Dear Kerry,
My 3-year-old daughter always wants to play with my first-grade son and his friends when they come over. How do I help the big boys be nicer while getting my little girl to respect their need to play by themselves?
NM, Ann Arbor

Dear NM,
This is a common predicament. It’s so hard to know which child’s interests to protect when they want opposite things!

You have set ambitious but good goals for your kids. I think they are manageable and realistic with some work on everyone’s part. You are challenging the older kids to be generous and sympathetic to a little sister’s desire to be included. And you are trying to teach her to handle disappointment, a useful life lesson.

Parents sometimes meet this challenge by making an artificial distinction between ‘boy games’ and ‘girl games,’ with the idea that it’s consoling to be put into a different category. I don’t think that’s a good long-term solution, since boys and girls can both enjoy and learn from all kinds of play. It’s just as important for boys to play house and practice taking care of babies as it is for girls to develop ball skills and run around chasing.

Maybe a more constructive approach is to think about it in terms of what kids of different ages can manage. First-graders can play games with rules. They can expect each other to manage losing without too much upset and enjoy winning without too much triumph. 3-year-olds are just not ready to understand rules that apply to everyone, rules that sometimes help you win, but often make you lose. If the big boys are playing cards or a board game, or an organized soccer shoot or baseball, your daughter won’t enjoy it, and they won’t know how to include her.

If the big kids are doing pretend play (as long as the content isn’t too scary) that involves good guys and bad guys running, chasing, and escaping, then your 3 year old can participate. The older kids can be helped to understand, for instance, the ways little ones hide: “Your sister doesn’t realize you can still see her when she shuts her eyes, since that’s the way 3 year olds hide. Take an extra minute to ‘find’ her so she feels good about being part of your game.” Your son will feel like a big understanding grownup, which is nice for him, and your daughter will feel honored to be part of his game.

When your daughter wants to turn the living room into a zoo or a farm and enlist the boys to be the zookeepers or the animals, you can encourage the bigger kids to be part of the game. If you inject a bit of extra knowledge at their level, like “Who knows what zebras eat? How are the elephants going to have their bath?” they will enjoy it too, even if they didn’t think they wanted to play with a little kid at first. After a few times of discovering that it can be fun, they won’t look down on games with someone younger.

When the older kids really want to do their own thing, it can be tempting to comfort the little one by putting down the big kids’ activity, saying things like “We don’t want to play that game, anyway.” That may work in the short run, but it sets up a pattern of feeling good by criticizing someone else. Instead, consider commenting that “Those big boys are enjoying a game that is just right for their age. When you’re 6, you’ll have fun that way too. Now we can do something fun for us. Let’s go dig in the garden together.”

Playing is important for learning social skills and practicing how to relate to others. The patterns your children are setting will be part of their relationships for the rest of their lives. It’s worth your effort to help them experience mutual kindness. When you limit teasing, putting down, or exclusion and promote respect for each person’s capacities and pleasures you offer your kids a sturdy foundation for friendships. Others will want to play with them.

Kerry Kelly Novick is a local child, adolescent and adult psychoanalyst, affiliated with the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute and the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council, and is a founder of Allen Creek Preschool. You can reach her through AllenCreek.org, or you can email her your comments and questions for future columns. The ideas and opinions in this column are Kerry Kelly Novick’s and do not necessarily represent the views of Allen Creek Preschool, MPI or MPC.