The primary goal of the study was improving emotional regulations to enhance sibling relationship. Kennedy and Kramer aimed at illustrating the necessity of self-control, communication and management of emotions by children to enhance prosocial behaviors. The study’s main hypothesis was emotion control improves sibling relationship quality thus undertook the research by using children and parents in MFWSB (Kennedy & Kramer, 2008). The study was both successful and unsuccessful as illustrated in the strengths and weakness section in this paper.
Strengths
The assumptions that emotion control is the main determinant of sibling relationship led to the use of graduates and those waiting to enroll in MFWSB to learn about emotion control, communication and better handling of complex situations. The results indicate that there was improvement of sibling relationship quality for the graduates as the parents reported lower cases of jealousy, rivalry and other sibling conflict behaviors (Kennedy & Kramer, 2008). The study’s uses of role play and practice of controlling and handling different situations by staying calm in MFWSB illustrated the need to educate children on controlling negative emotions and refraining from direct negative actions towards others which can help in reducing sibling rivalry and conflicts.
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Weaknesses
The study’s failure to consider other children from different races and backgrounds in the study limits the reliability of the study and its findings. The use of children from white middle-class families and the generalized findings limits the success of the study (Kennedy & Kramer, 2008). I believe involving all children from different races, economical backgrounds and religion would have made the study more accurate. The study also failed to include whether the method can be used to help children experiencing severe difficulties in sibling relationship and personal development.
The research leaves a lot of questions after reading it but the main question is “Did the researchers consider all the causes of behavior change?”
Reference
Kennedy, D. E. & Kramer, L. (2008). Improving emotional regulation and sibling relationship quality: The More Fun with Sisters and Brothers Program. Family Relations, 57 , 567-578.
