managing disputes

So how do siblings affect the family dynamic?

  Articles in various newspapers last autumn announced that recent research has suggested that only children are happier than those with siblings. Gundi Knies, from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, analysed the ‘Understanding Society’ data and concluded that the findings indicated ‘the fewer siblings children have, the happier they are.’ However it became clear from the rest of the article that in many cases this was based on families with large numbers of sibling children and families where a great deal of bullying took place. (You can read these reports in Articles) Can sibling relationships be beneficial or detrimental to the children concerned? Research in this area suggests that siblings are an important source for learning social and emotional skills. Socialization is seen to occur largely in the home through interaction with parents and siblings. Acceptable social roles are learned along with acceptable [...]

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