Question
My husband and I have two biological sons, ages 3.5 and 1.5. Six weeks ago, we added three foster-to-adopt boys, ages 1, 2, and 3 (the age order works out to be "every other one," if that makes sense - so my son who had been oldest is now younger by six months, but I don't think he's really aware of that specifically yet).
My bio 3-year-old generally is playing well with the other boys, and really has a lot of fun playing with the foster 3-year-old, but he's become very territorial sometimes with what used to be "his" toys. Sometimes he plays well, but fairly often he gets very whiny, dramatic, and upset when somebody else wants what he was playing with, or gets in his "personal space."
I'm guessing this is partly just an adjustment period, but is there anything specific I should be doing to handle this? Is this purely a "discipline him, he's being a brat" situation, or do we also need to offer some amount of reassurance because the "system" in our house was recently unsettled? If so, do you have recommendations for how to do that while still communicating that the behavior is unacceptable?
