One Child Being Left Out All the Time

How old are the kids in the neighborhood? If they are a little older, they may not always want the younger one hanging around. Why don't you have the 9 year old invite a friend (not a neighborhood kid, but a friend from school) over for the afternoon or for a sleepover.

The 9 year old might be to young for 11 year old boys. Does he have any friends of his own age. Let him have a sleep over with just his friends. As far as neighborhood kids. I really do not see why they cannot all play hockey together, unless the 11 year old needs his own time and friends. Good luck!

Find the younger one some friends from school he can invite over to your house. Invite the neighborhod boys to your house for a sleepover with both boys.
Are the neighborhood boys older, if they are also 11 then your 9 year old is just too young right now. I have a 9 year old and he and the 11 year old across the street are not friends. Both really nice boys, just too far apart in age. 11 year olds are about to go to middle school and 9 year olds are finishing 3rd grade. That is a big difference. Encourage him to find other kids to play with.

I would encourage your youngest child to make his own friends, independent of his older brother!!! It certainly would not be fair to make your older son miss out on fun things to do just because his younger brother wasn't invited...this would merely breed resentment and anger on his part. Two years is not a lot of difference in age but it is evidentally enough to make a difference to these friends!!!
I would not make any comments on it around your children...don't let them know that you even notice the fact that one is invited and the other isn't If the younger sibling complains to you then you can have a talk with him about it.

i know how painful this is to watch, but you cannot force this issue and trying to will only foster resentment and cause the older kids to move from being indifferent to the younger brother to actively resenting him. he really needs to develop his OWN peer group, even if you have to work at it to make it happen. start a lego club or a play group that centers around 7-10 year olds and lets your son interact with kids who don't 'belong' to his older brother. those two years don't mean much to adults but they are an enormous gulf to kids.
khairete
S.

When the sleepovers etc happen suggest to your younger son that he invite one of his friends over for a sleepover. at 11 the older son is already looking at jr high/middle school stuff and at 9 the younger is still into cartoons etc.. you will run into a brick wall by "making" the older son and friends accept the younger one into everything they do.

Even though they are brothers, they are individuals. Since your older one is more socially connected, concentrate on getting the younger one in activities where he meets other people and can make his own set of friends. Try a sport or taekwondo or scouts. Your older one doesn't need this, but the younger one does. It's ok for them to go their separate ways. They will be happier if they feel they are not in competition with each other.

My iniitial thought is to follow what seems to be happening naturally. If the kids don't want to play with your younger son I don't think I'd force the issue. They must have some reason - rational or not - for not wanting to play with him. Are they older than him? I know two years doesn't seem like a big age difference, but it may be to them. Whatever the reason, I think forcing the friendship will cause resentment with your older son and the friends and put your younger son into a situation in which he is spending his time with others who aren't interested. To help your younger son, I'd make arrangements for the him to get together with friends that are exclusively his, such as friends from school, who will enjoy his company. I'd make sure to have family time where you do fun things together as a family - no friends allowed.

My second thought is this...Is your older son perhaps behind this? Maybe he wants some friends outside of his brother. That isn't such a bad thing. Everyone needs some time to run in different circles, but sabotaging the frienships of his brother isn't acceptable, IMO. I'd ask your older son for his take on why the younger brother isn't included and if he is is asking the others not to include him. If he won't talk to you directly, maybe start a letter journal with him. My SIL did this with her son in the pre-teen years and he was very receptive to it. She would write something to him in a notebook and put it under his pillow. He would write back and put it under her pillow. This was just between the two of them and really helped to keep the lines of communication open. Best wishes to you.

I will bet you the reason that they exclude your younger son is because he is YOUNGER! At 11 they have really kind of jumped over into that next phase and they probably feel that he is too young. They are feeling like "big kids" now and hanging out with your 9 yo isn't cool. I think that you need to seek out friends that are 9 years old for him to play with. Invite his friends from school over frequently. I know its not as convenient as having the neighborhood situation but it is your best option for making your younger son feel better.

Your older son is not bad for not wanting his little brother tagging along and nor are his peers for not inviting him. AND...It is absolutely normal for the younger sibling to feel left out and for it to break your heart a little bit. Siblings always want to get away and have their own thing at a certain age and younger siblings were made to look up to and chase after their cool older sibling.

Doesn't make it easy though, does it? To us, mathematically speaking, 2 years is no big deal. But remember back to when you were 11 and in 6th grade. A 9 year old was a BABY = ) This gap will naturally close itself as the kids get into high school and college. Happened for my sister and I who are 2 yrs apart.

In the meantime, I think the previous poster was right on...Have your son (or you can do it for him) plan his own outings and sleep-overs with other 9 yr olds. If there are none in the immediate neighborhood, that might mean negotiating transportation but it will be worth it.

i agree with helping him make some connections with kids at school. maybe plan a pool day or a fun event that he can invite some friends of his own to.

I have to agree with all the moms here, its not fair to try and make your older son have his younger brother tag along just because you think it's unfair. Even though they are 2 years apart he is still older and thinks of his brother as a "baby". So ease off and start concentrating help making friends for your youngest.
When I was younger I hated that when my mom made me take my sister and include her in things. It was harder for me because we are 5 years apart. Finally my mom got it and had to tell my sister that she knew it wasn't fair but I was older which meant I got more privileges and that my sister couldn't hang out with the same ppl I did. So my sister got her own friends she made at school.
Hope everything goes better, but the feelings you are feeling are normal.

My mom always used to make me take my younger sister when I played and I hated it. We just ended up being really mean to her and resenting her being there.
If the older boy doesn't want him there than making the younger go is really not helping anyone. Are you sure it is not the older boy encouraging the other children to be mean to his brother? Are the kids older than your younger son? if the are 11/12 then hanging out with a 9 year old is not really going to be much fun for them.

I have a 12 year old nephew, and this problem has come up before. I know it breaks your heart, but kids are very grade-centric right up to high school. It's only a two year gap, but to kids that age, it might as well seem like a million years. To an 11 year old a 9 year old is a "baby" compared to them. Interests can vary hugely in just two years, and even though your boys are brothers, and your younger one is well behaved, the older one is attempting to assert his independence as an autonomous person separate from his brother– with separate friends and separate activities and separate memories. They'll always be brothers, but trying to make them do everything together and be included in everything together as a unit or is just going to cause more problems down the road.

The best thing you can do for your boys is to make sure they have some quality brother-time, just the two of them away from the other neighborhood kids, so they can have those good memories— and other kids and any unfairness don't enter into that equation.

Respect your older son's need to have separate friends and activities and explain that to your younger son. It will be harder for your younger son to eventually become as independent as he needs to be if he is always tagging along with his older brother and "copying" him by doing everything he does. And if you force your older son to always be a package deal with your younger son, he's just going to begin to resent you and it will form a bad dynamic with his brother.

Encourage your younger son to get involved in some activities with kids in his own grade and age where he can make friends. See if there are YMCA day camps, or free workshops, or museum days, or neighborhood activities that he can get involved in this summer. See if he'd like to start a hobby, that's a great way to make friends with the same interests.

I haven't read any of the other posts, so I hope I don't repeat what someone else has already said. I think you have to hit it from both angles. The one son that doesn't get invited needs to learn to be happy for others that do. There will always be times that we can feel left out. Teach him that sometimes that's life. For quite a few years my oldest was invited all over the place and the rest of my kids weren't. I taught my kids to be happy for her. I also began to teach all my children to look out for one another. So the son that gets invited all the time should begin to be mindful of his brother and ask that he sometimes come along. I tell my kids that we are family. Friends will come and go but God put us together for a reason and we will always have each other. We do a lot as a team. If I find a child is getting more attention than another I never feel sorry for any of them. We are happy for each other and the gifts we receive. I may sneak around and make an opportunity for a child that hasn't had one. My kids will never know that though.

I'm thinking that you need to make a special effort to invite friends of your younger child to your home and stop relying on the neighborhood kids. Before school is out call his teacher and find out who he hangs out with in the playground, same at Church if it applies. Yes, my younger one loved hanging out with big brother and his friends, but the age difference between 9-12, developmentally is huge. Your younger son needs your help with this.

Growing up we moved every 2 years. (To simplify, I'm only going to talk about myself and my closest sister who is 2 years younger.) Sometimes the neighborhood kids were all my age and older, sometimes they were all my sister's age or younger. So some moves the neighborhood kids were all my friends, and sometimes it was my kid sister who had "all the friends". And SOME moves there weren't any neighborhood kids in either of our age ranges. Regardless we both had friends from school.

One of the things I really appreciate (now and then) about how our mum raised us, is that she never made anyone the "tag-along". For ANY of us, we had a choice between friends. We could invite friends home from school, or play with the neighborhood kids, or play together. It was always OUR choice... unless... one of us wanted the OTHER person's friends. Then her response was "You have your own friends. You can invite them over... or play here on your own. Your choice. But Susie is Sally's friend, and they are playing together. So either invite your own friend over to play, or play by yourself."