one twin a bully?

addison1060 · June 2012

DS2 is the bigger twin (by about 2 lbs) and he's constantly stealing DS1 toys, pulling him down by his shirt and just being very rough. They are almost 11 months. We tell him "no", "gentle", etc. Have any of you had this problem and what did you do?

BananaPancake · June 2012

The simple answer is that he's 11 months old and has no idea what he's doing. It certainly sounds like he's more spirited, but I'd leave it at that and not worry about it too much. I would remind him to be gentle and remove him from the situation if he gets too rough, but try to remember that he's a boy and he has no clue what's going on at that age.

If you only had one, you'd have very little to compare him to and you'd just assume that he's just acting his age, which is he almost definitely it. Our 13m girl is a brute and nothing like her sisters were at this age, but I'd imagine her go-getter spirit will bring her good things.

Try very, very hard not to label him as "the bully" or even joke about it. He may be more focused and determined, but negative labels tend to create the labelee, if that makes sense. If it keeps up and he continues to be the crazier one, you might check out "Raising Your Spirited Child" for ways to keep his activity in check. And do remember, no one will be more forgiving or understand of him than his brother. If he seems mostly unbothered by it, I'd just let it ride and remind DS2 to be more gentle.

addison1060 · June 2012

BananaPancake:
The simple answer is that he's 11 months old and has no idea what he's doing. It certainly sounds like he's more spirited, but I'd leave it at that and not worry about it too much. I would remind him to be gentle and remove him from the situation if he gets too rough, but try to remember that he's a boy and he has no clue what's going on at that age.
If you only had one, you'd have very little to compare him to and you'd just assume that he's just acting his age, which is he almost definitely it. Our 13m girl is a brute and nothing like her sisters were at this age, but I'd imagine her go-getter spirit will bring her good things.
Try very, very hard not to label him as "the bully" or even joke about it. He may be more focused and determined, but negative labels tend to create the labelee, if that makes sense. If it keeps up and he continues to be the crazier one, you might check out "Raising Your Spirited Child" for ways to keep his activity in check. And do remember, no one will be more forgiving or understand of him than his brother. If he seems mostly unbothered by it, I'd just let it ride and remind DS2 to be more gentle.

I absolutely do not call him a bully but couldn't think of another word to use for this post. Brute would probably have been better and I do like the term "spirited". That definitely fits him! He is a sweet boy and I'm sure he doesn't understand what he's doing. DS1 is very sensitive and gentler in nature so I guess I just compare to two.

Thanks for your insight. It helps to put things into perspective.

Kelli&Jed · June 2012

Sure do. Our littler guy is the 'bully' for sure....or spirited or whatever you want to call it. He weighs 4lbs less than his brother but is constantly taking toys whenever he wants them or hugging/pinning his brother to the floor. We ALWAYS reinforce sharing and being nice. We figure they'll eventually understand sharing/being nice...or our bigger son will finally get fed up and sit on his brother or something along those lines to put him in his place. I'm not worried about it. It's all about learning and testing boundries. I'm sure they'll out grow it.

GeauxTigers82 · June 2012

My girls totally switch this role. One week it's Mia, and the next week, it's Noelle. I will say that Mia is more likely to share with her sister, and Noelle is more likely to laugh and run away when her sister wants something she has!

Mrs.Greg · June 2012

My Anna (my bigger girl) is the same way but I actually attribute most of her actions to her being extremely clumsy. Like when she pulls on Fiona to pull herself up and Fiona falls on her and starts crying, I don't think Anna is intentionally pulling her down. Or when Fiona is crawling to me and Anna sees her and starts crawling toward me too and crawls right over top of Fiona, I don't think she is trying to be mean. They both take toys from each other all day long but Fiona's much more sensitive when Anna does it to her. Fiona will cry; Anna takes the toy back which makes Fiona cry. I don't do anything about it right now, they are just babies. Not sure if that's the right thing though.

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