Sibling relationship

Siblings play a unique role in one another's lives that simulates the companionship of parents as well as the influence and assistance of friends.

In India, the brother-sister sibling relationship is so cherished that a festival is held in observance called Raksha Bandhan.

At this celebration, the sister presents the brother with a woven bracelet to show their lasting bond even when they have raised their own families.

If an infant finds an older sibling to be responsive and sees him or her as a source of comfort, a supportive bond may form.

[11] Even as siblings age and develop, their relationships have considerable stability from infancy through middle childhood, during which positive and negative interactions remain constant in frequency.

Assuming an age gap of only a few years, this marks the time when the older sibling is beginning school, meeting peers, and making friends.

This shift in environment reduces both children's access to one another and depletes the older sibling's dependency on the younger for social support, which can now be found outside the relationship.

While young adolescents often provide one another with warmth and support,[14] this period of development is also marked by increased conflict[15] and emotional distance.

[19] Research on adolescents suggests positive sibling influences can promote healthy and adaptive functioning[22][23][24] while negative interactions can increase vulnerabilities and problem behaviours.

[25][26] Intimate and positive sibling interactions are an important source of support for adolescents and can promote the development of prosocial behaviour.

[28] When siblings reach adulthood, it is more likely that they will no longer live in the same place and that they will become involved in jobs, hobbies, and romantic interests that they do not share and therefore cannot use to relate to one another.

[33] It is difficult to make long-term assumptions about adult sibling relationships, as they may rapidly change in response to individual or shared life events.

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.

According to Kyla Boyse from the University of Michigan, each child in a family competes to define who they are as individuals and want to show that they are separate from their siblings.

[42] Sigmund Freud saw the sibling relationship as an extension of the Oedipus complex, where brothers were in competition for their mother's attention and sisters for their father's.

Formulated by Robert Trivers, parent-offspring theory is important for understanding sibling dynamics and parental decision-making.

[45] Alfred Adler saw siblings as "striving for significance" within the family and felt that birth order was an important aspect of personality development.

[46] In fact, psychologists and researchers today endorse the influence of birth order, as well as age and gender constellations, on sibling relationships.

"[48] Researchers today generally endorse this view, noting that parents can ameliorate this response by being vigilant to favoritism and by taking appropriate preventative steps.

[49] In fact, say researchers, the ideal time to lay the groundwork for a lifetime of supportive relationships between siblings is during the months prior to the new baby's arrival.

By 3 years old, 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.

[53] Yet, this effect is moderated by birth order: Older siblings report more or less the same level of conflict and rivalry throughout their childhood.

The decline in late adolescence makes sense from an evolutionary perspective: Once resources cease and/ or individuals have started their own reproductive career, it makes little sense for sibling to continue fierce competition over resources that do not affect their reproductive success anymore.

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.

Third, one must determine if there is an "aspect of victimization" to the behavior: rivalry tends to be incident-specific, reciprocal and obvious to others, while abuse is characterized by secrecy and an imbalance of power.

Innate sexual aversion between siblings forms due to close association in childhood, in what is known as the Westermarck effect.

[61] A historical marriage that took place between full siblings was that between John V, Count of Armagnac and Isabelle d'Armagnac, dame des Quatre-Vallées, c. 1450.

[63][64] In most cases, marriage of siblings in Roman Egypt was a result of the religious belief in divinity and maintaining purity.

Based on the model from the myth of Osiris and Isis, it was considered necessary for a god to marry a goddess and vice versa.

[66] According to Cavanagh Johnson & Friend (1995), between forty and seventy-five percent of children will engage in some sort of sexual behavior before reaching 13 years of age.