Siblings Flashcards
What are the main features of the sibling relationship?
Longest lasting relationship of most people’s lives. Emotionally uninhibited. Incredible familiarity - possibility for influence is huge.
What is family systems theory?
Minuchin, 1985. Mapping of marital relationship, mother-child relationship. A system is an organised whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. All components are mutually interdependent, change in one has implications for all. e.g. change in the marital relationship has knock-on effects into child relationships. Systems are open to outside influences that may change it – why we look as SES.
What did Dunn and Kendrick (1980) find about sibling arrival?
41 working-class families studied from pregnancy - 14 months. Mothers’ positive attention to 1st born decreased upon sibling arrival, and negative attention increase. Also change in who initiates interaction - 1st born took a lead. Toddlers do their best to capture their mum’s attention. 1/4 of mums reported older child showing physical aggression toward the new baby.
What did Stocker, Dunn, and Plomin (1989) find about determinants of sibling relationship quality?
Can you predict which sibling are going to get along and which aren’t? Looked at how child’s temperament may mediate the sibling relationship. Sibling particularly sensitive to small differences in parental treatment. Older sibling more controlling of younger sibling. Complimentary nature of sibling relationships - older siblings are the more dominant. Shyness of older sibling was good - less competition and control.
What did Kowal and Kramer (1997) find about parental differential treatment?
Shows association between PDT and sibling relationship quality. Asked about specific parenting behaviours, and whether they were treated differently. Asked about parenting behaviour - asked if they think its fair, and why they think it happens. PDT was justified in 75% of cases. Viewing PDT as ‘fair’ ameliorated the negative effects of PDT.
What are sibling challenges?
Siblings provide some of the biggest parenting challenges. Siblings fight up to 8 times per hour. Most conflict is mild, but 4% of children report serious physical victimisation. Reported by parents as the most common challenge in their families. Siblings are the source of most family violence.
What did Tucket and Finkelhor, 2015 find about sibling interventions?
Goal of creating harmonious sibling relationships. Worked on children’s perspective taking, problem solving, conflict management. Effect sizes were small to moderate in almost all cases. Virtually no follow ups - easy to see immediate effect, but is this continued?
What are sibling influences on behavioural adjustment?
Assessments of the sibling relationship during the preschool years predicted early adolescent adjustment. Link between sibling relationships and later internalising and externalising problems. More evidence this is predictive of older sibling adjustment - may be because older sibling is more dominant.
What did Pike, Caldwell, and Dunn (2005) find? - reading
Wanted to identify links between sibling relationship quality with child adjustment. 101 working and middle-class 2-parent families. Parents provided reports of sibling quality, parent-child relationship, and children’s prosocial and problematic behaviours. Children provided reports of familial relationships with puppet interview. Results showed sibling relationship quality was associated with older siblings’ adjustment.
What did Garcia (2000) find? - reading
Relationship between destructive sibling conflict and conduct problems in children. Interaction between destructive sibling conflict and rejecting parenting predicted aggressive behaviour problem across time. A rise in aggression scores was evident for children who had high levels of both sibling conflict and rejecting parenting.
