Ever wondered why siblings fight?
Category News
Since the biblical fables of Cain and Abel, human beings have been fascinated with the relationships they share with their siblings. From the moment an older sibling witnesses the arrival of their new family member, children often grow what is perceived to be a natural rivalry with their brothers and sisters.
One of the more explored ideas of its origins stems from the idea that some children develop their sense of individuality by attempting to stand out from their siblings and reacting to them rather than mirroring them.
Ahead, we take a look at the story of human development through the foundational stages of our lives and attempt to establish whether sibling rivalry is a derivative of nature, nurture, a combination of the two, or something else entirely.
The modern family dynamic
A fundamental aspect in determining how we develop as individuals are formed at the foundational stage of our development. Considerations like the order in which you were born, the dynamic between siblings and your parents, and also whether or not you grew up with siblings at all plays a role in how we define our personality.
The broader field of psychology has gone into quite some depth in this genre of study and multiple meta-analyses have shown that factors such as personality traits, intelligence, and even health are affected by whether you were born first, middle, last or only child in the family.
Broken down further, personality traits would include (not limited to) aspects of introversion or extraversion, agreeableness, openness to the public, and other traits such as anxiety and neuroticism. These are determined by a combination of genetic inheritance and environmental factors.
Intuitively, one would immediately suspect that this would lead to siblings sharing more similar characteristics because both their genetics and the environments they grow up in(granted they both grow up together) are almost identical. But as the outcome bears out this is, apparently, not the case.
The spark in diverging personalities
Why, with all the same determining factors in place, do siblings tend to develop such diverging personalities? Without pointing to any hardline facts, a possible hypothesis was posed by author and psychologist, Dorothy Rowe.
In it, she broadly states that children make an almost conscious and deliberate effort to not be like their siblings. This seems to aid in developing personality and individuality. A child's desire to stand out from their siblings, and broader groups of children they interact with, is initially spurred by their most immediate perceived threat: Their siblings.
To a child, developing crucial skills like managing their jealousy whilst struggling to fight for their parent's attention is no more or less a constant fight for survival. This bears out both physically and mentally as siblings often hurl both fists and insults at each other with bitter and visceral enthusiasm.
A primal battle
Children with siblings become quickly aware of what aspects of their siblings make them successful in the eyes of peers and parents and strive to develop in ways that are as contrary as possible. The longer they spend together with the same people and environment the more they diverge from each other.
The reality of this situation seems to lead to a conclusion that is neither genetically nor environmentally based. The real secret to what defines our behaviours as not only children but also adults is found in our abilities to interpret our surroundings. In other words, the narratives we construct in our minds, how we perceive our experiences, and the fervour in which we defend ourselves against a threat to our nature.
Interpretation is defined by the extent to which the chemical makeup of our brain grants us the ability to make sense of the world. This is inherently framed by a subjective lens that is only ever informed by a limited amount of information. As such, people can quickly form unhealthy and repressive concepts about the world and its role in it. This explains some of the reasons we develop mental health issues like depression.
Interpreting sibling conflict
Understanding the reality that much of who we are is formed in the first ten years of our lives may seem a scary thought to parents. But the good news is that our children are different because they choose and desire to be so. A unique and truly unexplainable product of genetic make-up, upbringing, and an attempt at deriving meaning from it all.
So, the next time you see your children fight with each other, think about all the internal processes that are going on. Are they fighting to win something as trivial as who gets the remote? Or are they fighting to define the person they will one day become?
Author: LV Digital
