The other kid

Poor J. He suffers so. My sympathy for him is low at the moment. Can you tell? He sees his little brother, N, get away with a lot of bad behaviour. J is a smart kid. He figures he'll get away with bad behaviour too. J has been performing karate moves on his little brother (and exhibiting other aggressive behaviours toward him), calling us names, using potty talk, etc... . Other than the aggression, N gets away with these things because ignoring the name calling and potty talk is the best way to get it to stop. When N gets no attention for it, he stops. Not so with J. J gets no attention for it, and he ramps it up. This is a conundrum. It's hard to discipline two kids in two completely different manners when they are in the same family. No amount of telling J that he is older and we expect better behaviour from him is helping. In fact, I think it is making it worse. I don't want to get into a cycle of punishment. Threatening to take him out of karate will back fire; I can tell that it will only infuriate him more that his little brother gets special treatment. I want J to change his attitude. But, I also realize that I need to change my attitude first. It is really hard. What I think we need is special time for the two of us, which is in short supply. So, I have decided to pick him up from school a little early this Friday so we can have a date. I will try to lavish attention on him and really enjoy his company. We love to go to the bookstore and just cuddle and read. And, I will try my hardest to not even bring up the topic of N or how hard it is to be his brother. I promise to report how this experiment goes.