Having a favourite child/ grandchild.

thatbags, that's not really about favouritism .....more about how different people/children perceive the world and how they view their place in it, and that will always be a rich and varied picture.

My point is all about parents/grandparents who do go down the 'having favourites' and try to justify it by kidding themselves their actions are not noticed by the children.....children do know and its a very damaging scenario.

I honestly think if you got my three children and two grandchildren together, and asked "who is her favourite?" each one of them would say, or at least secretly think, "me".

I always tell each of my DGC (in secret) that whatever they have done is by far the best. That way they all go away happy in the knowledge that they are most definitely my favourite.

I never told any of mine that their's was the best because in my experience children will always use it as a barb to hurt their siblings or cousins later when having a row! I always managed to find something good I liked about each and show that because they were all so wonderful in some way I could not possibly choose! Luckily they are all now old enough not to worry or be jealous of each other. When they were little I heard them telling each other how ' Nanny doesn't have a favourite!'.

A child psychologist once explained to a group of us (trainee pre-school leaders) about sibling rivalry and its pitfalls. Evidently telling a child they are the best at anything within ear-shot of the others has the effect of making the others deduce that they must therefore be rubbish at whatever it was. Children tend to work in black and white with everything....no grey areas or middle ground......if a brother is praised for being the best at something the others leap to the conclusion they are really really bad.....hey ho who ever said having children was easy????

That being said the personality of the siblings will then kick in and in some (the competitive type) they will re-double their efforts to 'beat' the praised once, whilst the less confident will sometimes just give up all endeavours! Its that old chestnut....Nature Vs Nurture.

Yesterday evening I happened to have all 3 DDs with me and I bought up this subject. My DDs are all in their 30's and I am lucky to have very good relationships with them all.

The conclusion they came to was that none of them have ever felt that any one of them was a favourite. They have at times realised that one was getting a little more attention but recognised that this was due to what was going on in their lives at a particular time.

The funny part was that this morning each of them texted me the same message... .'I know I'm your favourite really !' It may be that they all agreed to do that but still funny.

Lovely story ginny.......well done you!

Ginny
Of my 3 DCs only DD2 still lives in the area. We have a photo of her and DSiL in the lounge on a small table.
Whenever they come round, SiL goes into the room and checks it is still there and says to DD 'Look - we're still the favourites!'

Sometimes I especially like one of my grandchildren and sometimes I find one of my grandchildren particularly trying – not the same children all the time. I have never had a particular favourite and I don't think they believe that I have. However, at the moment one of them is going through a phase of "everybody hates me" and being very difficult but, no doubt, it will pass. She reminds me of myself when I was a child so I feel very sympathetic while still discouraging inappropriate behaviour.