How is it that siblings can turn out so differently? One answer is that in fact each sibling grows up in a different family. The firstborn is, for a while, an only child, and therefore has a completely different experience of the parents than those born later. The next child is, for a while, the youngest, until the situation is changed by a new arrival. The mother and father themselves are changing and growing up too. One sibling might live in a stable and close family in the first few years; another might be raised in a family crisis, with a disappointed mother or an angry father.
兄弟姐妹为什么会如此不同？答案之一，实际上每个兄弟姐妹都在不同的家庭中长大。在一段时间内，长子是独生子女，因此与晚生的孩子相比，长子对父母的体验完全不同。在一段时间内，下一个孩子是最小的，直到新来的孩子改变了情况。母亲和父亲本身也在变化和成长。一个兄弟姐妹在最初几年可能生活在一个稳定而亲密的家庭中；另一个可能在家庭危机中长大，母亲失望或父亲愤怒。
Sibling competition was identified as an important shaping force as early as in 1918. But more recently, researchers have found many ways in which brothers and sisters are a lasting force in each others' lives. Dr. Annette Henderson says firstborn children pick up vocabulary more quickly than their siblings. The reason for this might be that the later children aren't getting the same one-on-one time with parents. But that doesn't mean that the younger children have problems with language development. Later-borns don't enjoy that much talking time with parents, but instead they harvest lessons from bigger brothers and sisters, learning entire phrases and getting an understanding of social concepts such as the difference between "I" and "me".
早在1918年，兄弟姐妹之间的竞争就被认为是一种重要的塑造力量。但最近，研究人员发现，兄弟姐妹在许多方面是彼此生活中持久的力量。安妮特·亨德森博士说，长子比他们的兄弟姐妹学习词汇更快。原因可能是后来的孩子没有得到与父母一对一的相同时间。但这并不意味着年幼的孩子在语言发展方面有问题。后来出生的孩子不喜欢和父母聊天，但他们从大兄弟姐妹那里学到了很多东西，学习了整个短语，理解了社会概念，比如“I”和“me”之间的区别。
A Cambridge University study of 140 children found that siblings created a rich world of play that helped them grow socially. Love-hate relationships were common among the children Even those siblings who fought the most had just as much positive communication as the other sibling pairs.
剑桥大学对140名儿童的研究发现，兄弟姐妹创造了一个丰富的游戏世界，帮助他们在社会上成长。爱恨关系在孩子中很常见，即使是那些打斗最激烈的兄弟姐妹也和其他兄弟姐妹一样有积极的沟通。
One way children seek more attention from parents is by making themselves different from their siblings, particularly if they are close in age. Researchers have found that the first two children in a family are typically more different from each other than the second and third. Girls with brothers show their differences to a maximum degree by being more feminine than girls with sisters. A 2003 research paper studied adolescents from 185 families over two years, finding that those who changed to make themselves different from their siblings were successful in increasing the amount of warmth they gained from their parents.
儿童寻求父母更多关注的一种方式是使自己与兄弟姐妹不同，特别是在年龄相近的情况下。研究人员发现，一个家庭的前两个孩子通常比第二、第三个孩子更不同。有兄弟的女孩比有姐妹的女孩更女性化，在最大程度上显示了她们的差异。2003年的一篇研究论文对185个家庭的青少年进行了为期两年的研究，发现那些改变自己，使自己与兄弟姐妹不同的人成功地从父母那里获得更多的温暖。
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