Brothers and Sisters: We Need Each Other
How can people who grow up in the same household, who have a reasonable childhood with the same loving parents, wind up as strangers in adult life? One in three adult siblings describes their relationship as rivalrous or distant. As parents get ill and die, the sibling relationship is the longest bond left to remind of us of who we are when we didn't have anything else such as a job or partner to represent or define us. This shared family history provides life's longest lasting relationship, often outlasting parents by 20 or 30 years. As parents, grandparents and responsible adults in the lives of children, how can we foster stronger ties among the siblings with whom we are actively involved?
As responsible adults we must reclaim from our children the alpha role. This is the role of compass, protector, orienter and director in the classroom or the family. A recent parenting consultant on Roger's Cable Television espoused that when young children are disagreeing, parents must make it clear to the children (in this case ages 2 & 3) that the "squabble is between them and the parent must never step in to assume responsibility". This is nonsense: it is up to the parent, the teacher, the child care provider to the keep children safe! When adult caretakers are not available to help with problem solving, children are driven to make their world feel right (safe) on their own and adults have lost their innate power to teach, to direct and to cultivate child development.
We can keep our children safe, not by controlling their environment but by keeping their heart's safe; by making sure the relationship with the adult is the most important relationship the child has. If we make the relationship with the brother or sister more important, there is no chance of shielding them from the toxicity of a disagreement or a life of severed emotional ties.
Remember that children do not naturally get along. We can place a protective emotional layer over each child. Within that shield of safety, the child has the room to develop a sense of mastery over him/herself. A time that is free of screens and free of sibling interaction cultivates the desire to explore and to be curious independently of the influence of others. As a child gains self-mastery, knows who s/he is as a separate person, it is more likely that s/he will be able to get along with others including siblings.
Difficult sibling relationships evolve from: the emotional unavailability of parents; parental favouritism towards siblings; disregard for siblings' personal and psychological space and low levels of parental acceptance and involvement.
Attachment-based developmental parenting/teaching in early life cultivates the soil in which siblings as children find their desire to care. How we are with our brothers and sisters is how we will be to the world. We relive what happened in our families with partners, bosses and friends. Using the lens of attachment we can see who we are, who our siblings are and remain in "right relationship" until death do us part.
November 1, 2008
Copyright, 2010 by Susan Dafoe-Abbey. Permission to use this material, either in English or in translation, for educational purposes is hereby granted.
