Why fighting with your sibling is good

The sheer quantity of time spent in one another’s presence between siblings is striking. By the time children are 11, they devote about 33% of their free time to their siblings–more time than they spend with friends, parents, teachers or even by themselves–according to a well-regarded Penn State University study published in 1996. Later research, published last year, found that even adolescents, who have usually begun going their own way, devote at least 10 hours a week to activities with their siblings–a lot when you consider that with school, sports, dates and sleep, there aren’t a whole lot of free hours left.

Laurie Kramer, professor of applied family studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has found that, on average, sibs between 3 and 7 years old engage in some kind of conflict 3.5 times an hour. Kids in the 2-to-4 age group top out at 6.3–or more than one clash every 10 minutes, according to a Canadian study. “Getting along with a sister or brother,” Kramer says dryly, “can be a frustrating experience.”

In essence, you become better at negotiating and you pick up better social skills. Adulthood, after all, is practically defined by peer relationships–the workplace, a marriage, the church building committee. As siblings, we may sulk and fume but by nighttime we still return to the same twin beds in the same shared room. Peace is made when one sib offers a toy or shares a thought or throws a pillow in a mock provocation that releases the lingering tension in a burst of roughhousing. Somewhere in there is the early training for the e-mail joke that breaks an office silence or the husband who signals that a fight is over by asking his wife what she thinks they should do about that fast-approaching vacation anyway. “Sibling relationships are where you learn all this,” says developmental psychologist Susan McHale of Penn State University. “They are relationships between equals.”

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