Parental Perceptions of Children's Sibling Relationships

Abstract

Helping young siblings to get along with one another is one of the most challenging aspects of parenthood. Although the volume of research on sibling relations continues to grow, much of this research does not address patents' real concerns about how to help siblings develop positive relationships (Dunn, 1987; Schachter & Stone, 1987). Furthermore, although many resources are available to help parents reduce conflict and rivalry among their children (e.g., Ames, 1982; Bode, 1991; Faber & Mazlish, 1987; McDermott, 1980; Reit, 1985; Strean & Freeman, 1988; Weiss, 1981), most have not been empirically validated. Additionally, most resources have been developed without the benefit of a systematic assessment of what family members consider to be the most desirable and problematic features of children's sibling relationships. As the effectiveness of an intervention is likely to be enhanced when it is consistent with the needs and desires of the target population, this lack of parental input represents a significant limitation of the applied work to date. Thus, a major objective of the present study was to systematically assess parents' appraisals of the quality of their children's sibling relationships. The absence of a systematic needs assessment has left us with some basic dilemmas about how intervention and prevention programs for sibling relationship problems should be focused. For example, the issue of whether parents are most disturbed by the presence of frequent conflict or the lack of closeness and warmth between their children remains an empirical question. This issue is important because most of the currently available resources emphasize the reduction or elimination of sibling conflict and rivalry, while devoting almost no attention to the facilitation of prosocial sibling relationships (Kramer & Loula, 1992). In fact, the emphasis on the reduction of sibling conflict may be inappropriate given recent empirical evidence that experiences with non-aggressive sibling conflict may actually promote social development. For example, developmental advances in identity formation (Shantz & Hobart, 1989), negotiating and managing conflicts (Hartup, Laursen, Stewart, & Eastenson, 1988; Vandell & Bailey, 1992), and in tolerating negative affect (Katz, Kramer, & Gottman, 1992) have been linked with non-aggressive sibling conflict. Thus, the push to eliminate or greatly reduce all types of sibling conflict may be misguided given the significance of non-destructive conflict for children's social development. In addition, we currently know very little about how parental concerns may change as their children develop. Siblings may face different issues regarding their relationship as they mature, and yet the advice offered in most resources is not tailored to children of particular ages. Recent research suggests that several features of children's sibling relationships do change in accordance with development. For example, Buhrmester and Furman (1990) found that both warmth and conflict among siblings decreased from third to twelfth grade. There are also changes in the characteristics of sibling conflict. Young siblings' conflicts center primarily around objects and possessions, whereas conflicts among adolescents are often multidimensional and have no single cause (Raffaelli, 1992; Vandell & Bailey, 1992). Thus, a second objective of the present study was to systematically describe parents' concerns about their children's sibling relationships with respect to children's developmental levels. This study focused on the early stages of sibling relationship development (i.e., siblings aged 14 months to 8 years). As most of the research on children's sibling relationships has emphasized maternal rather than paternal influences (see Brody, Stoneman, & McCoy, 1992; Brody, Stoneman, McCoy, & Forehand, 1992; Volling & Belsky, in press, for exceptions), very little is known about whether mothers and fathers share similar concerns about their children's sibling relationships. …