Q: I would like you to help me balance out my two sons. My oldest boy is always serious, or so it seems. He heads straight over to do his chores as soon as he gets off the school bus in the evening. He does his homework right after supper, and he always keeps his room tidy. But he is not much fun to be around and, understandably, he has few friends.
My youngest boy is a social animal. He is always talking to someone on the computer or his cellphone. He may or may not get off the bus that day, depending on whether he remembered to get on it in the first place, or because he was busy with his buddies. We cannot depend on him for anything. But what a joy to have around the house. What can we do to make one son more fun while making the other more responsible?
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A: I am not sure that you fully appreciate what a delightful family you have. Having two children with different dispositions is not unusual. Indeed, books and articles have been written about something called birth order theory, in which researchers try to explain differences in children by identifying where each child is in relation to her siblings.
I am not a fan of birth order theory, but I appreciate the extent to which it draws our attention to differences between siblings, even though they are raised in the same household with the same rules. Most of the articles suggest that rather than worrying about who does what, you just have to learn to love the differences in your children.
Successful households generally have routines shared by everyone in the family. Children have regular bedtimes, differing only because of their ages. They have regular meal times and times for homework and chores. How the children accept the structures varies from child to child. Some are going to readily comply. Others feel a need to challenge almost everything. Neither is necessarily right or wrong; they are just different from each other.
Your responsibility as a parent is not to try to make your children become like each other. Your job is to appreciate and love the strengths found in each of them, and to give to each of them the opportunity to become the wonderful people they were meant to be.
Reward your conscientious son for being a responsible person. Commend your other son for his ability to mingle in a social context.
The trick is to help each of them build the self worth they need when they eventually leave home. That is what makes parenting so challenging. It is also what makes parenting so rewarding.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan who has taught social work at two universities. Mail correspondence in care of Western Producer, Box 2500, Saskatoon, Sask., S7K 2C4 or e-mail jandrews@producer.com.
