ABSTRACT
I have a little girl of three and twin boys of thirteen months. On the whole, until fairly recently, there have not been any undue signs of jealousy, especially considering that the babies were delicate at first and took up a great deal of my attention. Of course, we all made a point of not neglecting the older child more than was absolutely necessary, and from very early stages we let her help to do little things for the babies which she liked very much. During the last few months, however, her attitude to them has been changing. She is devoted to the elder one. who is on the whole rather placid and not very advanced—he does not stand and scarcely crawls—but is horrid to the other one and constantly tries to hurt him, so much so that it is impossible to leave her alone with him. When reproved she says that she does not like him at all. I can quite understand her differentiating between them, as they are quite different in character. The younger one, whom she dislikes, is rather more advanced in some ways, very energetic and lively and rather bad-tempered. Since earliest infancy he has had a quite peculiarly loud and trying scream, which I think may unconsciously be at the root of her antipathy. He is also rather difficult to manage in some ways and much more attached to me than the older one, who is equally happy with any member of the household. The moment I come into the room the younger one starts to crawl as fast as possible towards me, which of course she may have noticed and resented, though I try to make a point of always greeting her first when I come into the nursery. Another small detail is that the disliked one is still very bald, while the other has fairly thick curls. Once when I asked her if she could explain her antipathy, she said she did not like his hair. Putting everything together I think I can understand how it is that she 112 dislikes the younger twin. My difficulty is how to treat the matter. We tried once or twice hurting her in the same way as she had hurt him—which seemed quite unsuccessful. One day when she had deliberately hurt him just at tea-time, I made her have her tea in a room alone, which she did not much like. After that she was better for a week or two, but now it has started again. We were quite frightened the other day when she tried to push him downstairs. I may add that we often play and do things with her quite away from the twins, and except when we are away for our holidays she sees plenty of children of her own age. She has a room to herself and is quite sensible and independent. Except that she does a good deal of screaming I do not consider her a particularly naughty or difficult child, but naturally we do not want this attitude towards the twins to continue. One last small point I might mention is that as soon as she has done anything naughty, in particular after maltreating her brother, she says at once, “Mummy, do you like me? I want you to kiss me”. In regard to my treatment for other offences it is usually enough to say that we do not like her or do not want to be with her. She occasionally has a good smack for persistent disobedience or prolonged and deliberate tiresomeness. I have found this the most satisfactory punishment. She never becomes sulky or bears malice. But I have never smacked her for hurting her brother.
