient, rude, condescending, and in fact quite hurtful to
their younger fans.
Older kids need to learn how to deal with younger kids. That is
where you come in. Parents need to help their children learn how
to be nice to (sometimes even just tolerate) the attention of
their younger brothers, neighbors, cousins, and friends.
There are many ways of doing
this. First, simply make sure that your children spend some time
with younger kids. Even if you have many children, it is the
older ones who normally get most of the practice at this, so you
need to be sure the younger ones also get to be big kids to
others.
Second, monitor how they are
interacting and help your child be caring and tolerant and
protective and a mentor. They need to understand how important
it is to the little kid to have quality time with them. I once
watched Janis Wiley, a former elementary school teacher (now a
principal) in St. Louis, present a whole lesson designed to
teach her third graders how to understand and be patient with
the immature writing skills of their kindergarten buddies.
Parents often need to do likewise.
Just the other night we had
overnight guests who were en route from Texas to Michigan. This
included two boys younger than my son. He wasn’t particularly
happy that he had to stay home to spend time with these two boys
(one of whom he never had met and the other he had met only
twice many years ago and did not remember). So at one point he
skulked off to his den of adolescent depravity and sewage (his
bedroom) and the boys were with the adults in the back yard. I
quickly told them about the neat new computer he had designed,
bought and assembled. They took the bait, so I took them to the
pit of putrefaction (yup, his bedroom) and suggested he show
them his computer. Their dad wanted to stay as a buffer (16 year
old boys can be scary), but I dragged him quietly away.
And it worked! They hung
together all evening and seemed to really enjoy each other. My
son showed them some of the computer graphics work he had done,
played video games with them, burned a CD for one of them, and
so on. I also made sure that I thanked him later for doing such
a good job of playing with the boys. That really seemed to
please him (1) that I noticed and (2) to discover that he had
done something really nice.
Lastly, teach your kids how to
filter out language, games, ideas, and activities that may not
be appropriate for younger children. Recently our friends were
over with their 10 year old daughter who was playing video games
with my 16 year old son. I later found out that some of those
games were inappropriate for her (and by my standards for him as
well, for that matter). So we had a conversation about just this
issue. Of course, she claimed that she should be able to play
any such games, so my son had to learn how to deal with such
resistance from a younger child. That alone is a great
character-building experience (and ironic retribution from my
point of view!).
My secretary told me that her
son volunteers to work with disadvantaged younger kids. That has
to be a powerful character building experience.
In fact, I teach schools the
power of cross-age partnerships for educating for character all
the time.
Learning to work with younger
children is an important part of learning to be tolerant,
flexible, sensitive, and responsible. So be sure to support
cross-age play and learning for your kids and empower them to
handle such experiences in ways that promote the character of
all involved.
