“We recently had a baby and our 9 year old is becoming increasingly distant. What do we do?”

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Tips on Teens. My name is Kent Toussaint, clinical director
and founder of Teen Therapy Center and also the nonprofit organization Child and Teen Counseling
here in Woodland Hills, California. Every Wednesday at 12 o 'clock, I come to you live and answer
your parenting questions. And here is the question of the day. I saw your email about having
a baby. Congratulations. Thank you. My husband and I recently had a baby girl, four months old.
We have three kids now. The two older ones are 4 and 9. We've noticed since having the baby that
our nine -year -old has become increasingly distant. He is always calling the new baby gross
and is mean to her. I'm really not sure and too tired to figure out how to handle this change. We're
trying to support all of them but honestly the baby is taking up most of our time and energy and
it's hard to care for all of them equally. Have you experienced this as well? What do we do? First
of all, Congratulations on the birth of

your daughter. That's wonderful news. And secondly, have I heard of this? Absolutely. I think
this is very common actually I mean, there's a lot going on This baby is taking up every ounce
of energy in your life because that's what babies do And so the baby's probably getting a lot
of attention The four -year -old is probably naturally part of you know, because the four -year
-old needs a lot of attention, too So the nine -year -old I wonder if is kind of being left out is
like hey, you're old enough You can take care of yourself. You can make your own sandwich You
can watch TV. You can read a book you can you can pacify yourself, and I'm wondering I'm wondering
if he's resenting that and That resentment is going towards his new baby sister Could be other
factors as well obviously I don't know all the all the factors But I think that could that could
be a big part of it what I recommend is Trying to carve out time where you can spend with your son
now I know that's not easy But maybe you

can bring your son in to help care for his little sister say hey You know your sister really wants
you to hold her you know and he may go I don't want to do that Then you can also talk about how when
he was a baby this is how you treated him and you're treating her the same way You treated him you
gave me him as much energy and care you gave to him That you're giving to her now And then you also
go through old photo albums and the iPhone or whatever and looked at photos and videos of him
when he was So he can start connecting and start, you know feeling how to connect with that baby
and helping him sing songs to her Peekaboo peekaboo is the universal the number one icebreaker
with babies It's a an amazing tool teach him how to how to connect with the baby So the babies are
smiling at him if he can get a smile from the baby Maybe that's what gets him kind of go. Oh, wow
and start connecting with her There's no one way to do it And I really encourage you to really
listen to his thoughts and

his feelings and make sure he's feeling heard Because maybe that's all he really needs to do
is just feel heard there's a lot of ways to approach this but make sure you're reaching out to
him as little energy and Waking blood cells that you my brain cells you may have is important
He needs them to and it's important to you spread that around. Maybe dad takes him out. Hey, let's
go to the park Let's kick the ball around. Let's go to a movie, you know, maybe grandma comes over
and spends time with him plays a game with him You know, there's a lot of things to help him feel
connected and strong, but I think it's really important that you focus on this now, because
the older he gets, if he solidifies this relationship of, I hate my baby sister no matter what,
it's harder to break it. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the more you get that habit going,
it takes longer to get around that. So that's how I would approach it. If you have more questions,
give us a call here at Teen Therapy Center,

message us on Facebook, email us. If you have new questions that you want answered here on Tips
on Teens, you can email us at Tips on Teens at TeenTherapyCenter .com or just message us right
here on Facebook. We love the questions. We'll be here next Wednesday at 12 o 'clock. Thanks
again and I'll see you next week. Bye bye.