Reply to Why do people blame their siblings over parental favoritism? What is the appropriate response?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My younger tried this with me, the whole "we need to talk about our childhood" and i quickly shut it down. One, there are two sides to every story, and she may think that no one cared about her and no one guided her in a good direction, but the truth is she was hard-headed, did not like to follow instructions, made the wrong friends, and always chose the worst boyfriends, and that had resulted in the life she has now. Two, the summary of MY life is not to be distilled to her perception of what me and our parents did or did not do for her. We are all 35+ years old with many years distance from living in the same household, and that time of my life is a distant memory. [/quote]

way to miss the entire point. Parents are supposed to parent their kids - and that includes parenting the kids that have more challenges in the most effective way they can. Not just throwing up their hands and declaring “this child is too difficult.” I saw this dynamic in my family for sure (not me, by the way). As well, my parents definitely had distortions in how they perceived the behavior of my “problem” sibling as worse than it was or as not their fault or responsibility. [/quote]

DP but I feel like you missed their point.  I also had a sibling who was always getting into trouble but wouldn't take responsibility for their actions, it was somehow everyone else's fault.  I mean, no one forced them to lie and throw an unauthorized party when my parents were out of town.  I don't think my parents necessarily had the tools to deal with some of this, this was the 90s where the default was "you're grounded" but they certainly didn't check out either.  [/quote]

Also, regarding "they perceived the behavior of my “problem” sibling as worse than it was or as not their fault or responsibility"--the parents were right, they have the right to perceive behavior as bad and not say "oh its not a big deal" at the child's command, and the child's behavior is not the parents' fault. Does this child take responsibility for anything in their life?[/quote]

I’m not going to go into detail, but one of the siblings was scarred for life by how my parents treated him and is doing as well as he can. The other was a more resilient person and is doing great. And of course, I didn’t mean that parents need to say difficult behavior is “great” and ignore it.[/quote]

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