Sibling relationships are an important context for development, but are often ignored in research and preventive interventions with youth and families. In childhood and adolescence siblings spend considerable time together, and siblings’ characteristics and sibling dynamics substantially influence developmental trajectories and outcomes. This paper reviews research on sibling relationships in childhood and adolescence, focusing on sibling dynamics as part of the family system and sibling influences on adjustment problems, including internalizing and externalizing behaviors and substance use. We present a theoretical model that describes three key pathways of sibling influence: one that extends through siblings’ experiences with peers and school, and two that operate largely through family relationships. We then describe the few existing preventive interventions that target sibling relationships and discuss the potential utility of integrating siblings into child and family programs.

We explored how parent gender, infant temperament, and coparenting dynamics worked together to shape mothers’ and fathers’ depressive symptoms, stress, and parental efficacy during early parenthood. We were interested in the coparenting relationship as a context that shapes how parents respond to their infant’s temperamental qualities. Participants were 139 couples who had recently given birth to their first child. Parent reports of temperament were collected when the infant was 4–8 months old and reports of coparenting and parent adjustment were collected at 13 months. Two-level random intercept models revealed interactions among temperament and coparenting, highlighting the family system as a context for how men and women adapt to their parenting role. There was little evidence for mother-father differences in these associations.

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Purpose A growing body of research documents the significance of siblings and sibling relationships for development, mental health, and behavioral risk across childhood and adolescence. Nonetheless, few well-designed efforts have been undertaken to promote positive and reduce negative youth outcomes by enhancing sibling relationships. Methods Based on a theoretical model of sibling influences, we conducted a randomized trial of Siblings Are Special, a group-format afterschool program for 5th graders with a younger sibling in 2nd through 4th grade, which entailed 12 weekly afterschool sessions and 3 Family Nights. We tested program efficacy with a pre-posttest design with 174 families randomly assigned to condition. In home visits at both time points we collected data via parent questionnaires, child interviews, and observer-rated videotaped interactions and teachers rated children’s behavior at school. Results The program enhanced positive sibling relationships, appropriate strategies for parenting siblings, and child self-control, social competence, and academic performance; program exposure was also associated with reduced maternal depression and child internalizing problems. Results were robust across the sample, not qualified by sibling gender, age, family demographics, or baseline risk. No effects were found for sibling conflict, collusion or child externalizing problems; we will examine follow-up data to determine if short-term impacts lead to reduced negative behaviors over time. Conclusions The breadth of the SAS program’s impact is consistent with research suggesting that siblings are an important influence on development and adjustment and supports our argument that a sibling focus should be incorporated into youth and family-oriented prevention programs.

This study examines long-term effects of a transition to parenthood program, Family Foundations, designed to enhance child outcomes through a strategic focus on supporting the coparenting relationship. Roughly 5 to 7 years after baseline (pregnancy), parent and teacher reports of internalizing and externalizing problems and school adjustment were collected by mail for 98 children born to couples enrolled in the randomized trial. Teachers reported significantly lower levels of internalizing problems among children in the intervention group compared with children in the control group and, consistent with prior findings at age 3, lower levels of externalizing problems for boys in the intervention group. Baseline level of observed couple negative communication moderated intervention effects for parent and teacher report of child adjustment and teacher report of school adjustment and adaptation. Effect sizes ranged from 0.40 to 0.98. Results indicate that relatively brief preventive programs for couples at the transition to parenthood have the capacity to promote long-term positive benefits for children's adjustment. Although we attended to missing data issues in several ways, high levels of attrition in this long-term follow-up study is a cause for caution.