Influence of parents’ strategies for Dealing with sibling Conflict on Children's sibling relationship: The mediating role of parent-child relationship

Abstract

A total of 1368 children aged 3-6 with siblings and their parents were selected as research objects by convenient sampling method. The sibling relationship scale, the parental strategies for dealing with sibling conflict scale and the parent-child relationship scale were used as research tools to explore the influence of parents’ strategies for resolving sibling conflict on sibling relationship. Meanwhile, according to the family system theory, Investigate the mediating effect of parent-child relationship. The results showed that: (1) Parents’ strategies to deal with sibling conflict are positively correlated with both sibling relationship and parent-child relationship, and parent-child relationship has a significant mediating effect; (2) Child-centered strategies were positively correlated with sibling intimacy and negatively correlated with sibling conflict; (3) Parental control strategies were significantly positively correlated with sibling conflict, sibling relative status, and parent-child conflict; (4) Passive non-intervention strategies were significantly negatively correlated with parent-child intimacy and sibling intimacy, and were significantly positively correlated with parent-child conflict and sibling conflict, but not correlated with sibling relative status. This study reveals that parents’ strategies to deal with sibling conflict affect sibling relationship, and the mediation mechanism of parent-child relationship can provide empirical evidence for families to reasonably deal with sibling conflict.