Sibling rivalry is a type of competition or animosity among siblings, whether blood-related or not. Siblings generally spend more time together during childhood than they do with parents. The sibling bond is often complicated and is influenced by factors such as parental treatment, birth order, personality, and people and experiences outside the family. Sibling rivalry is particularly intense when children are very close in age and of the same gender and/or where one or both children are intellectually gifted. Throughout the lifespan
According to observational studies by Judith Dunn, children are sensitive from the age of one year to differences in parental treatment. 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 very frustrating and stressful to parents. 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 age group 10 to 15 reported the highest level of competition between siblings.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 marriage 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 it is as an individual and wants to show that it is separate from its 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 (e.g., verbal argument) 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 more conflict and increase sibling rivalry. Some research indicates that changes in the weather can increase the likelihood of children exhibiting deviant behavior.