The science of sibling rivalry

We don’t choose our siblings. Brothers and sisters are just sort of there. And yet, when it comes to our development, they can be more influential than parents.

Part of sibling’s influence has to do with their 【小题1】. Eighty-two percent of kids live with a sibling (a greater share than live with a father), and about 75 percent of 70-year-olds have a living sibling. For those of us who have brothers or sisters, our relationships with them will likely be the longest of our life.

Whether these relationships make our life better or worse is a more complicated question. On the upside, positive interactions with siblings during adolescence 【小题2】 empathy, prosocial behavior, and academic achievement. This effect can be complicated by a full house, however. Kids with more siblings do worse in school—although the 【小题3】 of this finding has been challenged by several studies.

When a sibling’s relationship is bad, however, it can be really bad; 【小题4】 siblings relationships make people more likely to be depressed and anxious in adolescence. Moreover, sibling bullying makes a kid more likely to engage in self-harm as a teen and to become pyscholtic by age 18.

Whether a person models herself after her siblings or tries to 【小题5】 herself has particularly important consequences. One study found that siblings who felt 【小题6】 about each other tended to achieve similar education levels, while those who spent unequal time with their dad and got unequal parental 【小题7】 had different educational fortunes. Research suggests that as siblings’ relationships with their parents grow more different over time, their relationship with each other may become warmer. And 【小题8】 your sibling can be a mistake, depending on what she’s up to: Girls are more likely to get pregnant in their teens and teenagers are more likely to engage in risky behavior if an older sibling did not first.

One way or another, sibling influence is 【小题9】. A study of more than 1 million Swedes found that one’s risk of dying of a heart attack rises dramatically after a sibling dies of one, due not only to 【小题10】 DNA but also to the stress of losing such a key figure. It makes sense that most of us are different people than we’d have been if our brothers or sisters were never born. Sibling s seem like they’re just there only until they aren’t.

Family problems come in all shapes and sizes; some are short-lived and easily managed, while others are more chronic and difficult to handle. Stress points include events such as illness and injury, changing jobs, changing schools, moving and financial difficulties. Each family develops its own ways of coping with these stresses, some of which work better than others. Unsuccessful coping can be recognized by a number of characteristics, including the following:

This usually occurs because family members avoid discussing problems or even avoid admitting that problems exist. Some families just have not learned the skills of negotiating or, for some other reason, cannot let go of bad or hurt feelings. Children are likely to 【小题1】 their behavior after their parents' behavior and may learn to refuse to talk about feelings and problems.

Families often have not decided how family responsibilities will be divided among family members. When that happens, family life can become chaotic, and many things do not get 【小题2】. At the other extreme, some families are not 【小题3】 at all, and family members do not help one another out or fairly reassign responsibilities as family circumstances change.

Families are, especially for children, the most important source of emotional support. During the middle years, children find it hard to obtain this emotional support outside the family. Children do not perform or develop well without this support.

Families 【小题4】 best when the individuality of each family member is acknowledged and appreciated. At the least, even if someone else's personal traits or characteristics are not highly 【小题5】, each family member needs to tolerate these traits and respect that individual. Otherwise children are likely to have a difficult time developing a healthy self-image, and they will have low self-esteem and poor social skills.

Children need to succeed in order to feel 【小题6】 of successfully managing life's stresses and challenges. If they are taught or encouraged to rely on others (within the family or outside it) to solve their problems, they will have low self-esteem and lack 【小题7】 and will have trouble succeeding in the world.