Large age gap

You have one bedroom? Can your nephew have his cousin-less time in there?

Linnis said:

My nephew, now 10, will once again be spending a fair amount of time with us. While he is great about playing with DS - sometimes he wants to do his own thing which is difficult with a 2 year old who simply doesn't understand.

Yesterday we had an upset over the Ipod - nephew was listening and DS was trying to pull it out of his ears to listen and saying "Dance.".

How do I keep children 8 years apart happy?

I do my best to correct DS but some things just come with the age.

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The older one needs somewhere to go and somewhere to keep some stuff. Further, they can't expect to be able to play with certain things in the presence of the small child. I have four children the oldest is 6 and the youngest 1, and I already know that these rules are necessary for peace in the household.

Linnis said:

A two bedroom. DS has his own bedroom since we moved back in the spring.

I'm thinking of telling him he can have toddler free time in my room.

He's got his Ipod and maybe I can interest him in some reading - I have Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIHM.

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Like I said, its very important that he know that... DS... can't be expected to leave the iPod alone if he brings it around, he's simply too young. I assume he has a chest or shelf somewhere to keep "his stuff."

Yeah, like the others said your nephew needs his own space. My daughter (6) knows that if she doesn't want her brother (2) to play with her stuff she needs to keep it in her room where he can't get to it not only so things don't get broken but for safety reasons also.

Linnis said:

Not yet. This happened suddenly. Yesterday he came only with the Ipod in his pocket and a pair of PJ pants over his shoulder to sleep it.

I finally told him to put up the Ipod on the fridge last night.

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Wow, it must be hard to adjust to such a change (For everyone involved)

Things I have learned about children is that most of them will adore older kids, there's just something about older kids, most younger ones are drawn to them. My soon to be 7 year old, has a number of kids in the church that just adore him, also his little cousins and younger sister are all over him too.

Is there somewhere in your room he can keep his things, maybe a box or soemthing, since you don't have a room just for him.

WE have done things like that too, even though ds has his own room, dd (3) loves his room and when ds is at school somehow manages to find her way in there into his things. So we sometimes keep special things in our room.

The other thing you need to do is let your nephew know that when your ds is wanting to play with him, it's because he thinks of him as a teacher (that will probably appeal I'm sure - it's what we tell ds when our dd is wanting to play with him) while that's all well and good they need to be able to have time alone, so it's a good thing that he can have somewhere to play in peace.

I am 8 years older than my brother. I would play with him for a while, and then go and read. I don't remember having too much trouble keeping him out of my things. When I said, "no", he knew I meant it. And I was given permission to be firm but polite in saying no and leave my stuff alone. I think it helped that my mom never said, oh he is a baby... let him be.