Dear Kara:

Giving your sister time to relax makes sense. I think that your best bet to undo your sister’s anger at you is to empathize with her, once you interact with her again, stating in no uncertain terms that it was wrong of your parents to treat her as less than you and that you wish they treated the two of you equally.

If you defend your parents to her, or even take a neutral position, as in “cannot answer for them”, it will not do. You have to take her side on this matter because they really were wrong.

A child wants nothing more than to please her parents, your sister wanted that too, desperately. It is not her lack of effort that led to lesser results, lesser grades, not in the beginning at least. I will give you an example from my life: I didn’t want to do chores at home and my mother complained that I was lazy. On the surface it looked like I was. What I learned later  on is that it was her severe criticism of my work when I attempted a chore that led to me  to give up on trying. I was too afraid of her telling me I did it wrong, washing dishes or cleaning the floor.

anita