Siblings

Your siblings know how to push your buttons because they installed them. Does that ring true to you? If so, there’s a reason for that. In this episode on siblings, licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Cynthia Post explores what makes the sibling relationship unique. Cindy unpacks how birth order, environment, and family dynamics impact sibling relationships. Whether you’re best friends with your siblings or basic strangers, Cindy offers insight into how to navigate uncomfortable conversations and unavoidable conflict. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Couples and Connections, a conversation with me, Dr. Cynthia Post, a licensed clinical psychologist. And me, Teresa Sullivan Barger, a health journalist. We cover all things relationships. Conflict, loss, success, betrayal, change, you name it, we'll dive into it.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

So let's dive in. Today we're talking about siblings. Cindy, can you start by telling us what is the nature of sibling relationships and what makes them unique compared to other relationships?

SPEAKER_00 0:33

You know, sibling relationships, they are our first intimacy. And by intimacy, I mean, you know, they're the people we meet first in life. They're the people we fight with, they're the people we share with, they're the people we are closest to, that experience so many incredibly personal things with. They know us the best, they know us the longest. We have a very shared experience of life that is like no other. And and they're also the people who know us warts and all. Exactly. They know us every ounce of us, even the things we maybe wish they didn't know. It's too much, too late, because they do know. And that's just how it is. They know all about us.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yeah. So, Sunny, what happens in childhood that creates that bond, that sibling bond that makes that relationship different from all other relationships?

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Well, let's start at the beginning. The very first introduction is kind of an insult. I've seen this over and over and over again with siblings, where, you know, the first sibling, there they are, and all of a sudden they're told, okay, you're out of the limelight, scoot over, here comes somebody else. And it can feel very raw and insulting and hurtful. And then the parents are working like heck to try to figure out how to build the connection. So already there's a little bit of a teetering when they first meet each other. Like I've heard the older siblings say, Well, this was great. Does he go back now?

SPEAKER_01 2:08

But then there's also what's cool, I know that's true, but it's often the sibling, the older sibling that gets the baby to laugh first.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Oh, absolutely. No, there's nothing more dear, and they do come to really appreciate their sibling. I'm just talking about sort of the very basic immediate thing that happens.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

The assault to the self, like I'm the center of the universe. Oh, I'm not the center of the universe. And they can begin to understand themselves in the company of others, and that that company of others and that community at home is a healthy environment where we share space, we share the attention of mom and dad, we support one another. All those kind of ideals come into play. And it starts with that sibling relationship. And it does start with getting over this initial injury, I might call it. And it's an injury that everybody has.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

What are some of the kinds of things that young children are dealing with when they're growing up together? If they're, especially if they're like close in age.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

So, what I see is that sometimes maybe a parent is saying, Could you please help him or her do that? Sometimes uh one child serves the role of protector around other people. So maybe they're on the school bus and and some older kid is picking on them. I know my husband loves this story about his brother, where his brother, who is much older, basically, you know, let the kid who is sitting near my husband know that, you know what, that's my brother, and you can stop right now. He remembered that, that his brother absolutely took up for him, and that in that family, whatever they said to each other behind closed doors, nobody messes with somebody's brother in this family.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

When I was a little kid, when I was very small, my older brother, who was five years older, um, we were all out playing in the water and we got caught in a riptide. And I remember my sister and I held on to him, and he was sort of keeping us from getting pulled under until some adults could come and rescue us. Um that was a nice thing, and I I I remember that, but that relationship didn't stay so great when we got older. And so I just wonder what insight you have on things like that.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Well, you know, I just think that this speaks to the complexity of the sibling relationship, right? Like who hurts us most, sometimes our siblings, who helps us most, sometimes our siblings, who sort of appreciates and loves us in spite of A, B, C, D, whatever our siblings. So you can have had this amazing loving moment with your brother where you're like, oh, thank goodness he was here for us. And then later other things emerge or develop, and there can be distance or strife or difficulty that somehow doesn't get managed well, or you don't have a way of processing it together that's healthy and supportive of the connection. And let's be honest, a lot of people don't even think about these ideas. They don't think about we need to work on our sibling relationship. And so if there is tension, I'm not sure a lot of people even think about we have tension, we better process it or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Okay, now I'm gonna switch gears a tiny bit. One of the things I I find myself thinking a lot with my own family and with observing friends and and cousins, it's sometimes shocking to me that, you know, like my family, my siblings and I, that we were all raised by the same parents and we grew up in the same household because we are so, so different. And I and it's not just us, I've seen this across the way. And I know there's research about birth order and like how families change, like the experience of the first child is different from the experience of the last child. Could you just get into that a little bit and explain what's going on there?

SPEAKER_00 6:00

You know, it is true that different people kind of play different roles in a family. Family hero or dutiful one, peacemaker or stabilizing person, the jokester brings humor to the family and maybe isn't always as responsible. And all of these things also do contribute to different perspectives. That if you're the oldest child, how you see that family could be quite different than how you see the family as the youngest child. And even though you have some things in common, you have the same parents, you didn't have the same experiences. So, what was it like to be the oldest child in that family? When that oldest child later talks with the siblings about, well, here's what it was like for me, they might be saying, Wow, really? That's what it was like? It sure wasn't that way for me, even though the younger child had the same parents, those parents changed. They changed as parents, they changed as people, and also the personality of that child might have been different. So the way the parent related was different. And the fact that they'd already had more children could also help us understand the attitude that they present to that younger child or the the more relaxed nature perhaps of how they parent the younger child, that can be very different too.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Do you find that resentment that builds up in from childhood carries into adulthood? Because I I sometimes feel like families, at least in my house, that we we revert back sometimes to the childhood roles, and you can be completely successful in your life outside the family and and not super emotional, but then you get with your family and the worst, your worst comes out.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yes, I definitely think people revert to their old ways in the family. And some people say they regress and they become just like what they were like. And no matter what they've done to evolve and get, you know, get themselves together, maybe they've been to therapy, maybe they've just done a lot of self-reflection, but they get home and aren't they the same little person that they were so many years ago? And why or how that happens, it's like it's like an undertow that pulls you out to sea, and you just have to be aware, like, wow, I'm at home and I feel like that person again. And some of it's good and some of it's not good. And the parents can also revert. Why? Because it's so familiar and it's so old. It's like we remember those early experiences and we behave in the same old familiar way. So we all kind of fall into those old patterns if it's left unchecked. Some of it's not bad, but some of it might not be so helpful.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

So you said if it's left unchecked. I was gonna ask, like, well, if if this is something that happens, is there anything we can do about it?

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Or are we all doing try to be aware? Like, am I falling into the same regressive pull that goes on when I go home to be with family?

SPEAKER_01 8:54

So I I have a little thing that I do with my husband is I ask him to let me know if I'm reverting back to my worst self. And he will, but sometimes it feels like you can't help it. If you're in it and you're not liking who you are, can you suggest what people can do?

SPEAKER_00 9:10

You step away and you kind of let yourself observe what's happening and you say, How do I feel here? Is this going well for me? Yeah, not going so well. What do I want to do about it? You know what? I think I'm gonna go splash some cold water on my face, go to the kitchen and get myself something cold to drink, and just kind of let myself remember who I am now and think if I can bring that better part of myself that would help me feel more connected here. I'm not feeling connected, I'm feeling angry, I'm feeling hurt, I'm feeling whatever doesn't feel good that's so familiar. And I'm just gonna choose not to fall into the great abyss of those feelings.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

That's all sounds good. Does it make sense at all to if someone is in the moment pushing your buttons, does it make sense to discuss it with them while your people are together at a family gathering, or is it better to just keep your mouth shut and discuss it at another time? Again, not one right answer.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

It depends on who your family is. Look, if you come from a family where people just do that stuff, great. But a lot of families don't. And a lot of families, if you did call someone out that way, they might just get really defensive and it might not go very well. So I think you have to know your family and you have to know yourself. Are you skillful in this way? Can you speak your mind and say what you need to say in a, you know, effective and skillful way? And if not, or if you're not sure of how you feel, less is better. Know that there's something going on that you might want to think about on your own. And maybe you want to talk with that person offline later because often the intensity of being around the whole family is a hard place to bring it up. But it really varies, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

So, Cindy, what if you're using some tools that you've learned to use when you're in a stressful situation, when someone's upsetting you? Like maybe it's taking deep breaths, maybe it's walking away, things that you've learned to do when you get activated. And then when you do these things, for example, maybe walk away, your family members say, What are you doing? Why are you walking away? And and they don't appreciate you doing the things that you're trying to do to take care of your own mental health and avoid a blow up.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

I talk about this a lot with families, I mean, with with people, the fact that people have a pull, a magnetic pull to want to protest their past. They want to protest their past. But the thing is, when you protest your past with your past family members, they might be like, wait, what are you doing? Like you're breaking all the rules. I don't want to hear all this from you. And they'll be like, Oh, could you please stop? Like, I don't know what you're doing there, but I don't want to hear it. So it might not feel good. And so it might be a time that you just want to kind of notice, right now I'm watching a grade B movie. I'm not loving how this scene is playing out. I know I'm not comfortable. I know I need to check in with myself and take really good care of myself here, but it may not be the time that I want to try on my new self for all to see in this particular setting. This may not be the best time or the best way to address these parts of me that I do want to protest that originated in the past.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Okay, so Cindy, we're gonna next talk about tension. And I know that there are many ways that tension can show up in sibling relationships. But I guess I'll start with in my family, I was one of six kids. I was a middle child, and I definitely felt like I never got enough attention. And then there's also people maybe who were two kids in a family, and maybe it was very clear if there was a favorite. So can you just talk about what are some of the things that can cause tension in sibling relationships and what to do about it?

SPEAKER_00 12:57

So what occurs to me is it's funny, you know, when you say you never felt like you got attention, I just think that's a universal. I think that whether there are two siblings or 20 siblings, everybody seems to say, I never got enough attention. And they also say, Oh, and you were the favorite. So it's just so common that everybody seems to think somebody else other than them was the favorite. No, I wasn't. You were the favorite. And so we also all notice the treatment of the other, whoever that other may be. And you're only understanding part of a picture, you only understand that engagement there, but no doubt you're missing so much about why the parent reacts to the child that way. What informs the attitude of the parent at the moment? So many different factors. Um, for instance, if one child is has more challenges with school, then if the parent is spending a lot of time with them around school, the person who's great at school might not get much attention around school. Well, they're not getting much attention because in this case, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. So the parent is trying to encourage them and focus on them, not because they love them more, but because they're trying to urge them on with something that might be really hard. And it can go the other way. And the other way is they're saying, I feel suffocated. My mother is constantly talking to me about my work. I wish she'd leave me alone, like she leaves my brother alone. Why does she always focus on me? She never focuses on him. So people can be upset about the very same thing in opposite directions. And then they're mad at their sibling about it. Like, well, what is it about you? Why do you get it all? Or what is it about you? Why does she leave you alone? And so it's being pointed between the siblings, and somehow the parents aren't the focus here. The siblings become the focus sometimes in this moment. And that can be one of the really big sources of tension.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

So we talked about how we have these resentments that build up. Well, how do these little nuggets of injury contribute to the ongoing sibling relationships as children age?

SPEAKER_00 15:04

So it of course it varies, but I think it would be fair to say if these things aren't talked about or understood in some way, they get carried. And then it gets carried along into late adolescence, into adulthood. And then you continue to notice, oh, your brother is getting this, but what are you getting? And maybe, maybe it does get sorted and people do talk about it, but if they don't make a point to talk about it in some way, it can just still sit there as an underlying resentment. So can you tell us how do you talk about it? Well, I think it would be fair to say if people are open, you know, I have been sitting with a resentment from childhood for years, and maybe you have too, but I feel like some of our resentments come between us, and I don't want that. I want to be closer to you. I'm sad that we have these old injuries that we're still dragging along with us, and I don't know, I'm done with it. How about you? Can we just snip it away and talk? But to do that, there'd need to be a kind of safety in the relationship that would make people feel like they can do that, and the listener knows better whether they feel that safety in their family.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Okay, so I can say knowing my sister, she would not have been comfortable with that level of frankness. Yes. But but she was the kind of person who actions meant more than words. So I just made an effort to befriend her. I think I just showed her that I valued her because I think if I had tried to have a really open conversation when we were young, it wouldn't have worked. Later on, it would have been fine. But when at that younger stage, it'd say college age stage. So I guess what do you do?

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Just trust your gut. I think your your instinct there was the right one. You knew your sister well enough to know that having some whole big process wasn't going to be helpful, but showing up with your sister in some way, just literally showing up and being with her, was the way that she was going to feel valued. So you knew her well enough to know how to kind of step around whatever some of the old injury is that might still be causing problems sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Okay, so what if maybe you do try to have an open conversation because you think that there's another sibling who might be receptive? I mean, if it works, it works, and then you don't have a problem. But what if it doesn't work?

SPEAKER_00 17:25

I suppose one has to stop and think about it. Like, okay, I just tried to connect, that didn't work. So then I'm talking now about a basic concept about connection in life, which is attunement. And attunement cuts across all relationships, it cuts across friendship, it cuts across um siblings, how you relate to your parents, how you relate to your children. Every relationship we have, attunement is very important. And by attunement, I mean being aware of the other. So if you try something and it falls flat, what did you just learn? Didn't go well, not gonna do that again, or certainly not that way, back to the drawing board. So with your sister, you already knew at the get-go, I am not gonna come up to her and have a frank conversation. That'll be way too much. Instead, what I'm gonna do is show up. I'm just gonna be here with her and be your buddy, and that'll let her know that I'm really with her and that I care. And if you are gonna do something out of the frame of what you would typically do with your sibling, you might want to say, okay, I'm gonna do something really weird, like way out of bounds for us. I want to ask you a question, and I'm hoping you'll make room to hear something that I have to say. Would you be willing to try and experiment? You might try something like that. And they might be like, yeah, no, don't think so. Or they might say, sure, and then they might still look at you like you've got three heads. And so if those things happen, you say, Oh, well, I just thought I'd try something, but that's okay, no worries. And you leave it alone, and you just kind of go back to the drawing board and you think about, well, that didn't work very well. So, how else can I work at making a connection with this person since that didn't go well? What else could I do?

SPEAKER_01 19:16

So let's say you have a sibling or siblings where you've tried showing up for them and you've tried to build a relationship with them and you're feeling like it's a one-way street, or they're not putting any effort, they don't really seem to care whether they have a relationship with you or not. Is it just that you have to rethink how you're approaching them? And maybe the problem is that you're not trying the right way, or is it that at some point you have to know when it's time to give it up and just accept that you're not going to be close?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

I would say yes and yes. I think that understanding that there may be a limit on how far you can go with this person, and that sometimes making room to accept that there are different levels of connection with someone can be very helpful and actually can make more room for what might be possible with them. When you're like on a one-way track and you've got to get to that destination and you're determined you're gonna get there, and I'm gonna be close to my sibling, it puts pressure there. And when you can make room, like, you know what, I might have to accept I'm not gonna be that close and I'm not gonna keep knocking on the door when no one's home, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna entirely give up on ever having any relationship with my sibling. Maybe I'm just gonna look for the good. Maybe I'm gonna be like have two channels, neutral or positive. And I'm not gonna be like in their face trying to connect with them all the time, but by the same token, I'm maybe not gonna give up on them. But that making sure you're okay with you first is also really, really important in this. That you don't want to be working, working, working on this at a cost to yourself where it feels unhealthy to you. If you're starting to feel really bad engaging with this person, you do have to be mindful of that. And that does need to be something where if you're noticing that you're feeling worse and worse in this person's presence, you may need to back up a bit and give yourself a minute to catch your breath and review and think about how do you want to be involved in the future. Or maybe not, you don't have to be talking so broadly or so permanently, but just for the foreseeable future. Maybe you want to take a little bit of a step back if it's been a really hurtful period. The ironic part is that sometimes taking that pressure off can make room for good things to happen because you've kind of let go of it and you're remembering, like we all do from time to time, we don't have control over other people. They have to figure out where they are, we have to figure out where we are, and as much as we might want something, letting go of it and letting them make room for what do they want, how do they feel, when they can feel that from us, that can give them the space they need to think. Little bit more about how to move forward.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Well, thanks, Cindy. I feel like I've learned a lot and you've given me a lot to think about. And I think you've also even taught me some things that will help me with my sibling relationships. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Thank you, Teresa. I really think that if people can remember to do two things. One, make room for themselves, and two, make room for the other. There's so much we don't understand about what goes on for other people, and there's so much we don't even understand about what's going on inside ourselves at any given moment. And so when things don't feel good, just give yourself a beat, give yourself some grace, and give the people around you grace and realize that you share a lot and giving each other grace can go a long, long way.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Next week we'll be talking about step families. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. New episodes drop every Friday.