Jealous!Twins getting attention (was

[Lilac]

No: HPFGUIDX 43223


Nicole (I apologize for all the snippage, excellent post btw):

<<<Now, I don't think Percy's a horrible person but he does have
a very superior attitude towards his brothers.  I can
hardly blame them for being irked with him.  If my
sibling was constantly making a point of how very
"important" he was, my patience with him would run out
just as Fred and George's has.  Percy grows more and
more pompous as the series progresses and, as a
result, Fred and George grow more and more annoyed
with him.  I fail to see how this make Fred and George
horrible people.>>>> 

Me:  

I agree with you here, Nicole.  There's one more point to the teasing of Percy and others that I would like to add that I don't think people have mentioned:  That Fred and George are jealous of Percy and his success.  But how they deal with it, and how they want to be noticed, is by teasing him.  Isn't that human nature?  We'll tease or put people down whom we percieve as better than us, just to make ourselves feel better than them.  No, this isn't the most mature way to deal with this, but I think we'll all concur that the twins are not saints. 

An example of the Jealous!Twins is when the twins are in trouble with Molly (no, really?) and she mentions something about Percy (I think how many OWLS or something like that) and one of them mutters, "Perfect Percy."  and Molly counters somthing like "You would do good to take a leaf out of Percy's book!" (in my words).  This sounded like jealousy to me, even though he masks it with a put down of "Perfect" (sarcasm).  If I didn't know any better, I would say that the twins are jealous of the attention Percy gets from his mom for being so good in school and following the rules.  Not that they would ever admit it, of course.

Being a teacher (I'm on "Mommy Sebatical"), I was taught that most misbehavior of children in the classroom is motivated by wanting attention.  When a child wants attention, he/she will get it any way they can, with good behavior or bad behavior.  Most of the time, it is the bad behavior that comes out.  Maybe the twin's "bad behavior" has been reinforced by attention (albeit negative attention, but attention nonetheless) from Molly and others that they hardly know how to get attention for being "good".  No, I'm not saying it's all Molly's fault, but there is some fault there in how she does reinforce their behavior.  It's kind of a vicious cycle, but I'm not sure if the chicken or the egg came first in this one:  I don't know if their prankster behavior was a part of them when they were born, or if it was reinforced with attention as they noticed it was a great way to get attention.  

I will give Molly credit where credit is due.  On the "Humongous Big Head" comment about Percy made by the twins, where everyone else snorted into their pudding, Molly pointedly chose to ignore this, thereby not reinforcing the behavior.  

I don't know if this is making sense, but I see a motivation on the twin's part to be noticed, and how they have discovered is the best way for them to get attention is with negative (teasing, put-downs, practical jokes) behavior.

Richelle, fellow first grade teacher, does any of this ring true to you?

Lilac (Catch 'em being good *before* they have a chance to be bad was my classroom motto)

 



 

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"Tut, tut --- hardly any of you remembered that my favorite color is *lilac*. I say so in Year with the Yeti." 

--Gilderoy Lockhart, COS



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