Our middle child is a girl.  I had thought that with the middle child being of a different sex than the oldest and the youngest, that perhaps there wouldn’t be the sense of “missing out” or not being treated equally in terms of attention and … well… you name it.

But… it looks like I thought wrong.

My middle child is very conscious of “fairness” in the family.  More often than not, I find that she eyes up every instance to determine if she is missing out on something.  For example, I will hand out 3 plates of equal proportions for breakfast.  Her first instinct is to look at the other plates and check that they are equal to hers in everyway from portions to the content on the plate.  Once she feels satisfied that all is kosher, she digs in.  If, however, she finds that someone got something different (for example, O hates eggs… so I give him more meat or a piece of fruit or something in substitution), she immediately squawks.  She will ask (though it comes out in a demand) to also have what he has.

I try the best I can to make sure that everything is fair.  But with the differing ages and such, each child has differing priveledges.   I have put into place where I do something special with each one of them individually once a week.

Still, it gets frustrating when one of your children feel a little jilted.

How do you other moms and dads handle this?