You may also relate to other common struggles of people who feel insecure and overly dependent. They often have an underlying sense that they are inadequate, unworthy of love, and essentially flawed. They have strong fears of rejection and often feel jealous as they scan for evidence of their spouse finding someone better than them. Because they feel emotionally weak or oversensitive, they frequently become overwhelmed by emotion and look to their partner to help comfort them.

As an insecure person, you probably also have a sense that you need to earn your spouse’s acceptance and love. You might place your spouse on a pedestal and work overtime to meet their needs. Unfortunately, this reinforces your sense that you are below them, inherently unworthy of their love or appreciation—except as a reward for the things you do. It increases your self-doubt and motivates you to keep your opinions to yourself. As a result, you might rely very much on your spouse to make most decisions for you—from picking a restaurant to choosing the best career path for you.

It can be helpful to assess how your partner’s personal style affects your marriage. Your spouse may be basically secure and comfortable with looking for support from you. They are likely to be reassuring and encourage you to feel secure in the relationship. If this describes your marriage, choose to take in the positive and allow yourself to grow from the experience.

However, like many insecure people, you might have chosen a partner who tends to be highly self-sufficient and avoids vulnerable emotions in themselves and their spouse. These marriages are fraught with conflict. You might cry out for attention, only to have your spouse withdraw; prompting you to press for attention again, perpetuating a never-ending cycle of pursuit-withdrawal.

Though marital patterns related to insecurity and overdependence can become entrenched, the good news is that they can also be changed. The key is for you and your spouse to be willing to work on improving your relationship.

Nurture your own personal growth

You must be willing to challenge yourself to grow as a person. By nurturing a sense that you have value as you are—that you don’t have to overcome some basic inadequacy—you can begin to engage more fully in your marriage. You can share more of your thoughts, feelings and opinions. And you can feel free to explore your interests independent of your spouse.

You might grow through psychotherapy or through efforts at finding personal validation in work, pursued interests, and other personal relationships. You might also look into books, online resources and workshops to help nurture personal growth.

In the end, by strengthening your sense of self, you will become a different partner. This can lead to a stronger marriage. But be forewarned, if your partner prefers a more dependent partner, they may resist your change and your marriage may become turbulent. It might interest you to know that I’ve never worked with anyone in therapy who has regretted their growth, even when it resulted in this kind of difficulty.

Encourage personal growth in your spouse

If your spouse is secure and emotionally mature, they might simply need to be extra supportive and encouraging, letting you know without question that you are loved and respected. Then it’s up to you to take in that acceptance and love, allowing you to develop a strong, more independent sense of yourself.

However, if your spouse tends to avoid emotions, they may need to grow personally in order to fully value and appreciate you. You will probably need to express your needs strongly, prompting this kind of growth. You might even look to couples therapy for help to express yourself and to open your spouse to responding in a more positive, connected way to you.

Make your marriage a safe haven

It’s essential that you and your spouse feel that you are supportive of each other—that you feel safe in turning to each other for support during difficult times. Even when you disagree, you want to feel safe with, and loved by, each other. This kind of safe haven is created when you can consistently act in a way that communicates that you care about and respect one another. When people feel safe with each other, they also trust one another and feel freer to be fully themselves.

Make your marriage a secure base from which you can explore personal interests

For a marriage to be successful, both people need to pursue their individual interests and live life according to their values. When you live as less than a whole person—as you do when you ignore self-care and self-interest to attend to your spouse—you cannot connect in a fully intimate way because you aren’t fully there.

Asserting your thoughts, feelings and desires might feel very intimidating. You may fear being rejected or abandoned if you divert energy away from attending to your spouse; or if you express any differences of opinion. The reality is that when you have a spouse who truly loves and respects you, they want you to be fully yourself.

Be emotionally available for each other

To enjoy a happy marriage, both people need to truly be there for each other. You cannot have an intimate relationship if you don’t interact very much, or if you are simply clocking time and not really sharing from your heart. So, make sure that you and your spouse are warm and affectionate with each other, spend quality time together, and show each other genuine caring.

By doing all you can to nurture personal growth and feel your spouse’s support, you will find that you develop a stronger sense of self. You will be less fearful of rejection. And you will grow, becoming increasingly true to your genuine self. With time, you will have less of a need to depend on your spouse. And eventually, you will change from being dependent upon your spouse to having a relationship in which you are both interdependent. That is, you will feel that you and your spouse can act independently but also choose to rely or depend upon each other for support, encouragement, and maintaining a shared life. Once you reach this level of interdependent connection, you find happiness and fulfillment in yourself and in your marriage.

The post Are You the Overdependent One in Your Marriage? appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

For a while, the cat was happy and relieved but soon he became afraid of a ferocious dog in the neighborhood. So he again sought the miracle man, who turned him into a dog. But the dog began to fear the panther who lived in the nearby cave. So this time the magician turned the dog into a panther thinking that this was the last time he’d see the distraught creature. But it was not to be. The panther, with all its strength and abilities, still lived in fear—of the hunter. When the miracle man learned this, he turned the panther back into a mouse, saying, “Nothing I do for you is going to be of any help because you have the heart of a mouse.”

This allegory has a deep lesson for those of us who, like the mouse, are always afraid. So many of us live in perpetual fear: fear of not having enough, fear of illness and death, fear of rejection, fear of losing their loved ones, fear of failure, and even fear of success!

It’s An Internal Matter

People try to protect themselves from threatening situations and circumstances by building a cocoon around them. What they don’t realize is that no matter what they do to change their circumstances, their terror will not go away. That’s because, it resides inside their heart.

The mouse in our story never learned this lesson. He kept seeking external solutions to an internal problem, changing his form while his essence remained unchanged. Each transformation brought temporary relief, but the underlying fear persisted because he never examined what was happening within.

The real problem is with the irrational fear of uncertainty that keeps us wanting to cling to everything in our lives—money, possessions, relationships, reputation, you name it. The miracle man is reminding us that this fear has little to do with the outer world. We may acquire good health, lots of wealth, and a great social standing—but will continue to live in fear unless we strengthen our hearts. In other words, we may acquire the body of a lion, but it’s of no use if we continue to have the heart of a mouse.

To be sure, I am not referring to the instinctive, physiological fears that all of us feel when we sense physical danger. Such fears are necessary—they helps us identify and stay away from legitimate threats.

How To Deal With Fear

The only way out of the cage of your fears is to face your mental and emotional insecurities—your personal demons—head on. When you do so, they disappear, leaving you free as a bird. This happens because up close, you see the fears for what they are—an illusion created by your thinking.

When left unexamined, fear becomes your master. It dictates your choices, limits your possibilities, and keeps you small. But when you turn toward it with curiosity rather than avoidance, you discover that the monster you’ve been running from is nothing more than a shadow on the wall.

Seen from this perspective, the miracle man’s final act wasn’t cruelty—it was wisdom. By returning the creature to its original form, he was saying that true strength cannot be given; it must be cultivated from within. The heart of a mouse will always find something to fear, no matter how powerful the body that houses it.

You have a choice, then: you can continue to live as mice, scurrying from one fear to another, or you can do the deeper work of transforming your heart into one that is much more courageous.

Try this next time fear grips you

Instead of panicking or running for cover, stay with the feeling—allow it to immerse you in its flavour. Observe the feeling without condemning or judging it. Try to touch it, feel it, smell it. What’s the texture? Does it have any color? Any taste? Like Pema Chödrön would say, get intimate with your fear. Get to know it inside-out. Doing so will strengthen your heart and fortify your spirit, and fear will never again be your nemesis.

Here’s a Step-by-Step Guide to Dealing With Fear

Freedom from fear isn’t complex, but it does requires persistence. Here’s how I suggest you begin:

1. Don’t escape. The moment you feel fear rising, resist your first instinct to escape. This is where most people fail—they immediately look for distractions or ways to avoid the discomfort. Instead, plant your feet and stay put.

2. Turn toward the fear. Face it directly. Look at it the way you would examine an interesting object. What does this fear actually feel like in your body? Where do you sense it most strongly?

3. Get curious, not critical. Don’t judge yourself for being afraid. Don’t try to talk yourself out of it. Simply observe what’s happening. Is your heart racing? Are your palms sweating? Notice these sensations without trying to change them.

4. Get behind your fear. What does it want to protect you from? What story is it telling you? Often, you’ll discover that your fear is based on something that might happen, not something that’s actually happening right now.

5. Breathe with it. Don’t breathe to make the fear go away. Breathe to stay present with it. Each breath is a way of saying, “I can handle this feeling.”

6. Practice regularly. Start with smaller fears before tackling the bigger ones. Each time you face a fear instead of running from it, you strengthen your heart a little more.

The goal isn’t to eliminate fear—it’s to change your relationship with it. When you stop being afraid of fear itself, you develop the heart of a lion.

Last updated on 15^th July 2025

The post The Real Source of Fear (And How to Face It) appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

There is no war going on, you are simply befooled by yourself. Nobody is there to destroy you. The whole supports you; the whole is the very earth on which you are standing, the very sky in which you breathe, you live. In fact, you are not—only the whole is. When one understands this, by and by one drops the inner hardness; there is no need for it. There is no enmity; the whole is friendly towards you. The whole cherishes you, loves you. Otherwise, why are you here? The whole brings you forth, like a tree is brought forth by the earth. The whole would like to participate in all your blessings, in all the celebrations that are possible.

Float, don’t fight

When you flower, the whole will flower through you; when you sing, the whole will sing through you; when you dance, the whole will dance with you. You are not separate. The feeling of separateness creates fear, and fear makes you un-porous. The feeling of insecurity, as if the whole is going to destroy you, the feeling that you are a stranger here, an outsider, and that you have to fight your way inch by inch towards your destiny, makes you a hard steel rod. Of course, then many things simply disappear from your life. You live in anguish, you live in anxiety, you live in intense pain, but you live this of your own accord. Be porous. Be floating. Fight is not needed at all. Rather, a merger is needed.

These are the two attitudes open to man: the attitude of a warrior and the attitude of a lover. It is your choice. But remember… consequences will follow. If you choose the path of the warrior and you become a fighter with everything that surrounds you, you will always be in misery. This is creating a hell around you; in the very attitude of fighting the hell is created. Or you become a lover, a participant, then this whole is your home; you are not a stranger. You are at home. There is no fight. You simply flow with the river. Then, ecstasy will be yours; then each moment will become ecstatic, a flowering.

There is no hell except you and there is no heaven except you. It is your attitude, how you look at the whole. Religion is the way of the lover: science is the way of the fighter. Science is the way of the will, as if you are here to conquer, to conquer nature, to conquer nature’s secrets; as if you are here to enforce your will and domination on existence. This is not only foolish, it is futile also. Foolish because it will create a hell around you, and futile because finally you will become more and more dead, less and less alive; you will lose all possibilities of being blissful. And, in the end, you will have to come back from it, because you can go for a while on the path of the will, but only frustration and more frustration will happen through it. You will be defeated more and more. You will feel more and more impotent, and more and more enmity will be around you. You will have to come back from it—grudgingly, resistant, but you will have to come back from it. Finally, nobody can rest with a fighting attitude, because with a fighting attitude no rest is possible, you cannot relax.

Nobody to conquer

The path of religion is the path of love. From the very beginning you are not fighting anybody. The whole exists for you, and you exist for the whole, and there is an inner harmony. Nobody is here to conquer anybody else. It is not possible. Because how can one part conquer another part? And how can a part conquer the whole? These are absurd notions which only create nightmares for you, nothing else. See the whole situation… you come out of the whole and you dissolve into it, and, in between, you are every moment part of it. You breathe it, you live it, and it breathes through you, it lives through you. Your life and its life are not two things—you are just like a wave in the ocean.

Once you understand this, meditation becomes possible. Once you understand this, you relax. You throw off all the armour that you have created around you as a security. You are no longer afraid. Fear disappears and love arises. In this state of love, emptiness happens. Or, if you can allow emptiness to happen, love will flower in it. Love is a flower of emptiness, total emptiness. It can work both ways. So there are two types of religion. One which creates emptiness in you and around you so that a flowering becomes possible; you have created the situation, now the flower bubbles up automatically. Finding no resistance, the seed suddenly blooms into a flower. There is a jump in your being, an explosion. Buddhism and Zen follow this path—they create emptiness in and around you.

There is another path also, a second type of religion, which creates love in you, which creates devotion in you. Meera and Chaitanya love, and they love the total so deeply that they find their beloved everywhere; on every leaf, on every stone, is the signature of the beloved. He is everywhere. They dance because there is nothing else to do but celebrate. And everything is ready—only the celebration has to start on your part. Nothing else is lacking. A bhakta, a lover, simply celebrates, enjoys. And in that enjoyment of love and celebration, the ego disappears and emptiness follows.

Emptiness and love

Either you create emptiness—like a Buddha, Tilopa, Sekkyo, or you create love—like Meera, Chaitanya, Jesus. Create one and the other follows, because they cannot live separately, they don’t have any separate existence. Love is one face of emptiness; emptiness is nothing but love in another aspect, they come together. If you bring one, you invite one, the other follows automatically as a shadow of it. It depends on you.

If you want to follow the path of meditation, become empty. Don’t bother about love—it will come of its own accord. Or, if you find it very difficult to meditate, then love, then become a lover, and meditations and emptiness’s will follow you.

So this is my definition: if you find being empty easy, then do that. If you find it is very difficult, then don’t be unhappy and don’t feel hopeless. You will always find love easier. I have not come across a man who finds both difficult. So, there is hope for everybody. If meditation is difficult, love will be easier, it has to be. If love is difficult, meditation will be easier. So just feel yourself.

The post Emptiness and love: two sides of a coin appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

I tried to take her mind off of how lousy she felt and talked a lot about baby Joey. I mentioned my concerns over the very real possibility that our first nanny Amy would leave one day, and one day soon.

“Rach, your nanny is replaceable,” she said in a very soft voice. “Joey knows you are the mother. Don’t ever forget that.” That was some of the best advice that anyone has ever given to me. I thought about it a lot over the course of employing many more nannies. I still find myself giving that advice to other working moms.

Mother was right

My mother was right. When nanny number two, Ellie, and nanny number three, Molly, came in and went out of our lives within the course of one year, I tried to keep that advice close to my heart and to my mind, but it was hard. I was very worried about two-year-old Joey when we began the search for nanny number four. I thought for sure that I had screwed him up for life with the revolving nanny door in our house. I wondered if he would develop trust and abandonment issues? He must have been wondering who he should listen to, who was in charge, who would stick around? Who were all those ladies taking care of him?

I thought for sure that I had screwed my son’s life with the revolving nanny door in our house

In reality, though, Joey only had one thing on his little two-year-old mind: Bob the Builder. You know, the animated contractor from the popular television series on Nick Jr. and later PBS. Joey became obsessed with Bob, Wendy, Scoop, Muck, Dizzy and my favourite, Farmer Pickles. He couldn’t get enough of the show and all of the mini action figures that made up the construction crew. I happened to mention his fascination with Bob to Joey’s preschool teacher one day in the midst of explaining my worries about finding a new nanny that Joey could connect with. The teacher suggested that when I hire the new nanny, I buy some Bob the Builder action figures and give them to the nanny to give to Joey. Then, she explained, he would feel at least some kind of connection.

I liked it. And so, after we officially hired nanny number four, Julie, I gave her a few new Bob characters to give to Joey, explaining my strategy. My husband Neil thought I was a little nuts. Nanny Julie probably did too. I kind of thought I was. Regardless, the plan worked. I introduced nanny number four, Julie, to Joey as a big fan of Bob the Builder.

“Look Joey, Julie likes Dizzy too!” I explained to him as I could actually hear the desperation in my voice. Joey seemed content. Bob or no Bob, I think deep down Joey was secure enough to know that although he had new nannies coming and going, I would be there every single day for him. Although I didn’t care for him all day long, he knew I was the mother, and that I wasn’t going anywhere. I sensed this in the sweet smile I got from him every workday when I came in the door. He was happy to see me, but he also knew he would see me. I was the mother, the only one.

Nanny Alice in my wonderland

On an intellectual level I understood that my kids knew I was their one and only mother. That didn’t change the fact that it sometimes hurt on an emotional level when I let the nanny take over to care for them, especially on those occasions when it seemed like my kids were better off with the nanny than they were with me. Joey and Rebecca took direction from nanny Alice way better than they ever did from me. I was green with envy as I watched Rebecca sit still and not make a sound as nanny Alice brushed out her knotty hair one morning. Brushing out Rebecca’s hair always brought on a fight between the two of us, and Rebecca never let me put her hair up in pigtails. Nanny Alice did her hair in pigtails, braids, French braids, whatever hairdo she fancied. I was amazed. Rebecca looked adorable. I was happy that she looked so cute, but also jealous that she would only let our nanny make her look that cute. Who was I? Just the mother…

I was green with envy as I watched Rebecca sit still and not make a sound as nanny Alice brushed out her knotty hair one morning

I arrived home on the earlier side one evening to find the kids setting the table for the dinner that nanny Alice was making for them. I was impressed. My five- and three-year-olds were taking part in preparing for dinnertime in a very real way. I was happy that Alice had them helping out like that. Then I wondered, Why didn’t I think of that? If I had, the kids probably wouldn’t have been as agreeable to the whole idea as they were with nanny Alice. She made taking care of my kids look so easy and so fun. It was never that easy for me.

Nanny Alice sometimes sensed my envy, and she was very understanding about it.

“Rach, it’s my job to have fun with the kids. I am getting paid to do it,” she said one evening to me. “You have to take care of the kids and do everything else too. I can just focus on them,” nanny Alice explained. She did have a point. When I was with the kids, I also had to do laundry, shop for grocery, make dinner, make the family plans, check my work emails, and try to be a good wife, friend, daughter, and sister. Nanny Alice could, for the most part, just focus on taking care of the kids for nine hours a day, three days a week. I appreciated her honesty with me, and perhaps even sympathy for me. She validated my insecurity on the issue, and I never really considered myself to be insecure—about anything. I thank my mother for instilling me with a strong sense of self. I guess it didn’t translate so well into motherhood though, at least back then.

My share of fun

My jealousy of nanny Alice’s ease with my kids only grew as I began to feel more and more that I was missing out on the fun stuff that she got to do with them as they got older. I couldn’t attend their preschool back-to-school picnic as it was smack in the middle of a workday when I was running a meeting. Nanny Alice was happy to go in my place, and I appreciated that. She had been with us for a couple years at that point and knew the children’s friends, their teachers, and many of the other mothers and nannies. Alice had fun at these events. She took lots of pictures for me of the kids getting rides on the pony and playing in the little bounce house. I loved to check out their painted faces [Alice’s too] at the end of the day when I got home, but I secretly wished that I was the one there with the kids helping them to choose between the mermaid and the fish, or the soccer and the basketball face paint designs.

Excerpted with permission from Who’s Going to Watch My Kids?, by Rachel Levy Lesser, published by Turning Stones Press.

The post Finding Nanny: Confessions of a working mother appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

The Serenity Prayer is not just for recovering alcoholics. It contains empowering truths for all of us. We need to know the difference between what we can change and what we cannot change.  We need to have the courage to change the things we can, the strength to accept the things we cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.

For a long time, I didn’t know the difference between what I could and could not change.

I thought my beliefs could change things that were unchangeable, such as my son’s physical disability, my husband’s struggling business, and my personality. Now I know that my beliefs cannot change biology, economics, or inherent character traits. But I was young then, and I thought, “If I believe I can, then I can,” just as the main character in the children’s book, The Little Engine That Could, believed he could huff and puff and pull himself and his cargo up a large mountain in spite of being a tiny train without much horsepower.

By the time I reached midlife, I realised there were some things I could not change no matter how much I believed I could. I was an introvert who would never gain energy from being surrounded by people no matter how many books I read, seminars I attended, or hypnotherapy sessions I underwent. The sun would rise in the east no matter how badly I wanted it to rise in the west so that it would beat down the warmth on a particular side of my house and fill my rooms with natural light. Furthermore, I could not change the basic needs of a romantic relationship, no matter how much I believed I could.

There was a deep security in being married

My boyfriend didn’t want to marry me

I thought I would be OK with my boyfriend not wanting to marry me.

I had spent my entire life as a married woman until I experienced a midlife crisis and left my family to pursue a romantic relationship with another man. Women who had survived similar crises told me that I should negotiate with my lover the terms of our romantic relationship. I did not. So, when my lover said he never wanted to get remarried, I didn’t think much about of it. After all, my first husband too had said he never wanted to marry and yet we ended up married for over 23 years. Why wouldn’t my lover be the same way? After all, he was a man, and aren’t all men the same in romantic relationships?

That was my belief.

After my divorce came through, I realised I did want to get married again. I had spent my entire adult life cradled and coddled in a stable family unit in which the members all cared for one another. There was a deep security in being married. What I didn’t know at the time was that the need for security was a woman’s greatest need in a romantic relationship. It was a biological need that could not be changed.

After three months of this push and pull in our romantic relationship, we hit a wall

But my boyfriend did not want to remarry. He had stated his intentions upfront and was dismayed by my sudden change of heart. What I didn’t know at the time was a man’s greatest fears in a romantic relationship were to feel inadequate and controlled. My sudden desire to remarry felt controlling. It appeared to him as wanting more than he was willing to give, which left him feeling as though he was not good enough for me.

After three months of this push and pull in our romantic relationship, we hit a wall. If nothing changed, we would have to break up. But we loved each other; why were we so miserable?

I didn’t give up

That’s when I realised there are things you can change through your beliefs just like there are things you cannot change. I just had to have the wisdom to know the difference.

Since I could not change how my boyfriend and I were biologically wired, I would have to change something else. If my boyfriend’s greatest relationship needs were to feel in control and adequate, then I would have to meet those needs. If my greatest relationship need was to feel secure, then my boyfriend would have to do things to ensure my security.

If my boyfriend outlived his life insurance policy, then I would be back to feeling insecure

I was, naturally, able to relinquish control in the relationship, having been trained by my father at a young age on how to let a man be the leader in a family. But I wanted a man who would open doors for me, pay for dinner, and make love to me all night. My boyfriend didn’t open doors for anyone and although he did pay for dinner, he no longer had the biological desire to have sex every day. He was older than me and wanted only companionship. He wanted a girlfriend whom he could create memories with.

Insecurities abound

I had to change my beliefs about what traits constituted a good boyfriend. Was it more important for him to open doors than it was for him to be kind? Was it more important for me to be taken care of than it was for each of us to take care of ourselves? Did I have to have sex in order to feel loved?

My boyfriend, on the other hand, struggled with the ability to make me feel secure. When I explained to him why I suddenly needed to be married because it provided the security I needed as a woman, he offered an alternative. He would change the beneficiary of life insurance policy from his ex-wife to me. That way, if he died, I would not become homeless. At first, it seemed like a viable compromise, but then the life insurance policy only extended for a handful of years and would not be renewed. If my boyfriend outlived his life insurance policy, then I would be back to feeling insecure. I could be kicked out of the house I shared with him at any time because I did not own the house jointly with him. I was just a girlfriend who had no legal rights to anything that was his because I was not married to him. And the tension between us grew.

If you change your beliefs, you can change your life

For a long time, I tried to bridge the gap for him. I bought a wedding ring and pretended we were married to create a false sense of security so I could continue peacefully within our romantic relationship.

Still, deep down, I continued to feel insecure.

My moment of epiphany

One night, after another fight, I blurted out, “None of this would be a problem if I felt loved enough.”  If I could feel loved, then I could feel secure. I would no longer need to be married. He nodded in acknowledgement.

My belief of “I need to be married” had changed to “I need to be loved.”

Over the next few weeks, I noticed several things had also changed. When we were shopping, my boyfriend asked me to setup a joint account for the rewards points at the grocery store. A month later, he added me to his video rental account.

Slowly, my boyfriend took steps to show me that I was loved and included in the long-term picture he had for his life. It never would have happened if I hadn’t changed my belief about what I needed in order to feel secure. If you change your beliefs, you can change your life; you can get your needs met; you can find happiness.

Now, I no longer wake up at 3am worrying about my boyfriend dying after his life insurance policy expires. I sleep soundly and trust the future because every day, in every way he discovers another way to show me that he loves me.

The post How I saved my love life by changing my beliefs appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

How are sibling rivalries formed?

Children, especially siblings, learn very early how to separate and identify talents, interests, and passions unique to themselves. Let’s face it; siblings are in a constant battle for time, attention, affection, praise, and acknowledgment. Rather than compete head to head, they naturally gravitate towards interests that lead them away from their sibling competitors.

It usually looks something like this: Oldest child is extremely driven, smart, and academic. Second child realises that he or she will never live up to first born’s achievements, and therefore pursues music, art or sports. If there is a third child, he or she sees that academics and extracurricular activities are spoken for and therefore assumes the role of social butterfly or jokester and so on.

It is common for children to begin to resent the very qualities that make their siblings unique, because they are perceived as threats to their own success. In other words, roles within the family are assumed and labels become an expectation.

It is common for children to begin to resent the very qualities that make their siblings unique

An impression is formed, even in early childhood, that in order to be valued and appreciated, the child must find something that she or he is good at that no one else can challenge. And while there is nothing wrong with children having their own interests and pursuing their own talents, it is important to help siblings appreciate and embrace what makes each of them special.

How can we overcome sibling rivalry?

Here are some practical ways to cultivate peaceful co-existence in children:

Collaboration on tasks

There is nothing more effective in helping children to see their siblings’ strengths than having them work together on a project. The task should be something that requires thinking, planning and execution. It can be explained that each child brings a unique perspective and skill set to the problem, and everyone must contribute. The tasks will need to be adjusted based on age-appropriateness, but an adult can point out strengths of each child throughout the task. “I noticed that Mihir thought to use the stick to prop that open, and then Samata’s hands were small enough to fit inside.”

Offering each child their own day of the week

Every child loves feeling recognised and special for any reason. Implement a ‘Child of the Day’ policy, where decisions and choices are made by that child. Not only does this give each child a chance to express their preferences and interests in a family setting, but siblings are not likely to resent participating when they have the same opportunity on another day of the week.

Options for the child to decide upon might be what activity the family does before dinner, what type of vegetable is eaten for dinner, or what TV show is watched before bed.

Implement a ‘Child of the Day’ policy, where decisions and choices are made by that child

Validating statements

Another simple way to encourage siblings to see special traits in each other is to have them share qualities about each other simultaneously. In other words, to recognise a strength about themselves, as well as a strength about their sibling. This creates a realisation that being different is welcomed, and each person brings a special element to the family. “I am good at football. Tina is good at roller skating.” Then Tina says, “I am good at math. Rashmi is good at dancing.”

Family experiences

Children need to be exposed to and taught principles of sharing, giving and helping. There is no better way to help children see the effects of cooperation and collaboration first-hand than to experience it as a family. This may mean volunteering your time together at an animal shelter, helping an elderly neighbour complete a task, or sharing your time and talents with others. Take time after the experience to talk about why those are values that you believe in as a family.

Clear discussion

One of the things that we often forget as adults is that children need to hear what we expect from them. Setting expectations and being clear on which behaviours are desired and which are prohibited is crucial, even though it seems obvious! A family meeting to talk about the importance of supporting and embracing the unique qualities that each member of the family possesses allows for a climate of cooperation to grow.

With a little creativity and some purposeful activities to encourage children to embrace each other and their special qualities, the days of sibling rivalry, competition, jealousy and resentment can be left behind. Cooperation and co-existence are attainable, especially when there are direct expectations and opportunities to practise those values. After all, we all desire to be valued and appreciated for the things that make us unique, and the members of our family are among those who can celebrate us the most.

This was first published in the August 2015 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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