Is Bullying Learned at Home?

“Mum, my brother is teasing me!” “Dad, my brother won’t let me use the computer!”

Fights and quarrels are quite frequent in each family and one of the main efforts of parents is to maintain peace between siblings. Do these fights matter? How much can these disputes and conflicts help siblings to learn skills in social relationships or, alternatively, enhance aggression and negative behaviors such as bullying?

Having a sibling is frequently considered a resource for children’s development (1, 2). In fact, positive interactions as well as conflicts and disputes with a brother or a sister provide a natural context in which children can learn mediations skills, respect of the others, empathy and caring in a relatively protected environment (1). However, siblings’ relationships also have the potential to affect children’s development negatively. Especially if younger children have older brothers, they can experience a higher level of aggression and assimilate and transfer this problematic behaviour into the school context (3).

Sibling relationships are characterized by a balance of affect and conflict; if conflict is mitigated by affect, the relationship can provide a positive context for learning social skills and for understanding other people’s emotions and perspectives. In contrast, children who experience high levels of conflict and low levels of affect are more likely to show social problems in the peer context (1, 4). On the whole, a clear association emerges between sibling experiences and peer problems outside the family. If the relation is positive, children can benefit from sibling experiences; if the relationship is aggressive, such behaviour may also turn up outside of the home (4, 5).

Is this true also for bullying? Can we call the frequent conflicts and disputes between siblings bullying? Comparing sibling conflicts and school bullying we find common elements but also specific differences. To be considered bullying in either context, the interactions must show:

• an intentional nature - the bully deliberately brings damage to the victim;
• persistency - the attacks are repeated over time;
• an imbalance of power – often the bully is stronger than the victim, who is not able to react effectively.

Beyond these common elements. bullying behaviours in the home and school context do differ in one important regard – in the school context, bullying is recognized as social in nature, with such behaviour often directed to the group, through the public attack on the victim. The dynamic between siblings is more direct and typically does not involve a larger group of witnesses. Furthermore, quarrels and fighting at home may be more common and therefore less disapproved than in school context.

We recently carried out a study of 195 children, aged 10-12 years, all of whom had a brother or sister who were up to 4 years younger or older than themselves (6). We found that the presence of bullying and victimization is as strong among siblings as among peers. The problem seems even more worrisome at home.