Copying siblings , Psychology says it's a thing.

@Astral yes so many families were affected by the war and post war things were difficult even though the war had ended because the trauma remained and there wasn't therapy or internet, so it remained stuck inside. My MiL claims her father died early because he never spoke about his trauma and I think also my GP's were affected by this.

@Smileless2021 I hope it's not passed down. Perhaps it's learnt behaviour? We are fortunate that we are able to discuss the things that bother us and not hold them deep inside like our GP's would have.

I had a search about online and I couldn't find any evidence that estrangement runs in families, more evidence of problems running in post war families and a difference in today's parenting versus previous generations.

So I think it's hopeful that this epidemic of estrangement we see happening has a cure. Especially with all the help and support available these days compared with back then when we couldn't Google an issue and find suggestions and had to rely on experience or example from those around us.

Try not to worry about that Smileless2012, I'm sure it's not set in stone that all this pain will get passed on to your little grandchild one day.

As much as we love and miss our son and GC, we are thankful to be out of it Astral. It must be confusing for the children; one day they see their only GM and the next they don't.

Permanent estrangement is heartbreaking but preferable to playing emotional games.

As I posted yesterday, there is a history of estrangement in ES's wife's family Lavazza and it does make me wonder if this 'taught' behaviour is passed onto the next generation and how many EAC today may find themselves estranged by one of their own children in the future.

@Smileless2012 so sorry to hear that. It sounds so painful.

@Astral my parent that I mentioned above has a history of estranging from people including their own siblings, and they moved house without telling us where! We went for 2 years without knowing where they were. It upset my kids a lot, so could have been that they decided this was how you punish family during that ^ time their mental health deteriorated and one was sectioned. I am now in contact with both DP's and trying to set the best example I can to my kids.

Forgive me Smileless2012 that sounds like a tough situation and one you are probably better off without but doesn't estrangement mean permanently ending a relationship? Is DIL really estranged with a constant back and forth? That doesn't sound very healthy for anyone. I think I'd rather be permanently estranged than have an off and on relationship. Is there a word for that?

In some instances I think estrangement is both an emotional and behaviour response.

A lack of emotional maturity can be a reason for not attempting to discuss any problems in the relationship so preventing estrangement. Where there has been estrangement previously, that can contribute toward 'learning' that this is an acceptable way to not deal with any issues.

Our ES's wife estranged her parents before she married our son. They married abroad so her parents wouldn't be at the wedding and only Mr. S. and me were there.

Within a few weeks of the wedding she'd 'reconciled' but since then on at least 3 occasions that we know of, she's estranged and reconciled with her mother. Her parents are divorced and we don't know if she has any contact with her father.

For us, being aware of this emotional roller coaster that her mother experiences, does make us grateful that we are not on this particular ride.

There's a history of this type of repetitive estrangement/reconciliation scenario from both of her parents with their own families. Something that before we were estranged, she would comment on saying she never knew from one day to the next 'who was in and who was out'.

I don't know sorry Lavazza1st, I can't see how that would be genetic. I don't know if estrangement is a behaviour or an emotional response? If it's an emotional response to a bad situation then I think estrangement wouldn't run in families without good reason. If it is a behavioural response maybe it can run in families as learned behaviour but behaviours are usually there to cause a reaction or a reaction too something and it's been learned as a way to express themselves that might not always be healthy?

@Astral I have heard people say that before too. I haven't ever had girls, so maybe it's different because I've never felt similar to my kids.
One of mine is abusive and search myself as I have, I'm pretty sure I'm not abusive ( but their Dad is). I think some traits do come from other family members as well as one of mine takes after my Grandad, Uncle and brother in terms of personality and brains.

One of my parents is estranged from their sibling and claims they are dead, except they are not (or weren't when I last checked) so I do wonder if my kids are more genetically predisposed to estrangement, if that's even a thing?

I was talking to a friend recently who had been having a tough time with one of her daughters. When I asked her how things were she said "It suddenly hit me that all the things I didn't like about my daughter were things I didn't like about myself". So she worked on changing those things for herself without saying anything to her daughter and her daughter responded positively and things got better.

I found that really interesting and it's making me think that actually I can apply that to my relationships with my children too.

Just to add to the anecdotal discussion, myself and my sibling and my children are very different from each other. Very different paths in life. None of us are estranged though my husband is estranged from his family and I gather there is some history of this in his family. Not so much among his siblings though.

Ah I missed the end bit! I think I am just grasping at straws in my attempt to make sense of life.

@Freedomfromthepast yes it is true that undiagnosed ADHD will result in adult depression and other issues. My ES was recently diagnosed with it and it's become clear that there are ,many comorbidities with ADHD.

My son has struggled with MH for a long time and as a child his ADHD was not picked up. As a teen he refused to engage with CAMHS and we could not understand what the problem was. I wish we had known, we probably could have done more.

I have not parented my kids the same way because their characters were so different. I always made allowances for the one that now has been diagnosed with ADHD because I always knew there was something wrong even though Dr's could not pinpoint it because he refused to engage. I even thought he had Oppositional Defiant Disorder because of the challenging behaviour. As an adult that is reclassified as Anti Social Behaviour Disorder.

Looking back I wish I could have had more help. I have struggled ten years with challenging and abusive behaviour and accepted too much. It has not been fair on my other kids. Some of the behaviors have definitely been copied, like life choices but the actual disposition and character have not been replicated.

I had always hoped that nurture would be enough to counteract the abusive genes from their father. But much as you love someone there comes a point where you can't take any more abuse.

Lolo81 - you are correct. I do not have experience raising boys, but I am a long time Girl Scout leader here in the US and am raising girls. I know girls.

I saw once about a study that said in 5th grade, girls tested higher than boys in math and science. By the end of high school, the percentage of girls in STEM classes was a fraction of the number of boys. That was because society, including parents, tended to push girls into a preconceived notion around the time puberty. So I can definitely see that boys would also be stereotyped by society around that age as well.

There has been a lot of conversation the last few years about gender norms. I am all for allowing boys to play with dolls and girls to play with cars, but in the grand scheme of things no one can change the fact that as a whole, girls like pink frilly things and boys want to jump off the top of play structures. (I saw that happen once and my girl mom sensibilities almost had a heart attack). There are exceptions, of course, but we just cant change the nature of things, as it were.

As for genetics, I am always surprised to see things in my own children that are also traits of my husband or I. My youngest sleeps in the same exact position her father does and shares a lot of personality traits. My oldest looks more like me and our personalities are very similar. That is why I parent them differently. My oldest and I are very level headed and calm. I can just have a conversation with her and things are well. My youngest and my husband are sensitive and emotional. I have learned how they sometimes need kid gloves. So yes, nature is the beginning and nurture the is upbringing based on the individual needs of the child.

After all my thinking and rambling on, I have cemented my opinion that parents do not parent all children the same. I think that when we say that "I have parented all my children the same way" we may mean that we have given our children the same opportunities to succeed in life. But we never can parent our children the same because the nature aspect of them would necessitate the nurture to be different.

That's a horrible thing to do in the name of science, I will look at that Smileless2012 thanks. I don't really know much about statistics because they always seems to be set on average and I don't understand what average is. A few in the middle somewhere? I remember reading something about it once when I was looking into depression and it said that often mental health things that have a hereditary component need a life experience trigger to set them off which I think is very interesting.

Maybe it's all a bit more individual when you think about where hereditary comes from, 2 parents, 4 grandparents 8 great grandparents and on and on. Which bits and how much could come from where or who? What impact nurture for any individual child has on anything predesposed or whether parenting style can change it is probably so complicated I don't know if there would ever be a solid answer?

Chewbacca - that’s really interesting about the family you described. Many sociologists have made the link between boys and “trouble” as a generational gender bias of parenting. That’s not to accredit blame, but it has been shown (I can’t recall the study offhand) that boys who reached adolescence tended to be raised differently to be independent, strong and “manly”, whilst girls were more given more scope to be emotional.
Personally I think nature is more about inherent personality traits and preferences, with nurture being more influential on behaviours. Especially when you consider that nurture expands out early in childhood to encompass peer groups, school, teachers, media etc.

That's really interesting Smileless I hadn't heard of that "experiment" before. Callous thing to do in the name of research but interesting to know about.

That's a good point Astral about boys and girls possibly being raised differently in the same home due to gender. It also raises the issue of children from the same family, with different personalities, being raised in the same way possibly not allowing one to be able to 'be' which is what janeainsworth pointed out earlier

There have over the years been some questionable studies of twins and triplets separated at birth. I'm thinking of an extensive study done in America where babies given up by their mothers at birth, were deliberately given to separate adoptive parents and were then 'studied' at regular intervals so sibling comparisons could be made.

It came out into the open when a young man went to uni and on the first day, by several students, was mistaken for someone else. His brother who was unknown to him was contacted by a friend, went to the uni to see for himself and they discovered they'd been separated by the adoption process.

It was jumped on by the media which resulted in a third brother coming forward; they were triplets. There's was just one of many cases of twins and triplets being deliberately separated during the adoption process in the name of 'science'.

As well as the stark physical similarities and mannerisims were their personality traits, taste in music, fashion and hobbies.

The documentation that relates to this study, which wont be unavailable for public scrutiny for several years even to the 'participants', was to discern what has the most influence, nature or nurture.

Until I watched the documentary on this study, I always believed it was 50/50. Having seen it and read other more ethically carried out studies, where it hadn't been possible to keep the siblings together for adoption, I'm now of the opinion that even if it's 52/48, nature seems to have the greater input.

In the example of the 3 children, 2 girls and one boy, my first thought was I wonder if the boy had untreated ADHD

You raise an interesting point freedom. The boy was definitely heavily involved in drugs, both using and selling and that would have obviously had some effect on his behaviour and mental health. But his behavioural problems began a long time before that started and so it's quite possible that any ADHD signs weren't picked up as early as they could/should have been, as you suggest. This was in the late 1970s though and I'm not sure whether much, if anything, was known or understood about that then? You're quite right though; the turn around in his 30s was very sudden and was almost like a transformation.

I'm sorry you went through all that freedomfromthepast, my upbringing wasn't good either and I know things were different in the past but I spent enough time at friends houses to see the difference in parenting others had compared to mine.

agnurse, that is exactly what happened with me. When I was a kid and struggled in school, I was labeled a bad child who didn't work hard enough. But I was doing everything I could because I wanted my parents to love me. I was often compared to my sister who had decent grades and often heard "why cant you be more like your sister?"

I suspected I had ADHD in a joking way in my 20's, because I had symptoms. Once I got my kids diagnosed it all became clear. I also learned a lot about ADHD, Anxiety and OCD, which often present together.

I wonder if my parents had knowledge like we did today, would my nurture had been differently? Unfortunately I believe likely not because my mother also had mental health issues and couldn't be bothered with most things regarding her children. But having that diagnosis DID change how I parent my children.

Astral - 100% yes, I believe they do. Children in one family may be presented the same opportunities, roof over their head, schooling, but when it comes right down to personal hands on, it is more likely to be a difference.

I think this is very interesting, not that I want to put parents in boxes but I wonder if sometimes boys and girls get parented differently in some families?

www.verywellfamily.com/types-of-parenting-styles-1095045

freedom

From what I understand it's not uncommon for parents to recognize that they may have ADHD when their children are being evaluated for it. The parent is going through the inventory to see what signs and symptoms their child has, and they're going, "I do this, and I do this, and I do that too - do you think I might have this thing?"

Interesting.

When I finally made the difficult decision to estrange from my mother, she blamed me for also alienating my sister. She feels that I led my sister down the same path. However the reality was that my sister had long ago decided to limit contact with her and I spent many years telling my sister that she is her mother, she is who she is and pushing her back to a relationship. When I estranged the only thing I did is stop pushing my sister to our mother. Naturally, their relationship fluttered out. Of course she thinks I am behind it. But that is the furthest thing from the truth.

My sister wouldn't copy me because I am an adventurer and she would rather not be drug along on some of them. We are also very much our own people and I would hate to be looked at as an extension of my sister by anyone. Nor her me.

I have a hard time with the concept of either/or nature/nurture. They BOTH have a role.

In the example of the 3 children, 2 girls and one boy, my first thought was I wonder if the boy had untreated ADHD? It is well known that more boys have ADHD than in girls and when girls do have ADHD they present differently.

In previous generations ADHD diagnosis were rarely diagnosed and we now know that untreated ADHD can lead to self medicating. I assume if he was involved in gangs then there were drugs involved, though I make that assumption with no knowledge of gangs in the UK.

It is also common here in the US that 30, 40 and 50 something adults are just now being diagnosed with ADHD because the knowledge of it is so much better. Having that treatment could explain an abrupt change in his 30s.

That may or may not be the case, and there could be tons of other explanations for it. But since I do not know these people I could never say.

My opinion on all cases is that each child is their own person and need differing variations of "nurture" because each persons "nature" is different. Comparing children from the same parents isn't a good strategy, IMO.

I also wonder how many children are, in fact, raised the exact same way. Raising boys and raising girls are different, because they have different needs. If you apply raising girls to raising a boy, you may have problems. I am unable to even raise my 2 girls the exact same way. They are different people with different temperaments and personalities. My oldest is rather easily parented, my youngest not so much. So they get different nurture.

Very possibly janeainsworth and it's difficult to actually know what goes on in someone else's home; favouritism of one child over another, praising one child's achievements more than the other; all play a part in family dynamics and the outcome. I've often wondered whether the young man I referred to, parents his own children in a different way than he was raised, or a similar way.

Chewbacca Perhaps it depends on the nurturing style.
If the nurturing style is to allow children to express themselves and to ‘be’ themselves, their individual traits will be more apparent and differences between siblings more obvious, than if the parents exercise more control & try to mould their children towards their own expectations?