Tips for Dealing with jealousy in children
Jealousy is a feeling that can affect a child at any stage of his life for various reasons, and our kids may feel jealous of their school mates, their friends or even their siblings!
So how can we deal with jealousy in children? Here are a few tips:
- Talking to the child to try and find out the reason behind his jealousy of someone, as sometimes, it can be a result of his lack of self-confidence or inability to see the positive aspects of himself.
- Turning the child’s jealousy of others into ambition, and trying to direct his negative feelings towards a positive frame. For example, we can encourage our little ones to improve their grades at school if we feel that they are sad or jealous of other kids who are getting better scores.
- If a child’s jealousy is not justified, we can teach him the importance of participation and caring in order to eliminate any reason for envy.
- Being aware of comparing a child or his performance to another as this comparison can cause him a feeling of frustration and anxiousness that sticks around for a long time.
- Trying to enhance any special skill or talent that a child has, while making sure to praise his accomplishments in it. This will help him develop more self-confidence.
- Guiding the child towards building a sense of cooperation in order to turn his jealousy into support for the other party so he can have appreciation for joint efforts.
- Reading to the child stories about jealousy between friends or siblings and their sad outcomes. This will help him realize the bad effects of this feeling.
A Final Thought!
Let’s be realistic: jealousy is a natural human emotion that we cannot stop. But what we can do is to teach our kids to stop comparing their weaknesses to others’ strength points. Furthermore, we need to demonstrate to our children self-confidence in ourselves and who we are, as they tend to learn more from our behaviors and thoughts rather than our words.