What are the impacts of having a “favorite” child and how can we provide each kid with the parenting they need while avoiding resentment or unhealthy competition among siblings? In this episode of the parenting manual we discuss the impacts of playing favorites with your kids while avoiding resentment or unhealthy competition among siblings.

Summary and Notes

[00:00:22] – Emphasize effort over outcome

[00:02:41] – My wife’s perspective on how favorites play out in family

[00:11:31] – The impacts of obvious favoritism

[00:14:55] – How parents change their lingo and give praise

[00:25:21] – Long term effects of motivation

[00:29:51] – Setting Aspirations: the work and the journey

Quotes from the Episode

“We don’t want to waste our kids’ time and they shouldn’t have to wait for us to pass away for any wedge or division that we have placed there to go away. We want them to be close now. We want them to be close in the future. Of course, that’s always going to be their choice, but we don’t want to set it up to fail from the beginning.” [00:08:33]

“We don’t want our kids to have to go on some quest. It’s not to get something that we could give them for free.” [00:12:22]

“We celebrate the accomplishments of both kids as an aspiration for the other kid.” [00:27:18]

“The joy is in the journey and the work and not the end product.” [00:34:08]

Transcript below

Today I want to talk about how my wife and I go about not choosing favorites with our kids. So we’re going to talk about how we were raised and also what we do to make sure that we treat our children as equitably as possible. So one of the things that we have focused on is making sure that we.

Emphasize effort over outcome. So we, we praise our children for the effort that they put in the practice that they put in rather than the grade that they get or the, or the, if they, if they win or if they score the goal, we focus on how they’re showing up and hoping that, that a good outcome does arise from that rather than praising them only for when they score that goal or for when they achieve that outcome.

And so I’m going to have a little chat, with my wife right now because I think that this is going to be something that’s useful for, for our kids to hear, but it’s also useful, I think, for other people listening in. And the reason that it’s useful for, for our kids is that when we did the research or this episode, we realized that.

Neither of us really understood how our, how our grandparents were raised, how they were parented. For instance, my grandfather, I know that he was in the middle somewhere of 10 brothers and sisters, and I knew that they grew up very, very poor in the depression. And other than that, I really don’t know very much about how he was parenting other than there was not a lot of food around my, my father.

I came from a culture where the firstborn son was basically the favorite, the chosen one. And my father was, in the middle. He was the second boy, and then he had a younger sister, so he was basically in the middle and he was kind of always had to prove himself to his parents. And so I want my kids to know that history.

And then I want them to understand how we made the decision to change that pattern moving forward. So, what do you want to say about that in terms of, of, you know, like, I mean, you’ve met my grandfather. You’ve met, my parents. You met both of my grandfathers actually. , my grandmother passed away before we got married, of course.

But, and then you met my dad’s mom. What do you think? What’s your perspective on seeing how favorites played out and your family?

Well, I’m going to answer the first question about your family cause I think it’s just ...