NurtureShock

by Po Bronson; Ashley Merryman

  Kramer’s program is effective, by every measure. The before-and-after videotapes of the kids playing at home reveal more positive, mutual involvement, and the parent questionnaires indicate the parents spend less time breaking up arguments between the kids. The children seem to enjoy the camp, but an hour never goes by without at least one classic display of sibling tension, as the older child turns controlling, or the younger plays the provocateur. In fact, the entire premise of the camp—the idea that brothers and sisters should enjoy one another—is an objective not all kids are ready to accept.

  “I have two special talents,” seven-year-old Ethan announced to the instructors and the children in the program. “The first is soccer with my dad. The second is I’m really good at beating people up. When I beat my sister up, it makes me feel good.”

  His four-year-old sister, Sofia, sat not more than two feet away from him as he said this. But she didn’t react to his shocking claim.

  The truth was that Ethan had never actually hit his sister, who was half his size. Instead, he often fretted that she was so tiny that he might accidentally hurt her. But that session, Ethan seemed to delight in being verbally cruel to Sofia. He mocked her—loudly protesting when an instructor helped her read aloud. He said he didn’t want a younger sister: “She wants to play princess, and she always wants me to be the prince, but I want to play ninja. Right now, she’s really annoying, and not a worthy opponent.”

  At the end of the session, Ethan’s mother confronted him in the hallway, demanding an explanation. Ethan made a particularly insightful point: “But Mom, it’s not cool to like a little sister.”

  Ethan was convinced he had to act mean toward Sofia. He couldn’t let the other older siblings in the program know that he liked his sister—thus the false brag about beating her up.

  Curious about how Ethan and Sofia really got along, we sat down with Kramer to watch the videotape of them at home. Over the half-hour, Ethan led Sofia in the construction of a fort made of couch cushions. The tension was excruciating; it felt like a scene out of film noir—a banal little event that could explode into tragedy at any moment.

  Designating himself construction manager, Ethan bossed the four-year-old around constantly. He yelled and chided her when she couldn’t hold a cushion perfectly straight. When she wanted to leave for a snack, Ethan threatened, “If you do one more thing—you’ll lose your job and you can’t come back.” When Sofia misunderstood something, the seven-year-old snapped, “No excuses! There are no excuses! You can only keep your job if you promise never, ever to make up an excuse ever again. And don’t talk with your mouth full!”

  However, Kramer actually saw a lot of hope in the tape. Without question, Ethan berated his sister—but the two kids had chosen, on their own, to play together, and they remained engaged in joint play the entire time. They didn’t hit each other. They kept talking. Ethan threatened his sister, but he changed the rules so she could keep playing. He made an effort to help Sofia understand she had an important role in the game. When he stopped ordering her around, Sofia would ask him for guidance—which he delighted in. When Sofia tried to drag a big cushion to the fort, Ethan said, “Good job,” then came over to help her.

  “The kids are still connected,” Kramer ultimately concluded. “There’s an attempt to manage conflict. The kids like each other—they are looking out for each other. I think there’s a lot to work with.” She had not yet scored this tape, but at a glance she estimated it would rate a 50 out of 100—an equal balance of negative and positive moments. “I would imagine, in their tape after the program, they’ll be around a 70.”

  So if Ethan actually liked his sister, where was he getting the message that it was uncool and he had to hide it? Ethan’s mother, Rebecca, pointed out that Ethan’s best friends all were nice to their little brothers and sisters. It wasn’t coming from them. She believed Ethan was picking up the message from the books he was reading. He was an exceedingly gifted reader and consumed books constantly.

  Rebecca was reticent to mention her theory, afraid it might come off that she was looking for a scapegoat. However, Kramer’s research suggests that Rebecca may be right on target. In one of her studies, Kramer had a control group of kids come in for six weeks of reading books aloud and discussing cartoons that depicted sibling story lines. These were typical products any parent might share with his kids, hoping they would help the kids get along better—the Berenstain Bears series, Sesame Street books, and the like. Kramer figured these kids’ relationships with their siblings would improve, but she crossed her fingers that they wouldn’t improve more than the kids in her program.

  But Kramer started getting complaints from parents after just a couple weeks. While the books and videos always ended on a happy note, with siblings learning to value and appreciate each other, the first half of the stories portrayed in vivid detail ways that children can fight, insult, and devalue their siblings. “From these books, the kids were learning novel ways to be mean to their younger siblings they’d never considered,” Kramer recalled. Sure enough, after six weeks, the sibling relationship quality had plummeted.

  Kramer went on to analyze 261 common children’s books that portray sibling relationships. These ranged from picture books for preschoolers to chapter books for third graders. Kramer scored the books as she might score a videotape of kids playing together. She noted the number of times a sibling argued, threatened, excluded, and teased, as well as the positive moments of sharing, affection, problem-solving, and inclusion. The average book demonstrated virtually as many negative behaviors as positive ones. Despite all but one being overtly crafted to have a happy ending, along the way kids were constantly taunting each other, belittling a sib, and blaming others for their wrongdoing.

  It turns out that Shakespeare was right, and Freud was wrong. For almost a century, Freud’s argument—that from birth, siblings were locked in an eternal struggle for their parents’ affection—held huge influence over scholars and parents alike. But Freud’s theory turns out to be incomplete. Sibling rivalry may be less an Oedipal tale of parental love, and more King Lear.

  A team of leading British and American scholars asked 108 sibling pairs in Colorado exactly what they fought about. Parental affection was ranked dead last. Just 9% of the kids said it was to blame for the arguments or competition.

  The most common reason the kids were fighting was the same one that was the ruin of Regan and Goneril: sharing the castle’s toys. Almost 80% of the older children, and 75% of the younger kids, all said sharing physical possessions—or claiming them as their own—caused the most fights.

  Nothing else came close. Although 39% of the younger kids did complain that their fights were about… fights. They claimed, basically, that they started fights to stop their older siblings from hitting them.

  Mindful of the Freudian paradigm, the scholars tempered their findings, wondering if the children were too young to understand the depths of the family psychodrama they were starring in. But these brothers and sisters weren’t toddlers. The younger kids were in elementary school, and some of the older kids were already teenagers. The scholars felt that the psychological community needed to recognize that “siblings have their own repertoire of conflict issues separate from their parents.” The struggle to win a greater share of parental love may be a factor, they wrote, but kids in mid-childhood don’t think about it, recognize it, or articulate it.

  Laurie Kramer also came to this same conclusion. She reviewed 47 popular parenting manuals, analyzing how much of their advice regarding sibling relationships was rooted in empirical research, versus how much was just unproven theory. Kramer found that every single parenting manual recited the psychodynamic paradigm, that sibling resentment stems from a loss of parental attention when the younger child is born. Kramer noted that there’s certainly research making this point. For instance, one recent study showed that an older sibling’s jealousy when the younger is 16 months old predicts what kind of relationship they’ll
have a couple years later. But Kramer feels this fixation on competition for parental love masks and distracts from a more important truth: even in families where children are given plenty of affection by both parents, “young children may fail to develop prosocial relationships with their siblings if nobody teaches them how.” Less emphasis needs to be placed on the psychology, and more needs to be on skill-building.

  What else is overrated? Parents imagine that the difference in age between siblings is an important factor. Some think it’s preferable to have kids less than two years apart, so they are close enough in age to play together; others feel they should wait three or four years, to help each child develop independence. But the research is entirely mixed—for every study that concludes age differences matter, there’s another study proving it doesn’t. “Relative to other factors,” said Kramer, “age spacing is not as strong a predictor. Nor is gender. There’s many other things to be concerned about.”

  As for what does matter, Kramer’s work offers one big surprise. One of the best predictors of how well two siblings get along is determined before the birth of the younger child. At first glance, this is astounding—how can it be possible to predict a clash of personalities, if one of the personalities at issue doesn’t even exist yet? How can their future relationship be knowable? But the explanation is quite reasonable. It has nothing to do with the parents. Instead, the predictive factor is the quality of the older child’s relationship with his best friend.

  Kramer studied young kids from families who were expecting another child. She observed these kids playing one-on-one with their best friends. The kids who could play in a reciprocal, mutual style with their best friend were the ones who had good rapport with their younger sibling, years later.

  It’s long been assumed that siblings learn on one another, and then apply the social skills they acquire to their relationships with peers outside the family. Kramer says it’s the other way around: older siblings train on their friends, and then apply what they know to their little brothers and sisters.

  After monitoring these relationships with best friends, Kramer saw that one factor stood out as especially telling: shared fantasy play. As Kramer and John Gottman explained, “Fantasy play represents one of the highest levels of social involvement for young children.” In order for joint fantasy play to work, children must emotionally commit to one another, and pay attention to what the other is doing. They have to articulate what’s in their mind’s eye—and negotiate some scenario that allows both their visions to come alive. When one kid just announced the beginning of a ninja battle, but the other wants to be a cowboy, they have to figure out how to still ride off into the sunset together.

  If, however, the child hasn’t developed these good habits on friends, and the younger sibling comes along, now there’s very little incentive to learn the skills of shared play (choosing an activity both can enjoy, inviting the other and/or asking to be included, recognizing when someone is busy or wants to play alone). The incentive’s not there because, as Samantha Punch pointed out, the sibling will be there tomorrow no matter what. Siblings are prisoners, genetically sentenced to live together, with no time off for good behavior. There is simply no motivation to change.

  Kramer also considered children’s behavior in day care and preschools. The fact that kids could cooperate in class or remain engaged in a group setting didn’t predict improved sibling relationships. It was that real connection between friends—that made a child care how his behavior impacted someone he liked—that was the catalyst for the difference.

  “A parent is going to work hard to meet his child’s needs. They are highly motivated by love,” Kramer explained. “Other kids don’t care if you’re hungry or have a bruise on your knee—they have one, too.”

  In other words, getting what you need from a parent is easy. It’s getting what you want from friends that forces a child to develop skills.

  “It’s not that parents are unimportant,” Kramer has concluded. “But they are important in very different ways.”

  Which is why, in a sense, what Kramer is really trying to do is transform children’s relationships from sibship to something more akin to a real friendship. If kids enjoy one another’s presence, then quarreling comes at a new cost. The penalty for fighting is no longer just a time-out, but the loss of a worthy opponent.

  SEVEN

  The Science of Teen Rebellion

  Why, for adolescents, arguing with adults is a sign of respect, not disrespect—and arguing is constructive to the relationship, not destructive.

  Jasmine is an eighteen-year-old high school senior in Miami-Dade County, Florida. She’s a natural beauty with long dark tresses and ebony eyes. Though she was raised and lives in Opa-Locka, an area known for its poverty and gangs, she attends a competitive private school across town. (“There’s a lot of rich white kids who go there.”) Despite a demanding courseload of honors and college prep classes, Jasmine maintains a solid 3.6 GPA and was selected for a prestigious program for children of Latin American immigrants—kids who will be the first in their families to attend college.

  The youngest daughter of two in a staunchly Catholic family, Jasmine sings in her church’s choir. She is often at the front of the church saying the weekly readings. Inspired by her part-time job at a local hospital, Jasmine intends to study harder this year and attend the University of Florida; she aims to become a doctor.

  “I think my parents are proud of me because they know about some of the struggles I have had to go through—but I’ve always been very motivated,” she says.

  Or perhaps, if they knew the rest of Jasmine’s extracurriculars, her parents might never speak to her again.

  Long ago, she figured out that her parents keyed off her level of interest in a boy. When it was obvious she thought a guy was cute, they never let her be alone with him. She was allowed to go only on group outings, and dates were always chaperoned. So now she always insists that she isn’t interested in a guy—they are “just friends”—then her parents will let them go out alone. She can go over to the guy’s house to hang out unsupervised and have sex—sometimes planned, sometimes just a happy accident.

  By the time Jasmine was fourteen, she was sneaking out of her first-floor window once a week, in the middle of the night. She was going to parties with local gangbangers—drinking enough alcohol that she was blacking out. Entire nights are gone from memory. “I’m a competitive drinker,” she giggled like the schoolgirl she was. “If someone’s drinking, I can drink more than them.”

  Still fourteen, she began dating an eighteen-year-old. Her parents knew about the guy—whom they hated and wouldn’t let in the house—but Jasmine snuck out late at night to see him. They’d been having sex since their first month together. Her boyfriend secretly paid for her prescription for birth control and tried to convince Jasmine to run away with him. That had been going on for months before her mother, while putting away laundry, accidentally found the pills hidden in Jasmine’s dresser.

  “She went crazy,” Jasmine says. “She was so upset she couldn’t even talk to me. So she had my aunt come in to find out what was going on.” Jasmine immediately lied that the doctor had given her the pills to regulate her hormones—and after a while, her family was convinced. As far as her family knows, she is still a virgin.

  Jasmine started meeting guys in an internet chat room. They were always a few years older. One—who was at least in his twenties—came to the house to take her out. She looked out the window, ready to leave with him, but she decided he was too old for her—so she didn’t go out to his car.

  In four years, she was caught sneaking out only once: the police spotted her and a friend walking down the street at three a.m., hours past curfew. The police brought her home, and her parents promptly grounded her for two months. Now, at a more mature eighteen, she has cut the sneaking out down to once every other week. “I don’t do those as much now… except for the random booty calls and the secret dates.”

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bsp; Twice, an ex-boyfriend had gotten her drunk, then forced himself on her. She sort of concedes that she’d been date-raped—but then she insists both incidents were her fault. “I drank an entire water-bottle full of vodka, and I knew if I got drunk it might happen. I was stupid. It happened ’cuz I’m not smart. Thank God I’m not pregnant.” She pauses. “I sort of think God must love me, because I’m still alive.”

  It’s not just the dating she lies about. She lies about things she doesn’t really need to cover up. The lying is on autopilot. “I lie to my parents every day. I lie about homework every night. I say I finished it when I haven’t even started. I finish it—but I do it at school before class. Never when I say it’s done.”

  Jasmine explains, “I just don’t want to tell my mom something if it’s going to make my life difficult. She lectures me a lot—and I don’t want her to stop. If she did, I would think she didn’t care. So sometimes, I will tell her the truth—when I feel like being lectured. It just depends on my mood. But I only ever tell the truth when I want to.”

  If her parents found anything out now, it would be bad but she’s less worried about it—now that she’s a legal adult, looking forward to voting in her first presidential election. “Maybe I’ll tell Mom someday. But not for a really long time. When she sees that I turned out okay, grown-up, so that she doesn’t have to worry. After I have my career, and I’m all settled.”