"I'm really good with my hands and I hit him" - Children's descriptions of harming siblings and friends

The capacity for animosity between child siblings is legendary. Psychologist Judy Dunn has described the "devastating lack of inhibition". Stephen Bank and Michael Kahn wrote about a relationship "emotionally charged with murderous intention." For a new study, Holly Recchia asked 34 seven-year-olds, 33 eleven-year-olds and 34 sixteen-year-olds (all with a younger sibling) to describe a specific time that they caused harm or upset to their sibling and a specific occasion that they caused harm or upset to a friend. There were clear differences in the kind of scenarios involving siblings or friends. Harms inflicted on friends were usually relationship-based, seen as less foreseeable, often unfortunate, unintended and frequently involved failing to dedicate sufficient time to a friend. For instance, one eleven-year-old girl described how her friend had become mad with her because she'd spent so much time doing "athletic things" with a sporty friend and her gang. "Kelsey got mad at me and thought I hated her ... cuz I wasn't playing with her. And so then we were talking on Facebook and I told her why and we, we hanged out after." In contrast, harms inflicted on siblings were often related to explicitly offensive behaviour, including teasing and quarrels over sharing of belongings. Many scenarios involved cycles of coercion and the descriptions frequently had a ruthless tone. "I called him a stupid, mean, nasty little elf-brother! He IS pretty short," said another eleven-yea...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Source Type: blogs