Do you favor one niece or nephew over another? Does one of them favor you? 

I have seen that aunties always have regrets, concerns, and distress in regard to their less favored nieces or nephews. What is distressing to the aunt is also often distressing to the child. It is difficult to be the un-favored child and difficult to be the favorite. Anyone who is a sibling can attest to this.

When aunties analyze the subject of favorites, they often notice that the favored child reflects aspects of their own personality that they find pleasing. Conversely, the less favored or un-favored child reflects aspects and/or behaviors of themselves that they dislike or hope to ignore.

I see possibilities of fixing this family problem from this standpoint. The theory and practice of sense mode hierarchy discussed in my new book: The Sense Connection, Discovering How Your Five Senses Determine Your Effectiveness as a Person, Partner, and Parent can provide a quick and simple solution.

The first step is to know what your predominant sense channel is:

If you take in the world through movement in space, you may be KINESTHETIC.

If you tend to perceive the world through your ears, then you are probably AUDITORY.

If you are sensitive emotionally and how textures feel on your body you are TACTILE.

If you are a “foodie” and sensitive to smells, you are probably OLFACTORY.

If you experience life primarily through your eyes, you’re in the majority …VISUAL.

(For a more detailed explanation,  please see my previous article: Connections: Introduction).

The next step is to guess your niece or nephew’s primary sense mode. You can observe their language, favorite activities, and sensitivities. I will give you an example from my private practice:

Mary, not her real name, had worried for many years as an aunt of two nephews who were quite different. From the beginning, she and her older nephew Jay had a good fit. She felt very much in tune with him from the time he was born. Her younger nephew Dylan, born three years later, was still an enigma to her. When first she held him, he didn’t seem to quite “fit” in her arms.. he was wiggly, all arms and legs. While he was an infant, they had a warm but somewhat unconnected relationship. As he grew, she had to constantly double her efforts to understand him. There wasn't tension between Mary and Dylan; there was a vacuum; a sense mode mismatch!

The solution? When Mary forsook her primary mode, focused on Dylan’s and spoke and engaged him in his primary mode, the relationship became a match.

I don’t want to give the impression that this is mental magic; it takes a great deal of conscious effort on the part of the adult to step out of her comfortable shoes and hobble about in the child’s. However, the payoff is worth the effort. Mary’s concerns about favoritism have faded even though her two nephews remain different in their sense sphere orientations.

Making a match means giving up the implicit demand that the other person be more like you and having them feel valued and understood just as they are in their particular sense preference.

If you want to learn more,  visit my website at TheSenseConnection.wordpress.com for highlights from the book.