This time on Peace Talks Radio, the conflict scenario that we’re going to
look into with our guests is sibling rivalry.
It's something that seems ubiquitous across cultures and is as old as the
oldest stories in human history.
Approximately one-third of adults describe their relationship with their
siblings as rivalrous or distant. Also, there’s this: A 2005 study put
the number of assaults each year to children by a sibling at about 35 per
100 kids – so about a third of children are actually suffering physical
violence at the hands of siblings. So, although the Smothers Brothers,
and most sitcoms over the years have made sibling rivalry into an ongoing
joke, it can lead to serious emotional and physical hurt. We hear ideas
from our guests about how to reduce that pain – both during childhood and
into adulthood if those bad feelings endure.
Our guests are: Samuel Roll, a psychologist and professor emeritus in
psychology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque; Jeanne Safer,
a New York psychologist and author; and Atlanta authors and parents Denene
Millner and Nick Chiles, who have three children, including two teenage
daughters.
