Dr. Sarah (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:41):

Welcome back. We’ve got Dr. Rebecca Hershberg and Dr. Emily Upshur here to answer our listener question for the day. You guys ready?

Dr. Rebecca (00:51):

Absolutely.

Dr. Emily (00:51):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (00:53):

Okay, so this mother writes in goes Love your podcast. Thank you husband. And I want a fourth child, my oldest five and a half year old girl…

Dr. Rebecca (01:05):

Say that again, Sarah. A fourth child, just so the listener…

Dr. Sarah (01:08):

Yep. A fourth. She wants they’re thinking about do not currently have.

Dr. Rebecca (01:12):

Okay.

Dr. Sarah (01:14):

So she says, my oldest five and a half year old girl is very attached to me. She unprompted and without any knowledge of our desires, has said she does not want any more babies because she will never have any time with mommy. I am trying to find special one-on-one time with her to implement. She also just started kindergarten and has gone almost all day. She leaves at 8:25 and getting dropped off at 3:45. She is extremely close and loves her sister, who is three and is very loving towards the baby who is nine months, but she has expressed that she wishes she was the baby. So mommy can spend more time with me. I know a sibling is a gift, but how do I help her through these feelings and prep her for the possible addition to our family without making her feel abandoned and betrayed?

Dr. Rebecca (02:05):

I can kick off. I think, I mean, first of all, kudos to this mom that she’s thinking about a fourth child when her third child is nine months old. I just want to meet her to be like, what’s your secret? What’s your power drink? But that aside, it sounds to me at least in the way that she’s raising the question that the decision to have a fourth hasn’t been made. And I guess my instinct where I want to start is to separate that out from the way that the older daughter is feeling.

(02:42):

It’s not a conversation about family planning that you’re going to have with your five and a half year old. Family planning is a decision that will be between you and your husband that maybe you’ll figure it out next month, maybe you’ll figure it next year, but it will happen and then your child can deal with it in the meantime. I think you’re taking your five and a half year old’s words, perhaps a little bit too, literally given what your thoughts are. I think what she’s saying, especially based on her kindergarten schedule, is I miss you and I see how much attention you’re paying to the baby and I want to be with you. And so I think that your instinct to spend more time with her and try to figure that out, not figure that out, but try to meet that need is spot on.

(03:31):

And I would leave that other part about how do I prep her for the possible addition way out of this equation because you just don’t even know if that’s going to be a thing. So why would you potentially bring her into it? It just doesn’t feel helpful to anyone. I think it’s more she sometimes says she wants to be the baby. I always take that if your Google translate as like, yeah, she wants the nurturing, she wants the love, she wants the snuggling. You can even play baby with her. I mean, I love that suggesting that intervention with parents. She wants to be the baby. Great. Let’s play baby and let’s stay there With your oldest daughter who just started kindergarten and has two younger siblings.

Dr. Sarah (04:16):

One of whom is nine months old. This is also, that feels super important to me…

Dr. Rebecca (04:20):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (04:21):

That this is looking at this in the developmental timestamp that this family system is in. This is a five and a half year old girl that just started kindergarten and two and a half years ago she got a baby sister and nine months ago she got a second baby sister. It’s a lot of new siblings in a short period of time and a trip to kindergarten that is probably leaving her feeling a little bit like, Ooh, my snow globe got real shaken. And that’s totally okay. She can handle that. And she’s also incredibly communicating to you how she’s feeling about it and what she’s needing. And she’s doing it both directly and indirectly, all of which is super appropriate for a five and a half year old. Almost even impressive I would venture to say. But then remember, you’re in this moment in time right now.

(05:23):

Let’s stay here. You may choose to have another kid. And again, wonderful. And this is I think the other piece which is I love having children feel like they’re part of the family and have a say and that their voices and their opinions and their needs are really heard. And there’s a difference between a child-centric family that makes decisions based on what the child’s saying they need in the moment and a family-centered family, which is looking at the whole family’s needs and if mom and dad really want to build this larger family, the family’s needs, but also you might do that in nine months postpartum, so that might be a little bit of time before you have to worry about this. And also then your five and a half year old will not be a five and a half year old anymore and she won’t have just started kindergarten. So there’s also, she’s going to keep moving along the timeline along with you and the rest of your family as you decide to build it. So just remember, you are at this snapshot right now. I’d stay in this moment. I’d look at where you are right now, and I wouldn’t worry too much about the future in this context.

Dr. Emily (06:39):

Well, I also think, I don’t know if maybe this is reiterating what you guys said in a different way, but I don’t know that this is a problem that needs to be solved. I think the other piece of this might just be like, oh yeah, it feels really hard to have a lot of siblings sometimes, and it’s also really cool and really fun and I am not trying to talk you out of that. I’m not trying to solve this as a problem for you. I can validate it, I can sit with it, I can tolerate it. And I think the point that you made Rebecca in the beginning about separating out a parental choice, I’m not consulting you about this, isn’t really, you don’t get to necessarily get a vote. You can catalog all of this as a parent in terms of your grownup decision, but I think that maybe is a little liberating. My child is going to be okay no matter what decision my husband and I make as a fan for our family planning and I don’t really have to solve this problem. I might just have to validate it and sit with it and be able to tolerate the discomfort that is an inevitable in family changes and morphs and also celebrate the good pieces of that, which she nicely points out. But I guess I would say you don’t have to solve this as a problem. That’s sort of how I feel about it.

Dr. Sarah (08:00):

I also see, this is a five and a half year old girl. Again, we’ve put the context of she’s gone through a lot of transitional things that have happened very recently and she is attaching this feeling she’s having about missing her mom and having less time with her mom to the siblings. But that’s also something that this parent could consider putting into that context and helping as the parent saying, my daughter is associating having more siblings, or she’s attributing the siblings with the lack of missing me or having feeling like she has less time with me. That’s also something I could help her separate from that narrative. She can have five siblings and still feel like she gets quality time with mommy if she’s really getting quality time with mommy. That’s filling her cup up a little bit. And I’m not at all implying that this mom is not giving her daughter quality time. I also know that when a kid goes through big transitions for them, their quality time bucket can feel like it has kind of a bottomless quality to it. No matter what you give me, I need more because I’m just feeling a bit destabilized because of where I’m at in the world. But I think helping the daughter have a narrative, I get quality time with mommy no matter how many siblings that I have. Logging it.

Dr. Emily (09:33):

Or the family role. I mean, this is the oldest child, so this is the oldest child of three and potentially has more responsibilities now or more independence because of just a spreading of family resources. There’s one mom, one dad, and so maybe just exploring for her what that means in terms of, she’s saying she misses mom, but what does that mean for her? Might be another way of helping this mom figure that out. And not, again, maybe just validating doesn’t mean anything wrong is happening, but figuring out what that means to her.

Dr. Rebecca (10:15):

I also wonder if this little girl, the five and a half year old, is she coming up with all this herself kind of the way that mom is implying she’s associating kind like you just said, Sarah, more, she’s kind of on her own saying, no more babies because she’s equating babies with a lack of attention or without even realizing it, has mom been like snuggling the nine month old and be like, I love babies so much, let’s not make this our last. I hope this isn’t our last one, honey. Just completely putting some of that out into the ether, which she may not even realize because these are casual things we say, whether or not we are perhaps formally considering another child, but it may be more than the mom is necessarily giving the little girl credit for that. The little girl has actually overheard certain comments and it may help her feel more contained and more regulated rather than opening up this conversation. But she may actually need to close it. She may actually need to say, right now it’s the three kids and daddy and I and we have such an amazing family and that’s who we are right now, helping the daughter be in the moment if the daughter has in fact heard these speculations or fantasies or whatever in a more casual way. And mom doesn’t even realize that she has.

Dr. Sarah (11:44):

And I think it depends too, and obviously we don’t know when this mom is saying that me and my husband want a fourth child. We also know she’s nine months postpartum, so technically they could have a child in a year from now, maybe even sooner. Or it could be we could be having a child in the next three years. I don’t know what this person’s timeline is, but at minimum you’ve got a little bit of time before, unless you’re going to adopt a child in the next couple months, there’s a bit of a buffer. And if you do know on some level what your timeline kind of is going to be, I would maybe consider not necessarily sharing that with your kid, but to your point, Rebecca, it’s like if it’s not going to be a while, then I would be like, let’s be here in this moment.

Dr. Rebecca (12:47):

Even if again, separate from adopting a child next week, even if you’re going to have a new baby in let’s say 10 months, 10 months is a really long time to a five and a half year old. So being here in this moment with this is who our family is today, I think is important regardless, presuming you’re thinking about a biological fourth child and you’re not yet pregnant.

Dr. Sarah (13:14):

Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. I think helping contain the anxiety that this child might be having about what a fourth child could bring by letting them kind of sit in a contained space that does not involve a fourth sibling right now explicitly might be helpful.

Dr. Emily (13:34):

Well, I mean, I think what you’re touching upon, because the last part of this question was that this parent doesn’t want her child to feel abandoned or betrayed if they have another child. And I think we talk about this a lot on this podcast, helping your child feel seen in the moment is a fast track way for them never to feel that way really in their core saying like, oh, it’s hard to want to feel like you want to be the baby and you want more of mom’s attention, and it feels like mommy’s really busy right now. Really seeing your child narrating, reflecting back what you imagine their thinking and feeling is a surefire way of firming up their attachment in terms of feeling abandoned or portrayed in many areas of life, but also in this scenario. So I think that’s a really nice point, Rebecca, to stay in that moment and reflect back to your child and be able to feel for them to feel seen and heard, and that’s the period. The end is really actually a powerful intervention.

Dr. Sarah (14:41):

And I think that gives this parent potentially an out, from what I’m imagining her sort of worry is that I either have to say to my daughter who’s saying, please don’t have another sibling. No, I won’t. Or yes, I will for fear that if I don’t give them the answer and I can’t then change my mind or they’ll feel abandoned or betrayed, but we don’t really have to answer, this daughter isn’t really asking a question or making you commit to something. She’s talking about something totally different, right? She’s really talking about, I’m having feelings about our relationship right now that makes sense given the context of what’s going on in the family and not getting distracted by the red herring, which is the sibling, but being able to go underneath that, those literal words and go to the deeper feeling and meet your child there, you don’t really have to answer that question. Yes, we will, or no, we won’t. You can, because then I just feel like I could see a parent feeling like, well, I’ve got to either reassure them that we won’t, and if I do that and then we change that, we do have a kid, they’ll feel like I betrayed them or I say, well, I’m sorry, we’re going to have another one. You’re going to have to be ready for that. Then I’m feeling like they’re going to feel like, wow, you don’t.

Dr. Rebecca (16:09):

That’s why I started by saying, I think it’s tremendously important not to get sidetracked by the family planning conversation with your five and a half year old, but to focus on her feelings in the here and now. So I’ll say it again.

Dr. Sarah (16:24):

Yeah, no, I think that is, I think preach, that’s definitely the path to walk here and good luck with all of your family planning. I mean, this sounds like you really love being a parent and you really love growing this family, and I hope this was helpful.

Dr. Rebecca (16:40):

Absolutely.

Dr. Emily (16:43):

Absolutely.

Dr. Sarah (16:46):Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.