agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Care and Feeding,

Any ideas for creative consequences for going into a sibling’s room uninvited? Repeatedly? The offender is elementary age and the room owner is in middle school. I am sure the stuff in there is incredibly enticing but boundaries and privacy are important!

—Raising a Snoop

Dear Raising a Snoop,

When your younger child goes into their sibling’s room uninvited, they should lose a privilege that they value: dessert, screen time, etc. You can also talk to your elder child about how to incentivize their little sibling not to go in there. Perhaps a week without sneaking in can net them a 15-minute visit into the room under their sibling’s supervision. Continue talking to your younger child about the importance of privacy and boundaries. Ask them how they would feel if someone was snooping through their stuff without permission. Explain to them that it is important for their older sibling to have a space that is all their own and that they would want the same respect for their own things. Talk to them about the fact that as we get older, we have a greater need for privacy, and that it’s important to respect that. Be consistent about consequences; as long as they get away with this behavior, they’re going to keep it up.

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It amazes me that people's problem solving when it comes to kids often begins and ends with consequences.

There is an easier solution here, and that is to swap out the older kid's doorknob for the sort that has a lock. Mom and Dad have one key and implicit permission to use it if they think they absolutely have to for the same reasons they'd go into the kid's room now. Older Kid has the other, and if they lose it, the replacement comes out of their allowance.

This is a stage, and honestly the younger kid will most likely outgrow it so long as it's not being encouraged. You don't need to consequence your way out of it, which relies on you catching the kid every time and then never ever caving on the punishment you've picked, and you certainly don't need to ask the older one to make the huge concession of allowing their sibling in their room once a week! You just need to go to the hardware store and put a lock on the door. Some things simply don't need consequences when you can have the same result without them.

(This, by the way, is also my advice for the equally-common problem of door slamming. For some reason lots of people will just fall all over themselves to tell you to remove your child's door. And where the hell do you put it until you decide they've repented? Just get a little doohickey that keeps the door from slamming and call it a day.)

Just wondering whether “teaching empathy” would always work here. Younger sibling, either by age or by temperament, might not have the same issues around privacy as older sibling, so that may not land as a lesson at all.

I've got an age gap between my younger siblings and myself. 9 years for one and 12 for the other. My parents' solution was to put a hook and eye lock at a height where myself or my parents could reach, but the littles couldn't. I locked my room when I wasn't in it and could supervise / shoo away when I was in it.

Were there a few times when my siblings conspired to quietly move a chair down the hallway and lock me into my room? Yes. But my parents were home and let me out when I yelled for help. Now that we're adults it's a funny story.

In addition to the issues other people have raised here, I kind of had an issue with "perhaps a week without sneaking in can net them a 15-minute visit into the room under their sibling's supervision." Or...perhaps it's okay for the older sibling just to NOT WANT THEM IN THEIR ROOM. I think if the forbidden thing that the younger sibling was getting into was the older sibling's underwear drawer, this would be clear to Care & Feeding. It's okay if the older sibling NEVER wants the younger sibling in their room, and pushing them that "come on, Eldest, Youngest has been good all week...well, most of the week...it's been six days...almost six days really...surely you can let them in NOW" is a big nope from the Marissa judge. It is okay to have boundaries, it is okay to just have that boundary permanently, you never want that person to do that, okay.

1. get a lock

2. you probably should do some work to teach the younger child about respecting boundaries (do this after the lock) but it involves figuring out why they are going in. Is it really to access the stuff? Is it to get a big reaction from the older sibling? Is it because they aren't allowed to have boundaries around their own space/time/stuff? Is it because the older sibling literally never leaves the room anymore and they miss them? Is it because they need help from someone and annoying older sib works better than asking you? Is it because they're developmentally young enough they still need help with the basic concept? These all have different solutions.

(giving them scheduled room access is probably not a solution to any of those. setting up scheduled sibling bonding time some other place might help with some of them, though.)

Is it when the older sibling is there, or not there? Seems like different motivations might be involved.