A child’s memoir:
I was finally born after nine months in my mother’s womb; that dark and narrow place that forced me to stay in strange positions. Later, I discovered that my birth was a happy event that my family had eagerly awaited and my mother was counting the days and getting happier as her abdomen got larger.
When I kicked her for the first time, she went hurriedly to my grandmother to tell her. Her only entertainment during the waiting period was sewing the clothes that I would wear in my new life.
They had long discussions about my name if I was a boy or a girl!
My mother started reading books about raising children and asked my grandmother about the pains of childbirth anxiously. Then, I was born.
They were very kind to me and my parents used to hurry whenever they heard me making the least noise. They spent many nights awake when I caught any common disease like a cough or stomach ache. They never stopped carrying, kissing and pampering me. Since my birth, I felt as if I had ascended the throne of their hearts. The bigger I grew, the more I felt their love and appreciation for me and I used to love and appreciate them in return.
In short, I spent happy days, during which I was the center of attention of my whole family.
Life was good in my eyes and I believed that my happiness would last forever. This distracted me from noticing that my mother’s abdomen was getting larger and I completely ignored the talks about the newborn.
After that, some changes started happening in my life. They transferred me from my bed, where I used to sleep since my birth inside my parent’s room, to another room and a new bed to make space for the newborn.
At this moment, I started harboring bad feelings towards the intruder that had disturbed my family life and I did not know that the worst had not yet happened.
My mother started speaking about the sex of the newborn and its name. I also found her preparing his new clothes and noticed that history repeats itself. I began watching this new development with interest in order to determine my stand.
Once I searched for my mother but I did not find her. I asked my grandmother, who had come to our house the night before, about her and she told me that my mother was in hospital to give birth to my little brother who would amuse me and play with me. In fact, this pleased me so much because I had actually been bored with loneliness.
When I heard the doorbell, I ran towards my mother and expected that she would greet me warmly. However, she met me calmly and I knew that she was very tired due to the delivery.
This new child occupied my father and mother and completely took their attention away from me.
Amidst this disappointment, I looked at this intruder and said to myself, “Is this the new child?
When this child came to the house, everything turned against me. This child completely distracted my father and mother from me. They only speak about him and play with him. I felt that their love for me has changed.”
One day, I saw my mother breastfeeding this child from her breast. You can imagine this; she gave him the part which was exclusively mine!
Since that moment, I had a feeling that I now call “jealousy”.
At the beginning, this jealousy was simple, because I thought that the child would only stay for a few days in the house. Once, I even said to my mother to take him back to the hospital because I had played with him enough. However, I later discovered that it was not that easy and that he was going to stay for a long time.
So, I decided to defend my entity and my status more clearly through beating and biting my brother. Sometimes, I would behave smartly by embracing him and applying pressure strongly to strangle him. In fact, this was a result of conflicting feelings of love and jealousy.
I often directed my jealousy and anger against my mother through breaking plates to anger her and get her attention at the same time.
When this behavior failed to get my family’s attention, I tried to get back to the happy days of my early childhood. So, I started sucking my fingers and wetting my bed at night. Nevertheless, all of this was fruitless.
Gradually, jealousy transformed into hatred and I felt jealous of whoever tried to compete with me. This transformed my life into a series of personal failures until I became an introvert who hates society and every successful person.
Even the sons of Jacob, may Allah exalt his mention, fell prey to jealousy:
Jealousy is an expected feeling from a child who loses his parents’ attention and interest. Each child has emotional needs including his need for love, appreciation, success and coddling. Such needs should be satisfied, because the failure of the parents in this respect will give space for jealousy in the child’s heart, especially in case of having a newborn.
The Quran refers to jealousy in Soorah Yoosuf, when the sons of Jacob felt jealous of their brother. Allah The Almighty Says (what means): {When they said, "Joseph and his brother are more beloved to our father than we, while we are a clan. Indeed, our father is in clear error. * Kill Joseph or cast him out to [another] land; the countenance of your father will [then] be only for you, and you will be after that a righteous people."} [Quran 12:8-9]
Consider how their jealousy drove them to the plan to murder their brother.
That is why the Prophet used to command us to be evenhanded with our children to avoid this dangerous sickness.
The Prophet said, “Be evenhanded with your children in [terms of giving gifts].” [At-Tabaraani]
Anas, may Allah be pleased with him, reported that a man was sitting with the Prophet when his son came to him. The man kissed the boy and placed him on his thigh. Then, a daughter of this man came and he seated her in front of him. Thereupon, the Prophet said, “Would you treat them equally?”
Look at the following intelligent woman who was aware of the importance of treating all her children fairly. Anas ibn Maalik, may Allah be pleased with him, said, "A woman came to 'Aa’ishah, may Allah be pleased with her, and 'Aa’ishah, may Allah be pleased with her, gave her three dates. She gave each of her two children a date and kept one date for herself. The children ate the two dates and then looked at their mother. She took her date, split in it two, and gave each child half of it. The Prophet, sallaalahu `alayhi wa sallam, came and 'Aa’ishah, may Allah have mercy uupon him, told him about it. He said: 'Why are you surprised at that? Allah has shown her mercy because of her mercy towards her children.'”
Allah The Almighty had mercy upon that mother because she was compassionate towards her children by giving them precedence over herself, and because she treated them equally.
Jealousy is misery and enmity:
Jealousy is common in children aged 1-5 years, but this emotion and feeling may be so overwhelming to the extent that it will disturb the child’s social adjustment.
In this case, jealousy is the origin of all the strange and abnormal behavior of the child, because, the jealous child can never feel safe or happy and his social interaction would be very little. He bottles up his sorrows until he feels that the whole world is working against him. This transforms the child into a source of trouble and misery for the whole family. However, we should note that jealousy takes many forms and all of them aim at getting attention.
Here are some examples of jealous children:
- He fights a lot with the other children and his behavior is aggressive
- He demands that his mother devotes all her time to him
- He is always bored, frowning and wants to be alone
- He is shy and does not have the courage to face the usual daily problems
We found that the feeling of jealousy is the cause of all of these problems. This feeling always arises from trivial reasons that were present in the child’s life when he was young. These reasons include the following:
• Ridiculing the child by giving him a funny or humiliating name.
• Birth of a new child and making him the center of attention of the whole family and neglecting the elder child.
• When parents show kindness to other children in front of their children
• Praising the child’s sister or brother continually and referring to him/her as the example that everyone should follow, in addition to highlighting the faults and failure of the jealous child
If the child had a strong jealousy problem during his early childhood, it is most likely that it will remain with him for the rest of his life. The jealous child cannot be in harmony with his peers and this disappoints him greatly. This in turn makes him feel that he is unlucky, neglected, and wronged. Hence, he would start isolating himself until he turns into an introvert.
He may fall prey to despair or become very violent to get attention. Over time, this feeling grows until it prevents him from sharing other people’s feelings and it becomes impossible for him to watch others’ success without showing explicit discontent. Of course, this attitude makes people hate the jealous and envious person and this causes him to believe that they mean to treat him badly. In most cases, jealousy transforms into an overwhelming grudge that can lead to the worst consequences.
Jealousy and selfishness:
Jealously is not intrinsic or inherent; rather, it is a result of the wrong upbringing. That is because the child will not suffer from overwhelming jealousy if he learns to share a toy with others or to share his parents’ love with others, as well as if he realizes that his mother has other responsibilities other than all of his wishes. However, some parents who like to arouse their children’s jealousy will do that through comparing the child with others, or vexing him in order to enjoy his jealous reactions. Such parents do not realize that they are laying the foundations of many future difficulties in their child’s life.
Always remember that the jealous child will be a jealous man who will envy his friends for their success. He will be almost unable to work with others and he will always complain that people do not appreciate him as they should. In short, he will be an individual who can never adjust to his environment.
Dr. ‘Umayr Al-Haarithi, specialist in child psychology, said,
Jealousy is a natural feeling in children and it sometimes takes different forms such as involuntary bed-wetting at night, involuntary eye blinking, stammering, desire to urinate at short intervals, asking his mother to carry him and to feed him with her hands, desire to use the nursing bottle again, speaking like young children, negativity, rejecting food, showing violence and love for destruction.
The mother should observe such behavior in addition to his behavior with his toys and his attempt to break them.
Dr. Al-Haarithi added,
To determine the remedy of jealousy, we must first know what causes it and then try to stop it. As the time of the second childbirth approaches, the first child is kept away from his mother who usually stays in hospital. When she returns home, she cannot respond fully to the desire of the first child to get close to her because she would be tired and wants to get some rest.
After resting, she starts looking after the baby and dedicates the majority of her time to the newborn. This is usually accompanied by a set of instructions that limit the freedom of the first child. The young baby is always embraced by his mother, while the other one goes sadly to his bed to sleep alone.
When the elder child grows up, he finds that he is punished for things that his young brother or sister is allowed to do without a reason, or for a reason he cannot understand. Comparison and unequal treatment worsen the problem of jealousy.
The young child starts harboring jealousy when his elder brother goes to school accompanied by one of his parents happily.
The perfect solution is to avoid any change in the daily schedule of care for the elder child after the birth of the second one and keeping away from the causes of jealousy because treating it is more difficult.
One of the basic factors of treatment is to pretend that all that the child does is normal and to show him love and respect.
The jealous child is usually unhappy, and his mother has to do her best to make him happy.
Consequently, we must avoid censuring him even if he hurt his young brother. All that we want to do is to make him play with his brother and help his mother take care of him.
The mother should avoid censure and replace it with love and compassion. If the involuntary bed-wetting happens frequently, the mother should ignore this issue and try to make him busy by giving him something like a toy.
She should even refrain from censuring him if he destroys the toys, because censure will only worsen the problem.
Symptoms of jealousy also include attempts to get attention such as thumb-sucking, involuntary bed-wetting, desire for destruction. Treating this situation requires defining the causes behind the feeling of insecurity, which is usually harbored in the subconscious. Hence, superficial treatment will not be successful.
It is very important to know the cause of these symptoms in order to achieve happiness for all members of the family.
