Proximity makes the heart grow fonder

Getting to watch children interact is a privilege that comes with being a parent of more than one child. With just one child you are the playmate and are constantly crawling around and playing with stuffed animals and blocks. With three children most of the crawling around has to do with picking up laundry and things off the floor. When they ask you to participate in their games you get overjoyed because let's face it children would much prefer to play with other children. Luckily, I don't really like playing with stuffed animals anyhow and with the cover of doing dishes and cleaning (ok its not much of a cover as a sad reality) can observe the way children interact and function when there are no adults around. And then I can invent my own theories about the way children work or just about humans in general. So here are my latest thoughts on forming good relationships. 

 

When Aurora was homeschooled the children all played together. Except what often actually happened is that Sophia would follow Aurora around and play with her and brush off Tova. Tova would play on her own, or with me, or would compete with Sophia for Aurora's attention. Sure they often all played together marvelously but there was a less developed link between Sophia and Tova. Now that Aurora is gone during the day Sophia and Tova spend the day together. For the first week or two they would come into conflict when trying to play. But there were no other kids around and as mentioned before any child is better than an adult for playing so they kept working it out between themselves. And after a few weeks Tova started following Sophia around. They began to request staying home so they could play together longer. Now they go off into a bedroom and play happily for hours. They are affectionate with each other and worry about each other and really have fun together. If there are other kids around they often don't seem to notice because they are so engrossed in their own play. And the most interesting part is that when the three girls are together now often Sophia and Tova play together and Aurora happily goes off to read. The key to making them great friends and not just siblings was for them to spend a lot of time together forming and working on a bond. 

 

I think we don't give this idea enough credit as culturally we are obsessed with alone time and personal space. Relationships require constant interaction to stay strong and relevant. Practice makes perfect in this case too. Often the best friendships formed are from the periods in one's life where there is stronger longer more exclusive socializing. For example, high school or a long trip. Situations where you have to work things out and face difficulty with someone else without being able to retreat. That was part of what I really liked about homeschooling. We got to spend all our time together for better or for worse. Aurora and I couldn't hide behind our jobs or school or fall to other relationships and so we got to know and understand each other much better and got much closer. So, lesson learned from little Sophia and Tova is that we need to spend more time with our important people and it is so nice when siblings are friends. 

They are even starting to look the same

Aurora and I practicing our relationship at the top of Camel Hump