Older kids doing parent's job?

My 17 year old daughter and my 2.5 year old are virtually inseparable, including the times when I and/or my husband are at home and available. As a result, my 17-year old often takes the toddler to the potty, dresses her, bathes her (or they shower together), fixes her hair, and sometimes reads her a bedtime story. These are all things the two of them choose and want to do, together. I have never thought of it as my daughter parenting her sister. I just see it as their way of sharing bonding time and I am all for it.

Now, sometimes my teenager doesn't do these things the way I'd like her to; like she may offer the toddler potato chips when toddler hasn't finished her dinner. In those cases, I gently step in and explain to both of them why I prefer they seek guidance from me or their father.

I think a lot of it has to do with the specifics of the agreement. For example you could have a family meeting to divvy up the responsibilities and decide on a babysitting or cleaning schedule that would work for the family unit. The opposite of this I guess is when a child has to do A B or C because the parents can not/will not. I see the second scenario as breeding resentment and anger whereas the first scenario could breed responsibility and self esteem.

My eight year old "babysits" for her 22 month old brother in another room of the house while I make dinner or get some cleaning in. She loves this and the two of them are very close. As far as the rest of the chores go all four kids tend to pitch in along with Dh and me , but none of it is set in stone. I could see how even in our laid back situation, things could go awry without a lot of communication.

My older kids help out the younger, but I don't expect them to be extra parents. They'll help tie shoes, or pour a drink, or supervise a tub if I'm busy doing something else.

My 5 y/o is a constant shadow to the 14 y/o and mostly he's okay with that. My oldest will babysit, but I don't ever tell him he has to--sometimes it's a trade-off, like when I'm going to do the foodshopping and ds1 will offer to babysit ds2 rather than help do the shopping. Other times, if it's something for my own entertainment (dinner out, book club, etc.) I will ask him if he wants a babysitting job and then pay him for it. I figure that, if I didn't have my eldest, I'd be hiring a babysitter, so it hardly seems fair to just expect ds1 to do it for free.

I was the eldest of 3 and while I didn't have complete responsiblity for my younger sibs, I was given enough (without being asked) that I felt some resentment. I really see the mothering "job" as mine, and not my older kids'.

I don't usually FORCE my girls to help with ds, but sometimes one of them offers to. Hannah is great with Jack in the mornings, and she often has more patience with him than I do. When she helps him get changed, I stay out of her way while she's doing it and thank her when she's done. If she doesn't want to, I'll dress him myself (and these days, dressing him consists of either convincing him to let you dress him, or convincing him to let you help him get dressed, or convincing him to try to put it on himself and then helping him if needed in a way that won't hurt his pride.)

It's their job to put away their own laundry after I wash it. I'm not as consistent with other chores as I probably should be, but I am clear when I'm not feeling well and need them to help more. Many times, it's a matter of "If you'd like to have something for dessert, you'll have to help me make it." Sometimes it's even "if you'd like to have a clean table to eat off of, I'm going to need help cleaning it."

If one of the girls does a job that's normally "mine" and it's a significant amount of extra work, I'll pay her for doing it.

This is a topic I've thought about a bit, since my stepkids' mom leaves them alone a fair amount. The boys are 14 and 16, and their little sister, who has Down Syndrome, is 12.

The boys are very mature and good with their sister, but in my and DH's opinion they have to watch her wayyyyyyyyy too much. Even when their mom wasn't working last winter they would have to make plans between the two of them so that one of them would be there to get their sister off the bus.

We've also had a few phone calls from them regarding how they should give their sister her medicine, etc.

What really sucks for them is that my stepdaughter, who is about five feet tall and weighs over 120 pounds, does not always listen to them, and their mom doesn't back them up. The few times we've asked them to watch her for us (for just a few hours) we have a big talk with her about how we expect her to listen to the boys and if she doesn't how she won't have the privilege of doing something fun the next day with us.

Sorry for the rant. I do think kids should help out with their siblings, but not to the extent that they're left to parent with no guidance or help from the actual parent.

I'm a single mom to three - DD is 11, DS is 7, and baby-girl is 2. I do rely on my oldest to help out with the younger two, but I try to make sure that I am balancing the load so that she is only helping out, not helping to raise them. She just read through the original question and responses so far, and she would like to reply:

I never really think "Why should I care for my siblings", I love them lots and enjoy helping my mom with them. I think helping out my mom is cool because I would like to have kids,someday [In about 15 years of course!] I learn a lot from my mom!! If my mom doesn't like some of the stuff I do with my siblings she tells me and I try to fix my mistakes. I know I'm not perfect! My mom trusts me to stay home with the baby for a couple of hours, help get her dressed,ect.I guess parents having their children help with their siblings depends on wether the parents trust their kids or not. Even if my mom didn't trust me, I still would enjoy helping with my bro and sis!



Isn't she the best?! As others have said, there are times when I ask my daughter to keep an eye on the younger two - mostly when I'm making dinner and cleaning up after dinner, she will often take them outside to play (I can watch them from the kitchen window) or upstairs to watch a movie, so she is enjoying herself as well. On Saturday mornings she gives the baby a bath - she climbs right in the tub with her baby sister and plays and washes her while I make beds/start laundry/etc. And yes, ocassionally she "baby-sits" while I run errands with my son - this consists of me laying the baby down for a nap and my daughter playing on the computer/reading/watching a movie while listening for the baby while I'm gone, and I'm almost always home before the baby gets up (and for the record, we rent part of our house out to an older lady from our church, and I always check to make sure she'll be home while I'm gone, in case of emergency, so while it can be said that the are home alone, they actually are not alone in the house!)....

So yes, I do rely on my oldest to help out with the younger two, and I'm very proud of the young lady she is becoming!

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Agreed. Although, the *child's* perspective of what is expected is more important than the adult's. My ds once got irritated when his father asked him to watch our youngest--he felt dh was dumping the younger on on him. After talking it over, it turned out that dh was saying, "Watch your brother for a bit?" and even though it was posed as a question, dh wouldn't wait for an answer, so ds saw it as a directive. I should point out that this happened about once a week, for less than an hour, so it wasn't excessive, but ds still felt put out because of the WAY it was approached. Once I pointed out the problem to dh, he began truely ASKING and waiting for a response. Just knowing that he could say "no" to his father made all the difference to ds and the bad feelings disappeared.