New Study Alert: How Parents Impact The Sibling Relationship
A recent study found that family cohesion and parent differential treatment is related to sibling affection and fighting
Source: Emma Bauso/Pexels
A recent study (published in July 2023 in the journal Family Relations) found that parenting may have a significant impact on the sibling relationship. In particular, two factors seem to be important— family cohesion and parent differential treatment.
This study asked 325 college students about their family experiences growing up and their relationship with their sibling closest in age.
They found that more “cohesive” families (translation: families with a stronger emotional bond) were associated with more sibling affection and less sibling fighting. However, when parents treated siblings differently, the relationship between family cohesion and sibling relationships wasn’t as strong. Specifically, when fathers used differential control (translation: different rules and discipline for different children), family cohesion didn’t predict sibling affection to the same extent, and when mothers and fathers showed differential affection (translation: different levels of care, warmth, and love for different children), family cohesion wasn’t related to sibling fighting to the same extent. In other words, family cohesion and parent differential treatment may work together to influence sibling relationships.
Some important limitations of this work include that it is “retrospective” meaning they are asking college students to remember their childhood and their memory may be limited. Their own reports of their childhoods may also be biased. Finally, this is a correlational study, meaning that we do not know whether family cohesion and parent differential treatment cause issues in the sibling relationship, only that they are related to sibling relationships.
However, regardless of these limitations, this study suggests the following tips for parents:
Work to develop a cohesive family: Create a feeling of family togetherness and an emotional bond by engaging in routines and rituals together, spending positive quality time together as a family, discussing and modeling shared values and beliefs, and creating an environment of gratitude and appreciation for each other.
Try to treat your children as equally as possible. Try to provide similar levels of attention, affection, warmth, and care to your children.
Have the same rules and a consistent plan for discipline that is applied equally to all children. This study suggests that fathers in particular should be careful about having the same rules and disciplining children equally.
Explain to children any differences in treatment. It is not possible or even ideal to treat siblings exactly the same— every child has different needs and your job as a parent is to meet those needs. When you do treat siblings differently explain why to children and explain that although your treatment may not always be equal it is fair, in that each child gets what they need.
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Welcome to the Parenting Translator newsletter! I am Dr. Cara Goodwin, a licensed psychologist with a PhD in child psychology and mother to three children (currently a 3-year-old, 5-year-old, and 7-year-old). I specialize in taking all of the research that is out there related to parenting and child development and turning it into information that is accurate, relevant, and useful for parents! I recently turned these efforts into a non-profit organization since I believe that all parents deserve access to unbiased and free information. This means that I am only here to help YOU as a parent so please send along any feedback, topic suggestions, or questions that you have! You can also find me on Instagram @parentingtranslator, on TikTok @parentingtranslator, and my website (www.parentingtranslator.com).
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This is very interesting. I do wonder if the cohesiveness itself begets more cohesiveness, as well, leading to positive outcomes. I.e., if mom and dad are more aligned and not in conflict, I would imagine that makes it easier to enforce rules and convey values to all family members consistently from day to day, which would make it harder for one child to feel they’re getting parented in a markedly different way than another, or like there’s a scarcity of love for which they have to compete. I also wonder if strong sibling bonds themselves, in the study or in other contexts, can have the effect of creating cohesion. (As a child of divorce with a late sibling I adored, we had to create the cohesiveness between us while our parents battled it out. I would not recommend that approach to fostering closeness but I’m grateful for the protective effects it had!)
Amazing points! It's always so helpful to have specific actionable steps. I'm so interested in the father-specific finding also. I wonder why that is...