Any of us who had siblings of our own remembers being “copied”—or maybe you were that younger sibling who followed an older one around imitating what they did and what they said? As parents, if we have two or more children (or this can also happen with kids and friends), we will inevitably be called upon to “Make him stop copying me!” If you can ignore the copycat battles and chalk it up to typical childhood behavior, you are a far more Zen parent than many!
Imitation is a fact of life—whether it is in our families, the work place, social cliques or mass media—our entire economy is based on the realities of human nature—we want to do what other people are doing. Siblings may start copying one another because it seems cool, or it may be simply because they quickly figure out how much it aggravates the other! It seems to be the quickest route to major irritation and it does not take kids long to figure this out.
Patience mom and dad—the copying is inevitable and as long as we set some basic limits and expectations on behavior (and provide the kids a break from each other), it will generally work itself out. I know that many of us find those middle school and adolescent years when our child seems to no longer have a mind or identity of their own (they seem so determined to “do what everyone else is doing”) to be especially trying. It will change. The truth is that the copycat behaviors are actually part of a child figuring out who they really are—it is through imitation that the child tries on different ways of being on the road to discovering who he or she truly is.