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Home › Articles › Your Children › Three's a Crowd

Three's a Crowd

When Two Play, One May Stray

By Sharon Waldrop

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Carrie Smith, from Landaff, N.H., has a nephew who is between the ages of her two oldest sons, but closer in age to the oldest who tends to be the preferred playmate.

"Consequently, due to the age and their personalities, they end up playing more together, and my second ends up being the third wheel," Smith says.

She said she finds that having a friend over for her second-born son works well when her nephew visits.

Smith is not the only mother who has found that four is a magic number.

"What's worked best for us is to have a friend for both of my children and amazingly, the two groups tend not to play together," says Trina Lambert, a mother of 7-year-old boy/girl twins in Englewood, Colo.

Inviting a fourth child over to play when three's a crowd provides two pairs of playmates and everyone is happy, she says.

A Parent's Role
Lisa Beamer from Pennsylvania is the mother of both a son and daughter. She says she has noticed that when her neighbor's grandson is in town for a visit, he comes over to play with her son. This leaves her daughter out in the cold, not because her son forgets about her, but because the visiting child doesn't want to be bothered with her. Beamer's son and daugher are constant playmates and she feels bad when this happens.


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