Sibling rivalry
Sibling rivalry is a type of competition or animosity among siblings, whether blood-related or not.
In childhood, siblings generally spend more time together than they do with parents. Sibling bonds are influenced by factors such as parental treatment, birth order, personality, people and experiences outside the family. Sibling rivalry is more prominent when children are close in age and of the same gender and/or where one or multiple children are intellectually gifted.
Throughout the lifespan
According to observational studies by Judith Dunn, children are sensitive to differences in parental treatment from one year of age. From 18 months, siblings can understand family rules and know how to comfort and be kind to each other. By the age of 3, children have a sophisticated grasp of social rules, can evaluate themselves in relation to their siblings, and know how to adapt to circumstances within the family.Sibling rivalry often continues throughout childhood and can be frustrating and stressful for parents and children alike. Adolescents fight for the same reasons younger children fight, but they are better equipped to physically, intellectually, and emotionally hurt and be intellectually and emotionally hurt by each other. Physical and emotional changes cause pressures in the teenage years, as do changing relationships with parents and friends. Fighting with siblings as a way to get parental attention may increase in adolescence. One study found that the highest level of competition between siblings occurs between the ages of 10 and 15.
Sibling rivalry can continue into adulthood, and sibling relationships can change dramatically over the years. Events, such as a parent's illness, may bring siblings closer together, whereas divorce may drive them apart, particularly if the in-law relationship is strained. Approximately one-third of adults describe their relationship with siblings as rivalrous or distant. However, rivalry often lessens over time. At least 80 percent of siblings over the age of 60 enjoy close ties.
Causes
According to Kyla Boyse from the University of Michigan, each child in a family competes to define who they are as an individual and wants to show that they are separate from their siblings. Children may feel they are getting unequal amounts of their parents' attention, discipline, and responsiveness. Children fight most in families where there is neither any understanding that fighting is not an acceptable way to resolve conflicts nor any alternative way of handling such conflicts; in families in which physical fighting is forbidden but no method of non-physical conflict resolution is permitted, the conversion and accumulation of everyday disputes into long-simmering hostilities can have an effect nearly as corrosive. Stress in the parents' and children's lives can create conflicts increasing sibling rivalry.Other psychological approaches
saw siblings as "striving for significance" within the family and felt that birth order was an important aspect of personality development. In fact, psychologists and researchers today endorse the influence of birth order, as well as age and gender constellations, on sibling relationships. However, parents are seen as capable of having an important influence on whether they are competitive or not.David Levy introduced the term "sibling rivalry" in 1941, claiming that for an older sibling "the aggressive response to the new baby is so typical that it is safe to say it is a common feature of family life." Researchers generally endorse this view, noting that parents can ameliorate this response by taking appropriate preventative steps and avoiding favoritism. The ideal time to lay the groundwork for a lifetime of supportive relationships between siblings is during the months prior to the new baby's arrival.
Parenting style
Parents influence sibling relationships. The sibling connection can then incorporate many facets of the parent-child relationship. The parenting style children experience impacts how siblings develop differently in terms of their skills and interests. According to Jensen and McHale. "although they are 50% genetically similar, on average, and usually grow up in the same home, full biological siblings are typically no more similar to one another than they are to strangers". The child's self-image within the larger family dynamic is impacted by these variances. Early categorization by parents impacts how the child perceives their place in the family. According to research on sibling differentiation and Adler's theory of individual psychology, siblings differ from one another in order to fill voids within the family and lessen conflict and rivalry for family resources. This mechanism is supposed to cause siblings to diverge from one another over time. According to research, children frequently live up to their parents' expectations when they have higher expectations for their prospective accomplishments. This may lead to differences in how siblings are treated by their parents. It has been demonstrated that many parents have higher expectations for their daughters than for their sons. In many families, the oldest kid is also held to the highest standards. This disparity in viewpoints of a child's potential for success can lead to partiality, neglect, and isolation—both physically and emotionally. Children are influenced by what they witness their parents doing in regards to their siblings. Children who experience abuse and harsh parenting early in life or who see violent parent-child interactions are more likely to respond aggressively toward their siblings. According to coercion theory, inadequate parenting and failing to discipline a child results in hostile, coercive sibling interactions. According to Dantchev and Wolke "when parents are unable to intervene effectively, the sibling relationship may become a training ground through which hostility is reinforced and eventually escalates into sibling bullying." Children's conduct with other people are influenced by how their parents engage with them. Greater childhood aggression has frequently been linked to parent-child antagonism and inadequate child monitoring. More warmth and less animosity between parents and children are mirrored in the sibling relationship, which is another parenting behavior that is related to the quality of the sibling connection. The way parents communicate with one another serves as a significant role model for how their children will interact with others. According to Corinna Tucker, "exposure to interparental conflict and family violence and parenting qualities are linked to children's sibling victimization and that severe physical sibling victimization has the most connections to these negative family experiences". When compared to other stages of life, childhood is when family contact patterns have the most impact on how children learn to connect with others. One of the most enduring types of partnerships, sibling ties can help youngsters develop cognitive and socioemotional skills. A child's future relationships with others as well as their relationship with their siblings can both be negatively impacted by a parent's parenting style.Prevention
Parents can reduce the opportunity for rivalry by refusing to compare or typecast their children, planning fun family activities together, and making sure each child has enough time and space of their own. They can also give each child individual attention, encourage teamwork, refuse to hold up one child as a role model for the others, and avoid favoritism. Teaching the children positive ways to ask for attention from parents when they need it can also make it less likely that they will resort to aggressive attention-getting strategies. Eileen Kennedy-Moore notes that this remedy also requires that parents "catch children being good" by responding to children's kind, helpful, and creative bids for attention. Additionally, by being proactive about teaching children emotional intelligence, problem solving skills, negotiation skills, and encouraging them to look for win-win solutions, parents can help children resolve conflicts that arise as a normal part of growing up together in the same household. A concerted effort by parents to reduce competitiveness while nurturing bonding can further help alleviate sibling rivalry.However, according to Sylvia Rimm, although sibling rivalry can be reduced, it is unlikely to be entirely eliminated. In moderate doses, rivalry may be a healthy indication that each child is assertive enough to express his or her differences with other siblings.
Vernon Weihe suggests that four criteria should be used to determine if questioned and/or questionable behavior is rivalry or sibling abuse. First, given that children use different conflict-resolution tactics during various developmental stages, one must rule out the possibility that the questioned behavior is in fact age-appropriate for the child exhibiting it. Second, one must determine whether the behavior is an isolated incident or instead part of an enduring pattern: abuse is, by definition, a long-term pattern rather than occasional disagreements. Third, one must determine if there is an "aspect of victimization" to the behavior: rivalry tends to be incident-specific, reciprocal, and obvious to others, while abuse is characterized by secrecy and an imbalance of power. Fourth, one must determine the goal of the questioned and/or questionable behavior: while rivalry is motivated entirely or primarily by aspects of a child's self-interest in which the interests of others, including the child's rival, do not play a role, in scenarios featuring abuse, the perpetrator's ultimate interests tend to include domination, humiliation, or at least embarrassment of the victim.
Animals
Sibling rivalry is common among various animal species, in the form of competition for food and parental attention. An extreme type of sibling rivalry occurs when young animals kill their siblings. For example, a black eagle mother lays two eggs, and the first-hatched chick pecks the younger one to death within the first few days. In the blue-footed booby, there is always the emergence of a brood hierarchy. The dominant chick will attack the subordinate one in times of food scarcity, often pecking it repeatedly or driving it from the nest. Among spotted hyenas, sibling competition begins as soon as the second cub is born, and 25% of cubs are killed by their siblings.Sibling relationships in animals are not always competitive. For example, among wolves, older siblings help to feed and guard the young.