Article summary with Siblings’ direct and indirect contributions to child development by Brody - 2004

How do siblings influence child and adolescent development?

• Interactions with older siblings promote young children’s language and cognitive development, their understanding of other people’s emotions and perspectives, and their development of antisocial behavior.
• Parents’ experiences with older children contribute to their rearing of younger children which in turn contributes to the younger children’s development.
• Siblings may receive differential treatment from their parents. Under some conditions this is associated with emotional and behavioral problems in children.

How does being an older sibling directly contribute to child development?

Older siblings can teach new cognitive concepts and language skills to their younger siblings in early childhood. This is a mutually beneficial process and not only the younger siblings benefit from this. The older siblings learn to take someone else’s perspective, improve their reading skills, become better caregivers, and learn to balance their self-concerns with others’ needs. However, when the demands are too high, it can negatively effect the child's development by interfering with homework, involvement in school activities, and behavioral adjustment.

How does having an older sibling directly contribute to child development?

Siblings relationships are characterized by a balance of nurturance and conflict. Children who experience a healthy balance with older siblings become sensitive to other people’s feelings and beliefs and have more positive peer relationships. In the same way that a younger child can learn a lot of good things from their older siblings, they can also learn a lot of bad traits and behaviors. A specific finding is older siblings’ ability to buffer younger siblings from the negative effects of family turmoil. Younger siblings whose older siblings provide them with emotional support during family conflicts show fewer behavioral and emotional problems than children who did not receive that support from their older siblings.

In which ways can siblings indirectly influence their development?

Parents’ experiences with older children influence their expectations of their younger children and the child-rearing strategies that they believe to be effective. Experiences with older children contribute to parents’ expectations about their younger children’s likelihood of experiencing behavioral problems, like using drugs or rebellious behavior. Teachers, when they have an older sibling in their class, develop expectations regarding the younger child’s academic ability and behavior even before that younger child becomes their student. Parents and teachers translate these expectations into their parenting and teaching practices, influencing the younger child’s beliefs about their own abilities, choice of friends, and interests.

What is basking?

Basking is a phenomenon in which one’s psychological well-being increases because of the accomplishments of persons to whom one is close. Research shows that academically and socially competent older siblings contribute to an increase in their mothers’ self-esteem and a decrease in their mothers’ depressive symptoms. These positive changes in the mothers’ psychological functioning is related to their use of adjustment-promoting parenting practices with their younger children. These practices forecast high levels of self-control, low levels of behavior problems, and fewer depressive symptoms in the younger siblings.

How can parental differential treatment negatively effect a child’s development?

Children use the behavior of their parents to interpret the extent to which they are loved, included, rejected, or excluded. Children who believe that they receive less warmth and more negative treatment from their parents than their older siblings, have lower levels of self-worth, show poor emotional functioning and have more behavioral problems. Differential parental treatment is only associated with poor child adjustment when the quality of the child’s individual relationship with the parent(s) is distant and negative.