Sibling relationships better than their reputation

Here’s something I know very little about, being an only-child: sibling rivalry.

However, the relationship between brothers and sisters is improving, says family research professor Hartmut Kasten, an expert in sibling relationships at the state institute for early childhood education in Munich.

The order children are born in no longer plays such a significant part in their family rank—the pecking order—or role.

Siblings benefit from each other from the beginning. They quickly become playmates, Kasten said. In the end, they spend much more time together than with parents or friends. Whey they fight or feel jealous, they must come together and find a compromise, which amounts to social training for life.

Siblings can also help their brother or sister find his or her own role. That’s because we compare ourselves with older siblings more than with anyone else, said school psychologists Christine Kaniak- Urban and Andrea Lex-Kachel.

Younger children closely observe which position the older children in the family have filled and which positions are still open, they say.

Whether a child has a sibling or not also affects the parents. A lengthy study of married couples showed that families with two or more children are the happiest.

(Source: Relationships between siblings are often better than their reputation)