My Three Sisters

I have three sisters. Cute, funny, passionate, and kooky sisters. I love them. They make-a-me happy. They are protective, loving, and encouraging people. Recently, a group at BYU did a study on sisters. Here is the write up:


Sisters give siblings better mental health, study shows
New research also shows loving siblings promote good deeds more than loving parents
USA Today
CNN

Something about having a sister – even a little sister – makes 10- to 14-year-olds a bit less likely to feel down in the dumps.

That’s one of several intriguing findings from a new study on the impact siblings have on one another. Brigham Young University professor Laura Padilla-Walker is the lead author on the research, which also sorts out the influence of siblings and the influence of parents within families.

“Even after you account for parents’ influence, siblings do matter in unique ways,” said Padilla-Walker, who teaches in BYU’s School of Family Life. “They give kids something that parents don’t.”

Padilla-Walker’s research stems from BYU’s Flourishing Families Project and will appear in the August issue of the Journal of Family Psychology. The study included 395 families with more than one child, at least one of whom was an adolescent between 10 and 14 years old. The researchers gathered a wealth of information about each family’s dynamic, then followed up one year later. Statistical analyses showed that having a sister protected adolescents from feeling lonely, unloved, guilty, self-conscious and fearful. It didn’t matter whether the sister was younger or older, or how far apart the siblings were agewise.

Brothers mattered, too. The study found that having a loving sibling of either gender promoted good deeds, such as helping a neighbor or watching out for other kids at school. In fact, loving siblings fostered charitable attitudes more than loving parents did. The relationship between sibling affection and good deeds was twice as strong as that between parenting and good deeds.

“For parents of younger kids, the message is to encourage sibling affection,” said Padilla-Walker. “Once they get to adolescence, it’s going to be a big protective factor.”

Many parents justifiably worry about the seemingly endless fighting between siblings. The study found hostility was indeed associated with greater risk of delinquency. Yet Padilla-Walker also sees a silver lining in the data: The fights give children a chance to learn how to make up and to regain control of their emotions, skills that come in handy down the road.

“An absence of affection seems to be a bigger problem than high levels of conflict,” Padilla-Walker said.

BYU professor James Harper and BYU graduate Alex Jensen are co-authors on the new study. Jensen, now a Ph.D. candidate at Purdue, also co-authored the 2009 study showing a link between video games and poor relationships.

End of quote.



I hadn't thought of it before reading this write up, but there is something special about sisters and their ability to calm souls. We won't mention their ability to wreak havoc while smelling lovely (i.e., not actually reeking).

I'm not sure how else I would have learned about certain things like eyelash curlers or boondoggle. Who would have called me Ricky or Richie? (Of course, Mom always called me Skickie, which is the tandem pairing of my older brother's name with mine).

Who else would have forced me to sing in front of an audience for the first time? Who else would have let me live with her in her family's basement? Who else would know what "Shishcago, shiscago, a grogan grah, a grahgen grow" means? Who? None of you I assure you, unless you are one of my sisters.

I knew I loved and appreciated my sisters, but I had no idea that during my time as an adolescent boy that they were there bouying me up, helping me to feel good about myself and safe and welcome. Schmathie, Schmobin, Schmana, I love you.