Dealing with Cousins and Siblings

Cousins and Siblings Rivalry

Your cousins and siblings were the best gifts you could as for every summer vacation to come up to your place and enjoy life then. Life was so beautiful until you had your cousins to back upon each other’s mistakes and save from those scolding you might get by doing all those stupid things which would annoy your parents. They were your stress-busters then and now you find ways to avoid them. Why this cousins and Siblings rivalry happen?

 As we grow and become aware of the competition this world awaits for our lives, we start differing from each other. We are more likely to become jealous of each other due to some family dynamics and importantly about the grades. We might not worry and feel jealous about the higher grades if any of our cousins get, but the performance pressure put by your parents makes you envy them.

Or sometimes your aunt compares your facial features and color and turns out pointing you ugly comparing you to your beloved cousin; you start hating them and don’t want them around to feel insecure about yourself. Sibling rivalry and cousin rivalry are sometimes seen as bids for attention from children who, for whatever reason, don’t get as much consideration as they need. Sometimes, however, the situation is quite the contrary.

Facing competition is not an uncommon phenomenon for anyone however only a few know how to handle it graciously. A healthy competition every now and then is necessary and fun as well but if someone says a friend or a cousin takes it to the extremes then it really gets on the nerves. There are different ways to handle different people in your life for example the tactics for your competitive friends might not work on your competitive cousins.

“Sibling envy is like a festering wound and it sours our relationships to the point where we can’t bear the idea of our siblings being successful, or even happy, and instead take pleasure in their failures”.-says Karen Dorthy co-author of the book Sibling-Rivalry: Seven simple solutions.

Here are few tips mentioned on how you can lessen the Cousins and siblings rivalry

•  Don’t feel awkward this is not anything uncommon; mostly every family faces these types of cousins and sibling rivalry.
• Since you are not a kid anymore know when to react what? Analyze the situation and try never to speak anything wrong from your side.
• Just imagine this rivalry to be a joke in your head. When sometimes situations go out of control ease the environment with a good sense of humor, as it is a solution to many problems and it also helps your cousin or sibling to understand that you don’t have any sense of competition with them.  
• Being gracious and polite from your end is the key mantra to deal with an excessively competitive cousin. No matter what your cousin is up to you always be charming and helpful your cousin might mend his ways from their envious nature towards you.

 Life is too short to have any rivalry

In Life, you have control of your actions and thoughts. You cannot control what others think of you and in what sense they look up to you. You never can control their reactions. So it’s better to do little self-introspection and acknowledge that how can you overcome your envy emerging towards your siblings or cousins and if you put in your efforts it will be valued from another side as nobody in this world is so insensitive. So even you had huge fights and disliking toward each other somewhere you all want it to be fixed. We have got one life and it to short to be wasted envying our loved ones. If you have experienced any of these I would advise you to give them a call and say you care for them and you are proud of each other’s achievements. That is all required to fix this.

As it is said “Cousins a day Keeps the Boredom away”

Also read, How to strengthen Father-Daughter Bond.

One life. Live Boundless