Gifted Sibling Rivalry and Bullying: Part 1
Within-family Bullying or Teasing Has Predictable Outcomes
The most prominent finding on the topic of Sibling Rivalry and Bullying from The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up 2023 longitudinal study is that the younger gifted children in the family who are teased, bullied, or looking for love and respect from their older gifted siblings (but who don’t get much of it) suffer depression, anxiety, and insecurity in their familial relationships.
Overview for the Gifted Sibling Rivalry and Bullying Series
This post addresses whether or not the subjects were bullied by a sibling or were themselves the bullies within their family. Often a parent sets the stage for verbal teasing or abuse, too, but subjects were not specifically asked about their parents’ overall treatment of them. Subject responses are from the research interview question “Was there any rivalry or bullying between you and another sibling?” Subjects were also asked questions about how the now-adult gifted subjects saw their social skills when they were younger and their self-concept and self-esteem now as adults. Many people already mentioned some forms of bullying in their earlier answers. We see a pattern here in some subjects who have anxiety and depression in their adult lives that may be related to sibling interactions that were abusive.
Darlene Lancer, JD, LMFT, who writes for Psychology Today, wrote about Sibling Bullying and Abuse: The Hidden Epidemic. She points this out:
Often labeled rivalry and ignored, sibling bullying and abuse cause real trauma. Sibling abuse is the most common but least reported abuse in the family. Prevalence is higher than spousal or child abuse combined with consequences well into adulthood similar to parent-child abuse. Up to 80% of youth experience some form of sibling maltreatment; yet it’s been called the “forgotten abuse” (2020).
Ms. Lancer goes on to explain the difference between rivalry and abuse. Competition from an equal power position is rivalry. Sibling rivalry, the kind that is especially about competing for parental attention and approval, are normal sibling behaviors. Abuse is different from rivalry. She writes this about the inequality involved in abuse:
Abuse is a repeated pattern where one sibling takes the role of aggressor toward another who consistently feels disempowered. Typically, an older child dominates a younger or weaker sibling, who naturally wants to please his or her sibling. Unlike rivalry, the motive is to establish superiority or incite fear or distress (Lancer, 2020).
An empirical research paper that used a British sample, Sibling Bullying: A Prospective Longitudinal Study of Associations with Positive and Negative Mental Health During Adolescence (Toseeb & Wolke, 2022), compared groups of siblings who were part of three distinct groups: victim-only, bully-only, and bully-victim. An additional group that was uninvolved in any kind of bullying was used as a reference for what’s normal mental health of children in the 11 to 17 age range.
The full paper from the 2021 longitudinal study indicates the symptoms for the bullied siblings include anxiety, depression, and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). The bullies themselves have a variety of indicators that include modeling parental behaviors, vying for parental attention and approval themselves, and they tend not to suffer from anxiety and depression as children or adults. It’s a power and manipulation strategy that capitalizes on their intellectual superiority due to age, size, and physical strength differences in childhood that, if not stopped, can continue into adulthood.
I found similar results in my 2023 longitudinal study. I found both anxiety and depression in the younger, bullied (or teased) subjects. The diagnoses of ADHD are so common for gifted children that it wasn’t covered in my study. The bullying or teasing might also indicate a fear by the older, teasing-or-bullying child of being unseated by a younger similarly intelligent sibling in the eyes of their parents. It isn’t always malicious but it still has an impact and early family treatment — family therapy — can make a positive difference if the parents are open to it and therapy is available.
A Science Daily (2021) article that reviewed the study notes this troubling reality:
Previous studies have shown that adolescence is a particularly vulnerable period for the deterioration of mental health, and problematic sibling relationships can be a key factor in the development of mental health difficulties during adolescence.
Because research indicates the victim will likely have long-term mental health consequences, and the bully often has pre-existing emotional or mental health issues, as well, it pays to recognize and address the needs of both siblings as early as possible. However, if that hasn’t happened, there are ways to heal in adulthood. Rachel Lee’s medically reviewed article in the online journal, PsychCentral, The Long-Term Effects of Adult Bullying (2016), addresses the issue of sibling bullying behaviors that continue into adulthood. A key observation she makes about adult bullying is this:
Sibling bullying can take many forms, but it is always done with the intention of shaming, belittling, or excluding their victim. It can include name-calling, threats, constant teasing and enlisting other siblings to join them in the bullying.
There is a difference between being bullied by people outside your family compared to inside your family. The latter lessens or destroys your confidence that you are an acceptable, good person who is admired and respected by the other members of the family. It undermines your sense that anyone will ever really “have your back” and can leave you believing you don’t deserve to be respected or admired. When you can’t trust your family members to be kind, supportive, and respectful to you, it can set the victim of inside-the-family bullying on a path to insecurity, depression, and anxiety. The good news, though, is that both the victims and the bullies can heal with the right therapeutic support in family therapy, as a couple family examples here show us. But if that doesn’t happen during the growing-up years, the bullied sibling can heal in individual therapy.
In at least six families here, the bully stopped bullying when the siblings grew up, but the anxiety, depression, and insecurities remains in the victims. Until the perpetrator acknowledges and apologizes for the poor childhood treatment, the unsettled business between them often continues an unhealthy dynamic. The bullies, too, in these cases, can benefit from some form of therapeutic support so as to heal wounds on both sides.
After reading through the material for this section, I was initially unsure about how to present the information without discouraging readers and subjects alike. As I continued to read about the topic, I reached out to retired psychologist, my younger brother, Thomas P. Ruf, PhD, and asked him if people can recover from such trauma. He wrote:
First, the main idea is to get people to move from focusing on their trauma and scars, acknowledge the lingering challenges their trauma may present and move on to how to cope with/overcome those challenges and focus on slowly building the life they want.
Another resource for understanding the topic of family abuse is from Dr. Karl Pillemer at Cornell University. The extensive research and resources for healing are all part of the Legacy Project. For more information, enter Professor Pillemer’s name into your favorite search engine. If readers are interested in more on this subject, I recommend you use different keyword searches on internet search engines. Sometimes links I provide in the reference section will cease to work over time. The topics, however, will persist.
Many of the subjects in this study who have siblings are the only ones from their family to be a part of this study. “Only children” are not subjected to sibling abuse, of course, and when the people who have siblings are the only ones answering my question about sibling abuse for their family, we don’t get a clear sense of how the nonparticipant person might have responded to the bullying question. For that reason, it is especially interesting to see all sides of the sibling story and some of these families provide that.
Gifted Sibling Rivalry and Bullying: Part 2 presents quotes from some of the now-adult gifted children in The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (2023).
References
Lancer, D. (2020). Sibling bullying and abuse: The hidden epidemic. Psychology Today, February 3, 2020. https://.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/toxic-relationships/202002/sibling-bullying-and-abuse-the-hidden-epidemic
Lee, R. (2016, July 31) The long-term effects of adult sibling bullying. PsychCentral. https://psychcentral.com/blog/e-long-term-effects-of-adult-sibling-bullying#1
Toseeb U, Wolke D. Sibling Bullying: A Prospective Longitudinal Study of Associations with Positive and Negative Mental Health during Adolescence. J Youth Adolesc. 2022 May;51(5):940–955. doi: 10.1007/s10964–021–01495-z. Epub 2021 Sep 30. PMID: 34590196; PMCID: PMC8993709.
The gifted adult subjects in my follow-up book (listed in the next endnote) were all part of the first 5 Levels of Gifted book I wrote in 2005. The first edition of Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind, 2005, was renamed with no other changes to 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options in 2009. Here are links to the 5 Levels of Gifted book on Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/5-levels-of-gifted-deborah-ruf/1126358834 and Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-School-Educational-Options/dp/0910707987 or directly from the publisher: https://www.giftedunlimitedllc.com/store/p12/5_Levels_of_Gifted.html
Available in The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (2023). Find on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-Children-Grown-Up/dp/B0C9SHFRLH or Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-5-levels-of-gifted-children-grown-up-phd-deborah-l-ruf/1143719859?ean=9798988323709.