Sibling relationships in adolescence: Learning and growing together

fit this article, I discuss the reasons for my interest in sibling relationships, and showcase studies on sibling relationships in adolescence carried out with my colleagues and students, in the context of the broader literature on sibling relationships. Our studies have focused on a number of important issues concerned with sibling relationships. First, I report on the associations between sibling relationships and other family relationships and the ways that the various family relationships affect each other. Second, I report a study of sibling relationships in the context of parental separation and divorce and show that sibling relationships in these families are more likely to be high in both warmth and hostility than is true for relationships in 2-parent families. Third, I report on several data sets showing an association between the quality of sibling relationships and adolescent adjustment and the link between differential parenting, adolescent adjustment, and the quality of the sibling relationship. Fourth, I report on a study of comparison and competition in sibling relationships and the associations between sibling relationship quality and reactions to being outperformed by a sibling. Finally, I discuss possible future directions for research on sibling relationships, including the importance of multimethod studies and a longitudinal perspective.

Physical activity and the occupations of children: Perspectives of parents and children

There is concern that children’s health is being compromised by a decline in physical activity occurring as a result of the changing nature of the occupations of childhood. This article reports the findings of in-depth interviews conducted with six children and their parents when the children were between 7 and 8 years and then again when they were between 9 and 10 years. This longitudinal perspective highlighted features associated with children remaining engaged in physical occupations. Factors found to contribute to continued involvement in exercise and sports were: the initial introduction to the activity being pleasurable; same-sex parents or older siblings being directly involved; and the skills required by the occupations being commensurate with children’s developmental level. These findings help inform occupational scientists about the nature of recreational and leisure occupations, and how they are introduced and framed within the context of children’s occupational roles.

Risk factors for pregnancy and childbearing in single young women: Evidence from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health

This study investigated psychosocial predictors of early pregnancy and childbearing in single young women, consistent with the Eriksonian developmental perspective. Two mail-out surveys assessing reproductive behaviour and sociodemographic, education/competence, psychosocial well-being, and aspiration factors were completed 4 years apart by 2635 young women, aged 18 to 20 when first surveyed. Young women in the emerging adulthood'' developmental period were selected from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. Longitudinally, lower investment in education over low-status paid work, experiencing unemployment, greater psychosocial distress, stress and alcohol use, and high family aspirations combined with low vocational aspirations were risk factors for early single pregnancy and childbearing. Several mediational relationships also existed between these predictor variables. It was concluded that psychosocial factors play an important role in understanding early pregnancy and childbearing in single young Australian women, and that the findings provide some support for investigating early pregnancy and childbearing from an Eriksonian developmental perspective.