7 Ways To Deal With Favouritism In Your Kids

It’s a hard truth, but kids often favour one parent over another.

At various points in their life, often started when they’re toddlers or even earlier, they constantly reach for one parent over the other, leaving some people hurt.

So what’s a parent to do when their own child doesn’t seem to want to do anything with them, and constantly rejects them in favour of their other parent? Well, here are a few things we’d suggest, just to get you through it.

1. Don’t React Negatively

This is a totally normal stage of your child’s development, so the last thing you want to do is react negatively when they express their favouritism. Kids shouldn’t feel guilty for loving their parent, and even if favouritism is present, you can’t make kids feel bad about that. While it certainly does sting when kids express more love for one parent over another, anger about the situation should be avoided at all costs.

2. Make Sure Each Parent Works

When the workload between parents isn’t shared equally, it’s easy to see how favouritism can blossom. For example, if one parent is always doing the chores, taking care of basic needs, cooking and so on, while the other parent seems to be playing all the time, it’s no surprise that kids tend to enjoy the playful parent more. This is also true when parents fall into a good cop/bad cop routine around discipline, where one parent is always taking care of the disciplining, leading kids to think that the other parent is more easy going and loveable. In this case, it’s best to change things up so both parents are equally firm in discipline and punishments as required.

3. Understand There’s A Reason

Kids often favour the parent they get to see less, which can really hurt the parent who acts as a primary caregiver and feels as though they’re putting in all the hard work just so the other parent can get the love. However, when you unpack the reason behind this favouritism, it’s much easier to understand it. To kids, there’s a sense of urgency involved and they feel like they really need to see and spend time with that parent while they have them. Understand that it’s just a phase, there’s a logical reason behind it, and they definitely don’t love you less, despite what their unfiltered mouths might say.

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