It's important to say that care between brothers and sisters is an important aspect of family life and to be encouraged. This usually means older siblings providing care for younger brothers and sisters but can include younger ones helping out their big brother or sister from time to time. 

Parentification becomes a concern when the care given by the big brother or sister is replacing rather than contributing to the care given by a parent and where the emotional toll on the child-caregiver is high. 

Parentification of a sibling can feel like a strange and unexpected situation for a new adoptive parent, foster carer or kinship carer to deal with. It can create uncomfortable feelings both in terms of your compassion for the children and what they have experienced and also it can feel that your own parenting role is being undermined or challenged when a sibling insists on being involved in  parenting. It may take considerable time for children to feel safe enough to relinquish these responsibilities to you and may require professional advice and input to work through this process.

Jane, Foster Carer said:

When the wee ones came to stay with me, the older girl used to get up in the middle of the night to change her baby sister's nappy. She was only 5 years old! I was careful not to send her back to bed as this upset her. Instead, she would help me change the nappy. I would ask her to show me how. Gradually, she felt comfortable to let me do it under her supervision. It took a few weeks but eventually she stopped getting up when the baby cried and trusted me to change the nappy without her.

Sometimes a decision is made that an older sibling can only break free from parenting responsibilities that are stifling their own development by growing up in a different family setting from their siblings. Where such a decision is made, thought should be given to the support needed with the transition between families and the conditions necessary to make staying in touch and meet ups between the children positive and rewarding.

As a parent, you have a crucial role to play in promoting positive and safe relationships between brothers and sisters. This resource aims to provide you with information and tools to help relationships to flourish between siblings and other family members. We focus both on situations where siblings live together and where some or all siblings live apart.

• What were your relationships like with your brothers and sisters when growing up?

• Were you the oldest sibling, the youngest sibling or a middle child? How did that affect your relationships with your brothers and sisters?

• What was the best thing about having a brother/sister when growing up?

• What was the worst thing about having a brother/sister when growing up?

• What memories do you have of doing things with a brother or sister? And do you have any mementos or photographs associated with these memories?

• How did your sibling relationships change over time?

• How would you describe your relationships now with your brothers and sisters? And why do you say this?

• How, if at all, do you stay in touch with your sibling(s)?

• When, if at all, do you tend to see your sibling(s) and what do you do when you meet?

• How might your experience of being a brother or sister influence your expectations for your children's sibling relationships?

Hansel and Gretel (Brothers Grimm fairytale)

Anna and Elsa (Frozen)

Bart and Lisa (The Simpsons)

Ross and Monica Geller (Friends)

Dr. Chris and Dr. Xand van Tulleken (tv doctors) 

Ron and Ginny Weasley (Harry Potter)

Thor and Loki (Marvel films)

Luke and Leia (Star Wars)

The Waltons (tv series)

Or think of one of your own favourites ...

Many brothers and sisters who are care experienced belong to  larger than average sibling groups creating opportunities for supportive relationships but also some challenges. Your children may have sisters and brothers living in different households making it difficult to stay in touch and may have very different economic circumstances. Younger brothers or sisters may have been born after your child came to live with you and they may not have had the chance to get to know each other. 

Sometimes harmful family dynamics that were present earlier in a child's life such as one child being favoured and another being harshly treated by a parent or carer can have a lasting effect on sibling relationships in a new family.

There's a lot to deal with when you're a care experienced brother or sister.

Now think about your own children's relationships with their brothers or sisters. Are they similar or different to your experience? What has influenced this? Who has made the decisions about how these relationships are conducted? How might that affect how you support your children's sibling relationships?

• Care experienced children often have larger than average numbers of brothers and sisters.

• The needs of siblings may be diverse in terms of age range, early experiences, presence of disability or neurodiversity.

• Relationships between the parents of brothers and sisters may be strained or they may be separated or divorced.  

• Siblings may live in different households or even different parts of the country. 

• Children may have had to move a lot and experienced separation from siblings or developed new sibling or sibling-like relationships through these moves.

• Brothers and sisters may be being parented in different ways, for example, by birth parents, kinship carers, foster carers or adoptive parents.

These can all have an impact when trying to help brothers and sisters make sense of sibling relationships, stay in touch and when trying to meet everyone's needs.

• Communicative openness 

• Validation and empathic commentary

• Family fairness

When faced with a child or young person's feelings of distress our inclination is often to offer solutions. These may be helpful further down the line but our first step should always be to validate their experience. Validation can come in different forms:

• just sitting with a young person in distress and displaying empathy through your body language can be very validating;

• reflecting feelings back to the young person can feel validating "I can see you're upset about ....". 

You can do this even if you disagree with the reason your child or young person is upset. You are validating the feelings not necessarily agreeing with the reason for them.

Sometimes, big feelings can come with big behaviours. It is common for adults to ask questions of children about their behaviour – “why did you hit your brother?” – however this can be unhelpful as often they might not know why they did something or they might experience shame about what they have done. Instead, we can offer empathic commentary – statements such as  “I know it makes you angry when your brother takes your things” show you understand.  

It can be helpful if parents put difficult feelings into words for children. This can help children learn to recognise and name feelings and also demonstrates their parents' ability to understand their distress. Instead of saying to a grumpy child when they arrive home from school "you are in a bad mood today!" you might say instead "I noticed you didn't eat your packed lunch today. I guess you must be starving. Shall we get a snack before tea and you can tell me about your day? "

It may help to have some key phrases that you can try out when you notice your child is struggling. 

That must be hard.

It makes sense that you feel upset.

I would feel bad in that situation, too.

Some of these difficult feelings may have an impact on sibling relationships. For example, where a child's attachment style is anxiety-based they may struggle when you give attention to their brother or sister. In calmer moments empathic commentary can help adults and children to develop their curiosity about feelings and find solutions together. You might say “I was thinking about when you were arguing with your brother earlier. I wonder if you feel as though there is not enough attention to go around. I wonder if it used to feel that way where you were before you came to live here. I think I have to do a better job of letting you know I have enough love and attention for both of you”.

Picking the right activity and right environment for the combination of children and circumstances can be quite a challenge but when we get it right we can feel relationships deepen and brothers and sisters get into a flow. Some children thrive on getting out in nature while others like cooking or art.

When there's a kinship care arrangement meet-ups are often in the family home. This can have advantages in terms of convenience but may raise issues around boundaries and feelings that should be considered.

There's also an art to knowing when to call it a day and move on from an activity or a visit before everyone gets too exhausted, hungry or grumpy.

Frank, Kinship Carer said:

We've worked out that the grandkids can only manage a game of rounders for about 40 minutes then the younger one starts to get restless and everyone loses concentration. It helps to have a plan. We'll say "a quick game then Gran's got a snack for us all in half an hour". They sometimes talk about losing their mum which can be upsetting for my wife. The grandkids know our bedroom is out of bounds so if she needs a minute to compose herself she can do this in private.

Sometimes doing things together can feel too intense and instead just hanging out together is enough and can be as important to a relationship. Just hanging out in the same space or around the same tv without any pressure to talk or interact can be just what everyone needs. Again this might need adult support. It might look like doing nothing but there can be a lot for parents to do to maintain calm.

Jenny, Foster Carer explained:

My foster child's siblings live close by with another foster carer. Once a week after school we take turns to take the children to the park. They don't always play together but really enjoy being there together. The little one will shout from the climbing frame to his brother "...look, I'm at the top..." and he'll give him a wave.

In order to achieve this, adults (and where appropriate children) need to have access to information held in records and ongoing updates from birth relatives. Too often care experienced children and those parenting them have uncomfortable gaps in knowledge about themselves and those they are connected to.

One of the challenges when parenting siblings is that one child may have questions about their family history and circumstances while a brother or sister may not be ready to process this information. It may also be the case that one child has a better understanding of privacy than his or her brother or sister who may be likely to share private family information with those outside the family. A careful balance needs to be struck between meeting the identity needs of children while protecting their confidentiality. There are no easy answers to striking the right balance.

Life Story Work, or in some cases Therapeutic Life Story Work, can be a helpful tool to support communicative openness between parents and brothers and sisters. It can be facilitated by a professional with experience of balancing the need to know with the need for confidentiality. The professional should also have an understanding of the internal turmoil that life story work can create for children and the need to support them through this journey.

Often in families we associate fairness with sameness. This can be true in some instances but not others. You may have come across this meme that explains why getting the same adaptation or support doesn't always help every child. Sometimes one brother or sister might need something different or additional to achieve the same outcome as their siblings. This can be a hard concept for children to understand and you might have to take time to explain differences in your parenting decisions so that everyone feels fairly treated.

If one child gets help with their homework it's only fair that the other child gets this too right?. Well sometimes fairness is less about getting the same thing and instead more about getting the same outcome. So if one child struggles with concentration and the other doesn't the first child might need to limit homework to three ten minute blocks spread over the evening whereas the other may do best when homework is encouraged straight after school. Fairness of outcome is more important than sameness of support. 

The last image in the meme reminds us that some barriers our children come up against are put there by society and removing these should be our first focus so that the world is easier to navigate for all our children and their siblings. Often we find ourselves as parents of care experienced children in the role of advocate challenging societal unfairness.

Part two focuses on siblings who are displaying distress or reduced wellbeing and the particular needs and considerations where this is the case.

You can dip in and out of the two padlets or read them in order if you prefer. Some sections may feel more relevant at certain points in your parenting journey or at different stages of family life.

The examples used in the padlets are based on real families' experiences but details and names have been changed to protect confidentiality.

Protection and promotion of sibling relationships is at the heart of The Promise made by Scotland in 2020. This means ensuring children grow up with siblings where this is in their best interests and supporting brothers and sisters to develop and maintain positive relationships and stay in touch where they wish to do so.

There is strong research evidence that positive relationships between brothers and sisters can improve wellbeing in childhood and adulthood especially when facing adversity. This requires effort and commitment from everyone involved in Keeping the Promise including families, professionals and decision-makers.

(a) a person who has at least one parent in common with the child, and

(b) any other person with whom the child has lived or is living, and with whom the child has an ongoing relationship with the character of a relationship between siblings.

The definition is inclusive of a whole range of sibling relationships or sibling-like relationships including those where children share two biological parents, share one biological parent, share a foster, kinship or adoptive parent, or have lived together in the same household for some time, for example, in a kinship care arrangement or a Children's House.

If you want to look at the posts in a larger view click on the play symbol (triangle on its side) and the posts will be turned into a set of slides that you can scroll through. This symbol is on the right hand side of the webpage or in the menu at the bottom of the page if using the Padlet app on a mobile device.

If you prefer to read a paper copy of the information you can print by going to the 'share' menu on the far righthand side (the curly arrow) and selecting "Export as PDF". The pdf document can then be saved and printed.

Sometimes your instincts as a brother or sister may not quite fit with your expectations of how a parent might think or act. It may help to have a sounding board to talk through decisions that have to be made. Support services such as Kinship Care Advice Service for Scotland and the Family Rights Group can offer information and support to you.

We usually think of feelings of loss being associated with things we had and no longer have. For care experienced children though it can be much more than this. For example, a deep sense of loss may be felt by a child who was expecting a baby brother or sister to join the family but for safety reasons this new baby was discharged from hospital to a foster family. This was a relationship that never really had a chance to get started but the loss of the baby in the child's life and the loss of the role of being a big sister or brother to the baby can be devastating.

Alice, an adopted young person shared her experience:

No-one told me when my birth mum had another baby. I didn't find out I had a brother until he was 6. I found it very hurtful that such an important thing was kept from me. I worried about how he was doing and whether I'd ever get to meet him.

Those of us parenting care experienced children may have experienced significant losses ourselves. This might include bereavement of a loved one, loss of relationships within the family, loss of our social circle due to our new caring responsibilities, loss of aspirations in our professional life or in retirement and loss of a previous role (e.g. when a grandmother has to take on being mum). These experiences may help us feel very attuned to the impact of loss on the children we parent.

This map shows Jack's sibling network. A map like this doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the quality or importance of the relationships between brothers and sisters but is a good starting point to get an overview of this network. It's important to also listen to children's thoughts and feelings about these relationships now and their hopes for the future, moving at the child's pace.

Jack, who is being brought up by his aunt explained his sibling relationships like this:

I have three brothers and a sister. One brother lives with me, two live in foster care and my youngest sister has been adopted. It's hard staying in touch with everyone when we don't live together but I really enjoy playing with my brothers when we meet up. I don't really feel I know my little sister as I just get a letter from her adopters once a year. I'd like to get to know her better but worry she won't remember me.

Traditionally connections have been maintained between care experienced brothers and sisters through direct and indirect 'contact' arrangements. Care experienced children and adults have raised concerns that some professional practices used in the past such as meetings at contact centres and information exchanges/letterbox contact have not always felt very family-like. They have advocated a change of language from 'contact' to 'staying in touch' and are seeking something that feels and looks more like ordinary 'family time'.

Dot, Kinship Carer said:

About once a month we have a sleepover where Jess's sisters come and stay. While it's exhausting for everyone, especially me, it is so nice to see the girls sharing family routines together like supper in front of the tv and bedtime stories.

At the point when Rory is taken into foster care his birth mother is heavily pregnant with her fifth child, Lois. Lois is removed from the care of her mother at birth and moves to a different foster family from Rory and Tom where she lives with two other babies. Arrangements are made for Lois and Rory to have a play date once per week and the plan becomes for Rory and Lois to be adopted together and for letterbox contact with Tom and their older sisters.

Rory and Lois' adoptive parents have continued to send a letter to the three older siblings each year but have never received any news back.

This year the adoption agency withdrew from facilitating letterbox contact as both Lois and Rory are now 18+.

• What types of ‘sibling’ relationships has Rory had over the years (perhaps try drawing his sibling network)?

• Can we say anything about how important these have been to him at different points in his life? How might age of siblings and different types of 'contact' influence this?

• What might be the impact on Rory's relationships with brothers and sisters of the different ways that he was parented while living with his birth family, foster family and adoptive family?

• How might the loss of sibling relationships have affected Rory?

• If Rory was adopted now, rather than 16 or more years ago, would any different decisions have been made about staying in touch with siblings?

• Are there particular strengths and triggers for conflict between Rory and his sister? 

• What might the future of Rory’s relationship with brothers and sisters be and how can this be helped to be positive?

Research has shown that even when children can't or won't meet up with a brother or sister or stay in touch, their sibling can be thought about a lot and children can have lots of questions swimming around in their head.

In these circumstances it can be helpful for a third party such as a social worker to co-ordinate safe communications between brothers and sisters. It can also be helpful for the adults to be in touch either regularly or occasionally to be able to swap information, answer children's questions or fill in biographical gaps. Where there are safety issues or there is conflict between the adults then this may need to be facilitated by an independent person or agency.

6. Making sense of current, past and future sibling relationships

7. Enabling sibling relationships to flourish

8. Siblings, families and belonging

9. Helpful resources

Joe, adoptive dad explained:

Our two kids' brother and sisters live miles apart but we were determined that we'd do our best to help them stay in touch. Luckily the siblings' two sets of foster carers felt the same. After some discussion we decided that a caravan holiday in a central venue would be a good way to bring the children together. We've been doing this every summer for three years now and everyone, including the adults, gets so much out of this.

Take a few moments to think about the ways that your child(red) stay in touch with their brothers and sisters or the plans for them to do this in the future.

• What do you think is working well or is well thought out?

• What concerns, if any, do you have?

• How does this make you feel?

• What support or adjustments could be put in place to reduce your concerns and help you and the siblings feel fully supported?

• How can you be supported to share and discuss this with the other adults parenting your child(ren)'s brothers and sisters?

Have you thought about:

• adults such as foster carers, adopters or kinships carers who have never met taking time to establish a trusting relationship before organising a meet up between children. This might be done by phone or in person;

• adults meeting before a meet up of siblings so they can talk about their own expectations, fears, needs. This sort of preparation may need to be supported by a neutral trusted friend or relative or a professional where relationships between adults are strained;

• adults connecting through WhatsApp to co-ordinate practical arrangements;

• ensuring your meeting venue feels safe for everyone and is neutral ground for the adults and children;

• making time for the adults to chat after a meet up to talk about what went well and plans for next time.

• in-person

• fun

• choice

• normality

• privacy

• having enough time

Above all it's important that children's needs and wishes are at the centre of planning and having family time.

Think about the meet ups and information exchanges that take place between the children you are parenting and any brothers or sisters living elsewhere.

• Can anything be changed about where, when and how these meet ups and information exchanges take place to make them more family-like?

• Is there a possibility that the adult support available for these meetings and information exchanges could undermine a sense of belonging? How can this change so that belonging is reinforced without a sense of safety being compromised?

• Does any of the language used to describe these meetings, information exchanges and support need to change to make them more family-like? For example, it might change how the adults think and behave if we change the term 'supervised contact' to 'support to stay connected' or 'facilitated play'.

You can also read about and listen to content about brothers and sisters' legal rights on the Stand Up For Siblings website and Who Cares? Scotland, another SUFS partner, have produced a Know Your Rights guide for care experienced young people.

SUFS hosts a Community of Practice bringing together all those who are passionate about this agenda across Scotland and who wish to be part of the change. The community meet regularly, on-line and in person, to share ideas, learn and collaborate.