Anyone else with an only child?

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I have an only child and mine did it differently, he requested an "older" brother so the older brother could teach him how to do things. We would be driving down the street, he would see an older boy out the car window, and say things like, "how about that one?" I was a single parent so I talked to him about adopting an older sibling but also about the issues that may come with it. And that he would have to "share". And that it would be just as if I had one, there would be no guarantee they would get along. I used the two boys that lived next door as an example.

Thank goodness, he ended up having good friends to hang out with and this obsession with an older sibling went by the wayside.

Hi Motherofson-
If you don't mind sharing how old your son is? The reason I ask is that we have been considering adopting an older child as a sibling for my son who is almost 5. Most adoption agencies believe it is best to adopt a child younger than your own as to not disrupt the birth order. However, my son seems to do better with children who are older than him. I, on the other hand, have many concerns about the issues that an older child may bring with them. I am not sure if I am up to the challenge of that on top of raising my AS son. So far, my son has not asked for a sibling, I think our consideration is more about me wanting more children, and knowing that having a sibling can be really special. Don't think I can have any more biologically because I am almost 45. At this point, I am thinking we may just need to hope that he can make some friends down the line.

I am not an only child (I have a younger brother), nor am I a parent.

But I can say that having a sibling is not all that it's hyped up to be, at least for me. My brother and I have never had a good relationship, and we are not at all close. We don't talk at all. I don't even love him.
I feel that having a brother has actually impacted my life in a negative way, rather than facilitating my social and emotional growth. I feel cheated and hurt.

There are plenty of people and animals in my life that I am much closer to. I am closer to my coworkers, pets, my fiance and his family, and his friends.

Just because two people are siblings does not mean that they will automatically become best buds and love and support each other forever.
They are just two different people, who happen to be genetically related (or, if adopted, happen to be raised by the same family). Sure, there will be some common experiences that both of these people will be able to relate to, but there is alot more that affects the relationship than just being siblings.

Reply to angelbear: My son is now 17. All of his life I have had other children in his life. Some were good for him in a good way, and some were good for him in the way that they helped him grow in maturity on how to deal with annoying people. When he wanted to "adopt" an older sibling, I often used the adage "you can chose your friends but not your family". That really follows along the lines of what cleverkitten wrote about.

I decided when my son was young to open my house to his friends. Just about every weekend we have at least one staying over one of the nights. They hang out, mostly play video games (my son's fixation). When I remarried about 4 years ago, that was a concept that took my new husband some getting used to. Having "strangers" over all the time wasn't something he was used to. I asked him to please bear with it, it keeps Kevin occupied and then he is not bugging us saying he is bored. I explained it is like having a sibling that my son gets along with. Of course, there was the occasional skirmish, but thank goodness, boys seem to recover from them quicker than girls do. By the next day, they would be right back to being friends (sometimes even quicker, my husband explained to me that it is a guy thing).

I get to know my son's friends parents and make sure they know me, where we live, how to contact me, etc. When I was a single mom, I didn't want them to think I was weird!

My son has always done best one on one, but he has occasionally had more than one over at a time. He does better with that during day hours rather than when it approaches evening so he usually asks one to leave when it gets too much for him. I don't know how, but they seem to understand that that is him and they accept him for it. I also think they really like to come over and play video games at our house.

Please feel free to ask me any questions. I'm better at answering what I know you want to know or I tend to ramble.

P.S. I was one of the mom's that wouldn't let my son play "M" rated games until the past year or so and then only the ones he would discuss with me first. I think that worked best for our house. His friends accepted my rules and they didn't bring games that weren't allowed over.

angelbear: I forgot to mention how I always had other kids in his life. I did not live around family as I was active duty military, so I would somehow luck upon someone with a kid my son's age, start talking with them, if they seemed "nice", for lack of a better word, I would develop a friendship with them that would revolve around mutual babysitting. For some reason, I just couldn't leave my son with a teenager, I always seemed to find parents in the same boat and worked out a trade. This usually would go on for as long as I or they were stationed at the same base. Then it would have to start all over.

That is how I did his after school care and everything. Once I retired from the military and moved to where we live now, he was 8 years old and I managed to work it out that he would go to the homes of friends that had stay at home moms. I still worked full time since I was a single mom and had to buy us a house (we had 2 dogs). Those then became his friends that would come over on the weekends. And it just grew from there.

Have to say though, that now that his friends are getting interested in girls, they do spend more time with their girlfriends than my son. He just hasn't reached that stage yet.

Thanks motherofson-
I guess I have a ways to go---right now my son is not interested in friends. Since he is only 4.5, I am hoping that will change. Right now I just give him opportunities to be around kids and I gently encourage but do not push. I have hope that one day he will realize that it is nice to have a friend or two.

Thanks Cleverkitten. I had posted a thread on the General discussion a while back and asked the question: did having a sibling help? Some of the posters had a good experience with siblings, but a lot of posters did not. Anyway, I think we are leaning towards not adopting at this time. Unless a miracle happens, he will be an only child----

When my son was younger, like 4 years old, his sitter told me that he prefered to play on his own when he was at her house. So one day I got to observe the most interesting thing, I took quite a bunch of neighborhood kids to the neighborhood playground, they ranged in ages from my son, the youngest, to about 7 yrs old. Most of the kids played with other kids. Then there was my son, off by himself. Guess it would look like he was having fun, so someone would join him, that would be okay, but when the next kid did, he would just move away to play by himself again. He did this the entire time we were at the playground.

When I talked to his sitter about it later, she said that was what she was trying to explain to me about his behavior around other kids.

So I can tell you that he didn't really have "friends" until he was older.