Mom Loves You Best

How adult siblings can resolve lifelong conflicts and reconnect.

by Cathy Cress, MSW, and Kali Cress Peterson, MS, MPA

Gen X Parents Can Veer Away From Sibling Rivalry

Sibling “I Hate You” stories are formed like hurricane Irene. They start small, gather size and speed, and then wreak havoc. Read More

Sibing Family Rules: The Greatest Generation vs. Baby Boomers

Many family rules are silent. Usually no one writes them down, but they get deeply scrawled in indelible ink on our cerebrum. At times hushed codes are a deadly narrative for "I Hate You" stories. Read More

Surviving Summer Wedding As a Midlife Stepsibling

  Perhaps you need to seek resolution with that step brother or stepsister before the summer wedding. Read More

Avoid Brady Bunch Hopes About Merging Families

If you have fallen in love with another person after divorce and hope to create a step family, go to counseling long before you merge your two clans. Read More

Stepsibling Misery

Using a family meeting as a tool, blood, stepsiblings and half siblings in stepfamilies can begin to deal with old or new wounds. Read More

Division of Parental Assets Among Sibling Twins

Parents of twins feel challenged to divide their time, attention, and love between their children. Read More

Parent Twins as Individuals

Not treating twins as individuals can lead to future "I Hate You" stories. Read More

Victim Villain Relationship Lethal to Siblings

If one child feels like the helpless person, and the other sibling has all the power, this may lead decades later, to an "I Hate You" story. Read More

Make Your Kids Into A Team: Hold Family Meetings

Family meetings also help open lines of communication and allow siblings to solve problems in a group—a great skill for brothers and sisters as they age. Read More

Gen X Parents: Teach Sibs to Act As a Team to Avoid Siblings Rivalry

Working together teaches siblings to share, to delegate responsibility, and to really appreciate each other. What's more, learning to work as a team cuts down on sibling rivalry and squabbles and builds a deep bond that the siblings carry with them for a lifetime. Read More

Parents of Sibs -Set Limits, Establish Boundaries and Fair Rules - Said Out Loud

How siblings behave toward each other is the first social lesson they get on how to interact with the world and perhaps their future boyfriend, girlfriend, partner or spouse. It also gives siblings the framework to cooperate with each other. Read More

Happy Mother's Day But Have a New Baby and Sibling Jealousy?

Mom and Dad's - if new baby arrives, sell self-worth to each sibling and pay attention to roles- especially middle children. Read More

Gen X Parents - Avoid Sibling Wounds Try Family Meetings

Family meetings are an excellent tool to let you listen to both sides of a sibling argument Read More

Parents: Spot Victims and Villians in Your Family

If one child feels like the helpless person, and the other sibling has all the power, this may lead decades later, to an "I Hate You" story. Read More

Kids Hitting? Dodge Sibling Problems by Intervening Right Away

Do not let siblings settle differences between themselves. Read More

Relieve The Heavy Load of Parenting Young Kids: Involve Extended Family

Engaging the support of older family members like baby boomer grandparents, who today can be pretty vital sixty-year-olds, can be a hand up with the heavy lift of parentng . Read More

Parents Can Avoid Sibling Warfare By Involving Dad More

One thing the baby boomer generation has taught us is to involve men more in the parenting process. It takes a couple of engaged parents to get ahead of sibling conflict. Read More

Sibling Strife All Over Blogs, Books and the Media

When trying to field a parent care squad, MFT geriatric care managers, geriatricians, gerontologists, geriatric social workers and nurses often run into seething sibling roadblocks. Read More

Why Reconnect with Estranged Midlife Siblings?

Time is running out on the midlife family stage. There is only so much time for forgiveness and reconnection. Read More

Oscar Nominated Sibling Films and Actual Sibling Directors in the News

Siblings, both cruel and supportive, were big winners in the Oscar nominations this week. Read More

Sister Siblings: The Strongest Sibling Dyad of All

Sisters often forge the strongest friendships of any sibling pairs. Read More

Fighting Like Cats and Dogs With Midlife Siblings Over Parent Care?

Sparks can fly because adult brothers and sisters often gather as a team for the first time since childhood, at a family meeting, called to face a red hot aging parent problem. Read More

Sibling Rivalry in Shakespeare

Are you involved in a Shakespearean struggle with your siblings?
Read More

Oscar Nominated Sibling Films and Actual Sibling Directors in the News

Siblings, both cruel and supportive, were big winners in the Oscar nominations this week. Read More

Baby Boomer Siblings Create Circle of Care

Connecting with brothers and sisters when you're a caregiver. Read More

Baby Boomers' Miserable Struggle With Midlife Sibling Issues

Midlife ritual events can throw us together with siblings and reopen the chasm that swallowed us whole as kids. Read More

Aging Siblings Offer Great Therapy to Each Other

Older siblings can share memories and day-to-day comparisons. They are often the longest relationships any of us have in life Read More

Blood-, Half-, and Step Siblings

Siblings come in different forms, with different degrees of common genes, common history, common family values and a common culture. Read More

Fearsome Power of Siblings in Allen Shawn's New Memoir "Twin"

Siblings brandish great power in the family- as poignantly described in Allen Shawn’s new memoir Twin, reviewed in the New York Times. Read More

Forgiveness is Major Therapeutic Tool With Aging Family

Often, with the dysfunctional and even nearly normal family, the therapist enters a family system, because the midlife siblings are “ stuck” around parent care Read More

Mom Loves You Best Bloggers

Cathy Cress holds an M.S.W. in Aging from U.C. Berkeley. She is the coauthor of Mom Loves You Best, Forgiving and Forging Sibling Relationships.

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