Sibling Report

The word “sib­ling” has many dif­fer­ent mean­ings, depend­ing on who you talk to. You can find sib­lings every­where, whether they’re broth­ers or sis­ters, older or younger, or both.

Peo­ple view their brother(s) and/or sister(s) dif­fer­ently. Some like to hang out with their sib­lings; oth­ers dread the thought, for they view their younger fam­ily member(s) as annoy­ing. How­ever, there really shouldn’t be any rea­son for this line of think­ing. When you really think about it, most of the things that annoy peo­ple about their sib­lings are just things that chil­dren (or, teenagers) do.

It can be extremely(seemingly impos­si­ble) to get along with your kin. They seem to get on your nerves a lot. But, also, you get on theirs; it seems like a never end­ing bat­tle. How­ever, there can be an end to the fight­ing. Granted, you may be the one that “waves the white flag”, so to speak. But it can be done. You could try such sug­ges­tions as follows:

1) Start by talk­ing with your sibling(s). Get­ting to know them bet­ter could very well be the first step to a good friend­ship, as well as a bet­ter rela­tion­ship overall.

2) Try act­ing kinder. Matthew 7:12 states: “All things, there­fore, that you want men to do to you, you also must like­wise do to them.” That state­ment includes your sib­lings. It’s not always the eas­i­est thing to act with kind­ness, espe­cially toward the peo­ple you view as “lit­tle mon­sters”.  But by giv­ing it a try, you may find that one act to be ben­e­fi­cial in the long run.

If you’re an older sib­ling, like I am, you may find it easy to boss your younger kin around. It may give you a sense of power, but it gives your brother(s) and/or sister(s) a rea­son to hate you. You may not like them a lot, but do you really want any of your fam­ily hat­ing you?

Break­ing the bar­ri­ers sep­a­rat­ing you and your sib­lings may not be easy, but it is a neces­sity. Learn­ing how to inter­act with your younger fam­ily mem­bers can help you to inter­act with oth­ers as well.

There are some days when you can’t live with your sib­lings, and oth­ers when you can’t live with­out them. They’re going to get on your nerves from time to time, and you’ll get on theirs as well. I believe that’s part of the deal. How­ever, it doesn’t have to be all bad. If you fol­low the sug­ges­tions in this essay, your life, the lives of your par­ents, and the lives of your sib­lings will improve immensely.