Comparisons between children are inevitable. There's not a lot you can do to change your child's appearance or intelligence, but you can give them equally beautiful names.
It often happens that one sibling is incredibly good looking, while the other may not be so. As a result, the less attractive sibling will naturally feel somewhat complexed. This doesn't necessarily lead to sibling rivalry as it were, but it could lead to one child developing a feeling of inferiority. It wouldn't matter if both children were more or less equally attractive – or unattractive as the case may be. It is when they are different, and this difference is starkly obvious and in favour of one sibling, that the problem arises.
Same sex
When you have two children of the same sex, comparisons become much more apparent as when you have two children to different sexes. So if you have a son and a daughter, and your daughter is very pretty while your son may be ordinary looking, chances are that he will not be affected by his sister's beauty, and may even be proud of it and feel protective towards her. The case will be different if you have two daughters.
Age gap
When the age gap between two children is fairly large, each child has the opportunity to blossom on his own before his sibling comes along. Comparisons are not made very often, and neither sibling feels insecure because of the other. However, having a very large age gap is not always practical, especially with women getting married and choosing to have their first child at a much later age than earlier generations.
Number of siblings
The more children you have, the less important comparisons between two siblings becomes. Again though, if you have two daughters and one son, the two daughters will tend to get compared. If you have three daughters, comparisons will be less.
Names
Chose the names of your children with care. Although many of the factors that contribute to your child's insecurities are beyond your control, this one isn't.
Meaning
Put in equal thought and effort into choosing the name of each child. Although you may feel that the meaning of a name is not really important, it is! Thousands of people will ask your child the meaning of her name through her life, and if her name has no meaning, she will not be very comfortable with it.
Parents also often opt for a name because they like the sound of it, although they don't know the meaning. Rita named her daughter Trisha because she liked the sound of it, although she didn't know what it meant. When she realised a few years later that it meant ‘thirst' and could also mean ‘lust', she was horrified. It was too late for her to do anything to change the name, but she cringed every time anyone asked her or her daughter the meaning of the name.
On the other hand, if her name has a beautiful meaning, your child will take pride in telling others what her name means.
At times parents choose the name of their firstborn with a lot of care, while they give little thought to the name of their last-born. So you may find sisters with names like Tahira and Mahika, while the third daughter will be named something simpler like Puja. When naming your children, try and opt for something along the same lines for all.
Baby Names
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