When I was much younger, between ages of ten to fifteen, my dad would gather the whole family once in a week. His then busy schedules wouldn't allow him spend much time with the family and he uses the only opportunity he has to sit with the whole family. As we grew much older, dad got transferred to a their company's branch which was a stone's throw from home. Yet, the meeting still held every. Single. Week.

Karim(my elder brother) asked dad one day, *"Abba, why do you still hold weekly meetings now that you are more present and seem everyday?" *. I will tell you my dad's response later in the article. But I think we now know that whatever it was, it wasn't because he was far from home as earlier stated.

So back to the topic;

What kind of relationship do you have with your siblings?

Siblings are lovely human beings, I mean... dear reader, If I am to ask you, "who do you love most?" your response would probably be, "my family". A large number of the family consists of our brothers and sisters whom we love so dearly.

Despite this unquestionable love, there are influences mostly from childhood that affect the way we relate with our siblings. Influences like Gender, the order in which they were born (first child, second child..), distance apart, interests, parental influences and natural affinity all come into play when talking about inter-sibling relationships

Gender:

Siblings of the same gender tend to be more drawn to one another than to those of the opposite gender.

In some places, siblings usually have their own room. However as they start attaining the age of puberty, the start having seperate rooms. In households where there is a limited number of rooms all the girls get seperated from the boys so both genders have seperate rooms. The girls see one another more often since they are now in the same room, same with the boys. So as time goes on they get to know one another better, share interests and little or very big secrets. Girls usually have secrets that can be shared only to girls, I guess same goes for boys. This way a special relationship is built.

Apart from all these, sisters tend to be more protective of their sisters than they are of their brothers and same could be said for brothers too. Boys share boyish secrets and even crack jokes with one another about their sisters.

Birth Heirarchy :

The order in which siblings are born can have an influence on the relationship they have. This is very much common in families that give extensive intervals in giving birth to children. Say, the first child is two years older than the second child and the second child is five years older than the third child, making the first child seven years older than the third child.

A bond would most likely form between those two first children even if they are of different gender. They have done things together long before the others came. The birth of the third child could even strengthen the bond since some times they might feel threatened as kids(kids don't like competing for motherly attention) making them stick together until they realize they are all the same. Even if the presence of the third kid doesn't threaten them and they play with the kid together, that can also strengthen the bond as they learn to gradually accept the third kid. This bond is retained till adulthood in most cases.

Even if there happen to be an inter-sibling rivalry later on in life(which often happens between immediate siblings), the bond normally doesn't break.

Another quirky thing about siblings is they can act like they hate you but the inquestionable love is there. This often happens between older siblings and younger siblings.

A person was asked, who is a sibling? His reply was "your sibling is a person who would never lend you his phone charger but would gladly give you his kidney". Haha. I think he is 100% right!

Distance :

Circumstances lead to seperation between siblings, sometimes at a very early age. The first child could be taken to live with a distance relative and he ends up knowing little or nothing about his other siblings who stil live with his parents. He may occasionally visit but the relationship he has with them can't be compared with what it would have been like if they had grown together.

Interests :

They say birds of a feather flock together:A rule that is universal. Like poles attract. We get automatically attracted to people with whom we share similar interests with even if they aren't part of our family. Now imagine what the attraction would be like if the people wede our family members, our siblings at that?

The role of gender affecting relationship among siblings has something to do with interests. Girls of the same family share the same interests. They plait one another's hair, they play girlish games like the "ten - ten" we play as kids. ten-ten is a game played by girls in which we clap hands and take turns shuffling our feets in opposite directions while trying to outdo them. They make cat's cradle and stuff.

The boys play football together, go hunting with dad and do other manly stuff. All these are common interests shared.

Parental Influences :

Part of the responsibilities of parents is ensuring that their children interact well with one another. Some fail in doing so due to factors that could be controllable or otherwise. A couple gets divorce after having to kids together, the man insists on taking custody of both kids against the woman's will. They go to court and on kid is given to both man and woman. These kids might grow without knowing much about about each other since they grew with separate parents. In additiom to that they grow up without knowing mu ch about the parent that they got seperated from.

However there are positive parental influences. When Karim asked Abba why he still hold weekly meetings Abba's response was, "I do it because I like listening to you all telling me about the challenges you face within and outside the house". Are you wondering how that had a positive effect on our relationship?

When Abba went back to his Lord, may God bless him wherever he is, we resorted to asking one another for advice since he was no longer in our midst. That built the relationship we had and is continue to build it. We tell one another our feelings, our challenges even if there's no immediate solution, we still tell because that's what it means to libe together and love one another.

Step siblings :

Well... This is something I didn't think of until the end of this article,probably because it is not that common. Inter sibling rivalry is very much present in the case of step siblings especially if they share the same father and live in the same house. Who influences their relationships? The mothers of course!

At the end of this article : I wil like to thank @Khing14@Khing14 for the words of encouragement and the upvote. I would also like to thank @Jane and @JEN11 for the up votes on my comments on their posts.

So.. Dear readers, what kind of relationship do you have with your siblings?... And if there's another factor that influenced your relationship with them that I didn't mention, feel free to comment in the comments section.

Thanks very much for reading

Lots of love. :)

@DocLayla