Stop Copying Me

We are finally in the stop copying me phase of childhood. The old power struggle between siblings has officially commenced. It is a constant reminder that the old ways of annoying your siblings has not been rendered useless - they still work.

My 6 year old daughter E has been a particularly fun target for her 4 year old brother C. Her big reactions at times are a huge payoff for him and he loves picking at her when he feels like it. Luckily, C doesn’t do it very often, but recently he has. He kept copying her on the way to swim class, during shower time, during dinner, and after dinner. I had to remind both of them to knock it off before it ended up getting into a physical altercation.

E was doing a great job staying calm all day even though she was annoyed and I had to talk to her about ways to combat the copying game. It’s not enough to say stop copying me. The more someone talks, the more someone can copy. I wanted her to take a step back and look at the patterns of the conversation. It goes in a circle until someone decides to break the circle (either by walking away or stopping their communication all together). I told E if she didn’t want to play the game and get more annoyed, she needed to take the right actions and break the circle in the right way.

We will see what happens next time this comes up. E is getting to the age where I want her to learn how to spot the bigger picture by taking a step back. If she can see the landscape of what is happening, she will be better able to adjust it to her liking. I told her that sometimes when I get into a circle during communication, I actually want the circle to continue and talk my way around and around it. Other times, I want the circle to stop and I break the pattern. It’s up to us to figure out what to do, but the first step is always to spot the pattern. Then I hope she picks the right things to do after that. It’ll take a lot of practice, so starting young isn’t a bad thing!