The Dynamics of Sibling Relationships

Dr. Ed West interviews a family with seven children, ages 1 to 12, and explains the importance of sibling relationships.  Dr. West discusses adoption and how it is viewed from a child's perspective. One of the children is adopted.

History of Adoption

In this article, only 18 percent of transracial adopted children had conflicts between them and their non-adopted siblings. Also, they have positive relationships between their family and siblings.

The 5 siblings are adopted children from Dave and Kristine. Even though they know they were adopted and came from different countries, the whole family is happy.

This study used adopted and biological children from the National Survey of Families and Households. Study of the links between marital conflict, divorce, and children’s behavior problems. Comparison between the family environmental model, the genetic model, and the children effects model while comparing between adopted and biological children.  The article uses these to figure out the effect of marital status on children, which could ultimately have effects on how they develop other relationships.

Raul R. Amato and Jacob E. Cheadle

Explores the ways in which adoption can affect sibling relationships in various forms. Used 374 children who were placed in adoption in Wales. Used questionnaires that were completed by the parents and some were interviewed. This article takes into accounts that sibling relationships can class due to rivalry, negativity, hostility, aggression, and the parenting practices that can attribute to sibling relationships adopted and biological. It is important to remember that children are being placed into an environment that they are not use to; this can cause anxiety, fear, and abandonment that can affect the child’s overall sense of self. Within the family dynamic the relationships between siblings can be influenced by these senses of self and where they belong within the family. Within the family the relationship between children in the adoption system and their own biological siblings is also important, these siblings could be ones who were not adopted with them. It encourages communication between these siblings as well as open communication with their adoptive siblings.

The author said that the sibling relationship of young child (0-7 ages) is different between first born or second born and gender. First, the first born children act like a teacher to the second children. They teach family rule, lessons or something which they know to younger and they tend to imitate. On the other hands, the second children are more likely to play their siblings. The age gap is another cause of formatting sibling relationships. If siblings have a wide age gap, the first phenomenon has a more strong possibility to occur. Second, gender also forms sibling relationships. Girls are more likely to teach something to their siblings and boys are likely to focus play with theirs. Moreover, same-sex siblings have rival relationships than mixed-sex siblings. It is not only for biological siblings but also adopted siblings are same.