When the Bully Is a Sibling
Siblings have been bickering and trading blows since the time of Cain and Abel. The torment and fighting that is often shrugged off as normal sibling rivalry may not always be so benign.
New research suggests that even when there are no physical scars, aggression between siblings can inflict psychological wounds as damaging as the anguish caused by bullies at school. The findings offer an unusual look at an area of family life that has rarely been studied. This is partly because fighting among brothers and sisters is widely considered a harmless rite of passage.
But ordinary skirmishes over the remote or joystick are one thing. Experts say, chronic physical and verbal abuse, particularly when it is directed at one sibling, is another. The new study, which involves thousands of children and adolescents around the country, finds that those who were under attack or feeling a threat by a sibling have higher levels of depression, anger and anxiety.
Corinna Jenkins Tucker, the lead author of the study, says that behaviors among siblings that cross the line into abuse deserve more recognition.
“Historically, the general thinking has been that it’s not a big deal, and sometimes it’s even a good thing,” – Dr. Tucker, “There appears to be different norms of acceptability. Peer aggression is unacceptable, but it’s not the same for siblings.”
Dr. Tucker says that the growing number of programs and public service announcements focus on stopping bullying and violence in schools. However, and other settings should include a focus on sibling relationships as well.
“The aggression among siblings should be just as seriously as that among peers,”
While normal rivalries with siblings can encourage healthy competition, the line between healthy relations and abuse blurs. This is occurring when one child is consistently the victim of another. The aggression is causing harm and humiliation. Caffaro, a clinical psychologist, ” Parents who fail to intervene, play favorites or give their children labels that sow divisions can inadvertently encourage conflict.
Nationwide, sibling violence is by far the most common form of family violence. It occurs four to five times as frequently as spousal or parental child abuse. According to some studies, nearly half of all children have been punched, kicked or bitten by a sibling. Roughly 15% have been repeatedly attacked. But even the most severe incidents are underreported. Families are loath to acknowledge them. Families are dismissing slaps and punches as horseplay and bullying as boys just being boys.
“Our society minimizes child-on-child violence in general,” “We have these ideas that if you’re hurt by a child it’s less injurious than if you’re hurt by an adult, but the data does not support that.”
In the new report, Dr. Tucker and her colleagues study 3,600 children using data from the National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence. This collects information on children and teenagers under 17. Previous studies of sibling violence are typically small or focus on specific forms of aggression.
But the new research with children and their parents, measure the impact of a broad range of violence. It looks at physical assaults with and without weapons and the destruction or stealing of property. Additionally, it looks at threats, name-calling and other forms of psychological intimidation.
The researchers also measure the same types of behaviors perpetrated by peers outside the home and accounted for them in their findings.This is in order to tease apart the specific toll of sibling violence.
Over all, a third of the children in the study report victimization by a brother or sister in the previous year. Their scores were higher on measures of anxiety, depression and anger.
Catherine Bradshaw, an expert on bullying says the study was impressive in its scope and scale. She states that it all types of sibling aggression, from mild to severe, relate to worse mental health.
“Parents at times might be thinking that their kids can fight it out or that a little bit of victimization might not be so bad. ” “But these findings suggest that the threshold is pretty low. It’s not just the rough stuff you have to keep an eye out for.”
Dr. Caffaro says that the effects of sibling abuse often continue into adulthood. Over the years he has treated patients who struggled with emotional issues and sabotaged themselves in their careers because of repeated humiliation they experienced at the hands of a brother or sister.
“It can erode their sense of identity and their self-esteem,” he said.