Sibling and pet relationships: links with adversity and adjustment in pre-adolescence

Abstract

Although children view pets (i.e. companion animals) as family members, child-pet relationships are rarely studied alongside other family relationships. In a socially diverse sample of 77 British families with pre-adolescent children (M age = 12.14 years, SD = 0.29 years), we examine how the quality of children’s relationships with their pets and siblings vary in the context of adversity, and controlling for parent-child relationship quality, predict their behavioral adjustment. Children reported on the quality of their relationships and mothers rated child adjustment. Mother, child, and researcher ratings were combined to construct a multi-informant index of adversity. Child-pet positivity differed by adversity level for girls (but not boys) and, in low adversity contexts, was associated with greater concurrent prosocial behavior. Sibling positivity was unrelated to adversity, but had a buffering effect, in that adversity only predicted increases in problem behaviors over 12 months for those with low sibling positivity.