Those of us who have brothers know that it is one of the most complete relationships that can be lived. Next to them we live good and bad experiences, we learn about sharing and we also have some difficult moments when we have a disagreement or fight.
But having siblings not only helps us learn life lessons from childhood, but it could also help us in the long term. In this case, one study found that having sisters helps promote good emotional health during adolescence.
They came to this conclusion after analyze the relationship between siblings of 395 families, and whose results were published in a press release from Brigham Young University, which was where the study was conducted. In each family, there was at least one brother who was between 10 and 14 years of age and data on family dynamics were collected, and it was re-analyzed one year after having collected such data.
Statistical analyzes showed that the having a sister helped her teenage brothers be protected from negative feelings like loneliness, guilt, fear or feeling unloved or too insecure about themselves. In all cases, the age of the sisters did not affect that result, and it did not matter if it was smaller, larger and even the difference in age between them did not matter.
But in addition to this result, which is very interesting, it was found that in general, having affectionate siblings - regardless of whether they were men or women - it helped to have a greater initiative and willingness to do good deeds, such as helping other people.
So not only does having sisters help to have better emotional health during adolescence, but having brothers in general helps us to be better people. Therefore, it is important that as parents we foster a good relationship between them from childhood, to that grow not only as brothers, but as partners and friends.
