Aug. 2, 2010 Something about having a sister -- even a little
sister -- makes 10- to 14-year-olds a bit less likely to feel
down in the dumps. That's one of several intriguing findings
from a new study on the impact siblings have on one another.
Brigham Young University professor Laura Padilla-Walker is the
lead author on the research, which also sorts out the influence
of siblings and the influence of parents within families. "Even
after you account for parents' influence, siblings do matter in
unique ways," said Padilla-Walker, who teaches in BYU's School
of Family Life. "They give kids something that parents don't."
Padilla-Walker's research stems from BYU's Flourishing Families
Projectand will appear in the August issue of the Journal of
Family Psychology. The study included 395 families with more
than one child, at least one of whom was an adolescent between
10 and 14 years old. The researchers gathered a wealth of
information about each family's dynamic, then followed up one
year later. Statistical anal