The birth of a younger sibling can be a traumatic event for the
older child. Unquestionably it places increased demands on parents
and causes important changes in the inner balance of the family.
Childrearing manuals are full of advice about how to get through
this difficult time. But until now such advice has been based more
on clinical guesswork than on direct observation of what really
happens to families when a sibling is born.
With the arrival of "Siblings," this gap in our knowledge is
admirably filled. Judy Dunn and Carol Kendrick studied forty
families for a period of approximately one year starting shortly
before the birth of a second child. Some families, they found,
weather the storm much better than others, and their book examines
the full catalog of factors that can make the difference. There
are, for instance, parenting styles that ease the impact on the
older child, improve relations between siblings, and generally make
life easier for the entire family. But there are also differences
among children in such characteristics as sex, age, and
temperament, all of which have a major influence totally beyond
parental control.
Despite the undeniable stress involved, Dunn and Kendrick
demonstrate that the advent of a sibling can be a stimulus for real
cognitive and emotional growth on the part of the older child. No
longer "the baby," the child must try to deal with a newcomer whose
attempts to communicate are necessarily rudimentary. Siblings shows
how the elder child's efforts to understand the baby can form the
basis for a loving bond of extraordinary durability.
A sensitive and informative book, "Siblings" takes psychology
into an area of family life and child development that has long
received too little attention.
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