Bossy

Alyssa’s a good kid. She really is. She is kind and thoughtful and very loving.

Except when she’s not.

I know it’s hard to be the oldest child with a younger sibling who comes across to everyone who meets her as a frail, delicate little flower.

Alyssa’s trying hard to figure out her place in the hierarchy of our family. She knows she’s not the boss of me or Tom. She’s pretty sure she’s the boss of herself except when she’s reminded that, no, she actually isn’t. That’s always a fun little scene.

That leaves Olivia for her to boss around. But Olivia doesn’t react well to bossing and eventually, we are at the whole might makes right scenario and it can turn ugly quite fast.

Now, Alyssa is rarely aggressive or even deliberately mean. She often thinks she’s helping either me or Tom when she does something physical with/to Olivia. But it never ends well.

This morning, for example, as we were waiting for the bus, I was trying to get thins one clump of O’s hair to lay down. I’d given up on making it behave on its own and was trying to put a bobby pin in her hair even as she tried to get away because that’s what four year old do. It’s fun.

Alyssa stepped in, being the bossy big sister that she is, and tried to hold Olivia still. O got away from me and started to pull away from A. Alyssa used the fact that she’s bigger and stronger than Olivia to fling O back toward me, ending up with O on the ground at my feet.

Of course Tom and I reacted. We both snapped at Alyssa that such a thing wasn’t necessary and in fact, it was uncalled for. Alyssa walked away and sulked for a bit but I realized as I comforted Olivia, wiping mud off her hand and kissing the barely-there scrap on her palm that Alyssa hadn’t meant to hurt her sister.

She wants to help. She wants to be an equal to me and Tom. Of course, this can’t happen but we need to let her know this gently, kindly. We need to model the behavior we want her to show to her sister. When we react angrily to something she didn’t even mean to do, we’re showing her that anger is an appropriate reaction.

We don’t want that. We want to show her forgiveness and gentleness.

We also want her to remember how much stronger she is than her sister and lighten up on her a bit. We’re not a family who uses physical punishment. We just don’t. We don’t hit, we don’t slap, we don’t push each other around.

In the end, once Olivia was sufficiently comforted, I went to Alyssa and hugged her. I told her I love her and that I know she didn’t mean to hurt her sister. I reminded her that sometimes, we don’t even realize that what we’re doing is mean or can have unkind consequences until too late, which is why we need to learn to think about what we’re doing before we do it.

All’s well that ends well. They were great friends by the time the bus pulled up.

But it reminds me that I need to model better, kinder, gentler behavior so that Alyssa can learn what’s expected of her by watching me.