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Futterneid among siblings: What to do if every crumb is compared?
Where does the envy of eating at siblings come from and what can you do about the constant quarries and the foodid?
I was about to get the kitchen scale out of the closet and weigh my children's pasta portions on the gram. Because if it only looks like that a child has a noodle more on his plate, then there is riot here.
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Then it doesn't matter that the pasta pot is still full and nothing stands in the way of a lookup. My children believe that if one has more on their plates, it is a great injustice that they have to denounce immediately.
Why is that? Why do children feel disadvantaged so quickly? Why are you not able to treat your brother or sister to do something, but see it immediately as a disadvantage for yourself?
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Futterneid, what is that anyway?
We all know foodid. We want to watch someone who eats something supposedly delicious. Regardless of whether we are hungry or not. We are jealous that someone has something we don't have. But why?
A look at evolution explains this. Already millennia ago a certain supply of food secured the survival of people. And the more you collected and stored, the better the stand in society. In a way, you were better than others who had less.
And that is still in us today. Although we live and eat in abundance today for most and food, we will still be jealous when someone has something we don't have. We feel disadvantaged and sometimes we don't treat the other.
Futterneid among children
Our children feel the same way. Only that they deal with their feelings differently and more unfilter. While adults have already learned to control their feelings as far as possible, (small) children cannot yet. They freely say what disturbs them, what they find unjust and where they feel disadvantaged. This applies to the division of toys or also to the portion size when eating.
In addition, the competition among siblings is always there. It is about the favor of parents and their stand within the family. This constant competition is of course also carried out when eating, which, if you look at the evolutionary explanation, also has something to do with power and survival.
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What helps against feeding among siblings?
The kitchen scale and weighing portions for the children is a variant to suffocate food in the bud. However, this is a rather extreme option.
It gets easier if you include the children when portioning and beat them with their own 'weapons'. If one child distributes the food on the plates, but the other is the first to choose a plate, you can be amazed at how few arguments arise.
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In general, as a parents, of course, you should be careful not to treat a child differently than the other. This applies not only to food, but to all other family activities or tasks. It is important that all children feel equally seen and understood by their parents.
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