When parents catch behavioral issues in their younger children such as aggression, defiance, rule-breaking, or difficulty controlling impulses, the first instinct may be to adjust their parenting styles or to seek professional guidance. These approaches do have merit, but many families overlook a powerful influence on younger children’s behaviours: their older siblings.

The relationship between siblings is one of the most important bonds in the family system, with potential for positive or negative influence. By leveraging these relationships and implementing family-based interventions, parents can create a supportive environment that can help reduce conduct issues in younger children.

Sibling relationships are an often underestimated influence on a child’s development. Unlike parent-child interactions, this dynamic involves a more horizontal power structure in which learning happens through observation, imitation, competition, and collaboration. Older siblings are viewed as more ‘relatable’ than adults, yet more experienced than oneself, enough to become an inspiration and role model.

Younger siblings watch older brothers and sisters navigate challenges, make decisions, face consequences, and learn lessons that shape behavioral patterns. These lessons are taught through firsthand observation. This is where the relationship between siblings becomes a powerful tool that can predict the younger sibling’s behavior.

When older siblings demonstrate academic success, accompanied by positive habits like self-discipline, persistence, and responsibility, younger siblings often internalize and replicate these behaviors. They observe and study their........

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