Question

Children tend to rely on their parents or siblings because they serve as a relevant source of support and protection in any situation and help their children adapt to environment. This theme becomes central in the article Are Sibling Relationships Protective? A Longitudinal Study by Gass, Jenkins and Dunn who look deeper into relationships between children and their siblings. Researchers confirm protective effect of positive relationships between children and their siblings as a result of their longitudinal study. The result of the research show that support of older family members positively influences children and moderates their daily stress. Even though relationships between mothers and their children serve as a relevant source of support and protection even if they are not of the best quality, parents are not the only people who support children and help them deal with difficult life situations. Relationships between siblings and children are extremely important in the early childhood because children cannot take care after themselves and their parents ask siblings to help them by staying with the child for some short period of time. In the middle childhood siblings mediate conflicts in family relationships and become the source of protection for children. Gass, Jenkins and Dunn say that relationships between children and siblings become even more protective when there is a conflict in the marriage or parents make a decision to divorce. Overall, the article provides a deep insight into relationships between children and their relatives confirming the thesis that their relationships are of protective nature and they matter a lot for creating supportive climate inside the family.
Work Cited
Gass, Krista, Jennifer Jenkins, and Judy Dunn. ” Are Sibling Relationships Protective? A Longitudinal Study.” Journal of child psychology and psychiatry48. 2 (2007): 167-175.