Sibling Rivalry at the Early Learning Centre
Sibling rivalry is a condition that has been known and written about for thousands of years. Yet it remains only partly understood.
For the early Learning Centre, Hilbert or elsewhere, this issue sometimes is encountered in mixed-age classes where siblings may be together for short periods.
The Early Learning Centre Hilbert – sibling rivalry definition
Although the term ‘sibling rivalry’ was coined as recently as 1941, the concept of such goes back to the beginnings of recorded history with stories such as Romulus and Remus or Cain and Abel.
The description of sibling rivalry is complex, as it may take many forms. In some families, it is seemingly entirely absent. In others, it may exist amongst several siblings, even those separated by some years of age. It also isn’t restricted to young children and may continue well into adult life.
Some studies say it becomes most pronounced and potentially damaging between the ages of 10-16 but is also commonplace at much younger ages.
It is often described as the tendency for one sibling (or more) to deliberately set out to hinder, criticise and cause physical or emotional harm to another sibling for no obvious logical reason other than the desire to cause such harm. Some siblings behave in appalling ways to their brother or sister when such behaviours would be otherwise entirely out of character.
Contrary to some myth, sibling rivalry can arise even where one or more of the children involved are not necessarily directly blood-related, such as adoptees. It also happens irrespective of sex, although actual physical fighting past young ages is more commonly found in same-sex contexts of sister versus sister or brother versus brother.
Causes
The conventional explanations of sibling rivalry usually involve theories of aggressive competition for parental attention and approval plus seeking to obtain a greater share of family resources. A variation on this theme is jealousy, typically involving an older child’s resentment at the birth of a younger sibling, which inevitably dilutes and redirects parental time and focus.
Study evidence supports these theories to some extent and similar behaviours can be presumed to be seen in many other species, where the young will often fiercely and aggressively compete to establish primacy under their parents’ overall authority. In some contexts, that may directly increase or decrease an offspring’s survival prospects.
Some studies have also indicated that this is more commonplace in families where:
- one or more of the children are, perhaps paradoxically, intellectually gifted;
- the parents do not welcome or engage in calm analysis, discussion and compromise when problems and conflicts arise but instead, make arbitrary and high emotion-driven decisions relating to outcomes and who was right or wrong.
Spillover into the early learning centre environment
Where sibling rivalry exists already in a family, there is a fair chance it will be carried into the education environment where the siblings share an early learning centre. That use above of ‘fair chance’ though indicates that, sometimes, such rivalries seem to disappear the moment the children are outside of their home environment.
Should it arise, most establishments and their fully trained personnel will be skilled in handling and quickly resolving conflict wherever it arises and over whatever cause.
Our approach is simple. It involves a calm and reassuring discussion of what has caused the problem and a friendly agreement of what needs to be done in future to avoid a recurrence. This approach, accompanied by a little ‘time out’ to help tempers cool, is usually 100% effective in remedying sibling rivalry clashes in the early learning centre.
