Sisters Are Good for Your Mental Health

(August 5, 2010) - You may have fought with your sister when you were a kid, but she probably helped you in more ways than you think. 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. The study 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 Laura Padilla-Walker the lead author on the research. "They give kids something that parents don't."

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 age wise.

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."

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