Many relationships in our lives are always changing and growing in some way. I’ve had several of these types of relationships in my life. One in particular is the relationship between me and my sister. We have a ten year age difference which caused many issues in trying to grow closer to each other in several ways. The main concepts that led to this changing relationship are the physiology in perception, which is basically my sister’s view of me and mine of her through our age gap. Our communication with others and experiences throughout our lives are a major point. Lastly, each of our occupations, and how we evolved socially as we became older.
When I was born, my sister was at the age of ten. We already were so very different because she had experienced so many aspects of life that I would have to wait a long while to experience. As I grew up, the case would not be any different. She would continue to go through situations that I could not relate to on any level. This hindered our communication, and we were not able to become close to each other or bond for many years. As I grew older and dealt with new situations and people, I was able to relate to her more and we could form a new relationship.
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Physiology in Perception
Our physiology played a large role in our communication and relationship. Since my sister is ten years older than me, she did not see me as a friend or someone she could really talk to for a long time. There was usually a lot of tension and arguments between the two of us because of the difference in maturity levels. According to oureverydaylife.com (2019), “Large age differences lead to arguments over privacy, and the older siblings typically accuse the younger sibling of invading their space.” This was true in our case. Most of the time I wanted to be around my sister and do what she was doing, but to her this behavior came across as me tryingto annoy her and invade her privacy. I was only in the house with her for eight years then she moved several hours away for college. The beginning eight years of our relationship was basically me as the annoying little sister, and our only real communication was when she had to babysit me or tell me to stop coming in her room and annoying her. Our relationship never really changed once she left for college. I just saw less of her, which caused a major lack in communication, so our relationship weakened over those couple of years.
Age Difference as a Barrier to Interpersonal Communication
The communication between my sister and I were greatly impacted by the age difference between us. Based on the age differences, our priorities, values and view of things were different. Age difference can act as a key barrier to communication differences between two people. While I was young and could only engage my sister in things like play, she looked quite older and needed to engage in more serious things. One of the areas where the barrier to our communication increased was on my sister’s broader generalization. While sometimes I could want to engage her in some talks as siblings, she could ignore me, seeing me as too young to say anything meaningful to her. I made several attempts to talk to her over certain issues, but her attitude towards me could always scare me away. She always viewed me as too young and thus she was unable to engage me in any serious talk.
Whenever I went next to my sister and begin communicating with her, she could only see me as been stubborn and someone who was making her annoyed. She often chased me away from her room whenever I went near her. As a result, I developed fear towards her because I felt she was not so welcoming. Age gap between two groups can lead to reduced communication and increased barrier especially when one group sees the other as too young and less experienced to engage in any meaningful conversation ( Norouzinia et al., 2016). My sister paid little attention to my conversation because she saw me as a child. According to DeVito (2019), lack of attention, interest, distractions or irrelevance to the receiver could make communication between two people difficult and act as a barrier. This was the case between my sister and I. because she was a decade older than, she could not see any relevance in what I say other than viewing it as an annoyance.
Experiences and Communication
My sister only left for two years for college and then transferred back home. While she was away, she was experiencing college life, while I was still in elementary school/junior high. She was communicating mainly with college kids around her age and adults. I was communicating with my parents and immediate family, but also little kids my age. At the same time, we were having different experiences in our environments and various events we were attending. While she was attending college parties, college classes, etc., I was attending child birthday parties, family events, and more of that nature. The only time my sister and I could communicate would be when she decided to come home or when we visited her. Brief amounts of time of face-to-face communication make forming a close bond very difficult.
The existence of the physical distance between two people can lead to a weakened relationship. When two people with a relationship stay away from each other for long and without any form of communication, that relationship tends to be weakened due to loss of personal attachment ( Kolk , 2017). This was the case between my sister and I. after staying in college for two years where we hardly had face to face communication unless we visited her, the contact between us reduced. She interacted with her college mates and got more experience as I also socialized with my elementary schoolmates and learned a few things. This increase in experience with time however stood to reduce the communication barriers that had existed between us.
Occupations and Evolving Socially
Eventually, my sister decided to move back home, and this is when we began to form a stronger bond. Obviously, we were able to have more face-to-face communication. She remained at home from the time she transferred until now. During this time period, I was getting older, and beginning to experience the things my sister had already experienced. While I was in high school, I faced more situations that she was able to help me with, so I began to go to her for more advice. This is when we started to communicate more and actually get to know each other on a deeper level than just big sister to little sister.
After she finished her law school and as I joined college, the relationship between us grew stronger. She became one of the closest person to me and we could often be seen sitting together and sharing. We had started experiencing the same things and despite the age gap, my sister started to see me as an adult whom she could engage in a serious conversation. Currently, the relationship between my sister and I is very strong than ever before and she is just more than a bigger sister, but a role model and a mentor to me.
References
DeVito, J. A. (2019). The interpersonal communication book. Instructor , 1 , 18.
Norouzinia, R., Aghabarari, M., Shiri, M., Karimi, M., & Samami, E. (2016). Communication barriers perceived by nurses and patients. Global journal of health science , 8 (6), 65.
Kolk, M. (2017). A life ‐ course analysis of geographical distance to siblings, parents, and grandparents in Sweden. Population, Space and Place , 23 (3), e2020.
Our Everyday Life. (2019). Retrieved from https://oureverydaylife.com/
