2021年5月北京地区成人本科学士学位英语统一考试真题

As any parent with more than one kid knows, sibling(兄弟姐妹) relationships can be complicated, at times differing between being close friends and rivals.

Sibling rivaling in particular can be a challenge to deal with in normal times, but with many families spending more time together than ever because of the worldwide pandemic(大流行病) in 2020 and online(在线的) schooling, that can create even more tension in some sibling relationships.

(76) "Sibling rivalry is hard to deal with." Rebecca Kennedy says. "The first step is realizing that kids do often see siblings as rivals. It's tough to have a sibling because at the end of the day a sibling is, in some ways, competing for the scarce resource of parents' attention or love."

One thing that parents can do to remove jealousy and rivalry is to help each child feel valued in his or her specialness. Janine Domingues says: "Fix some space—it's your brother's day today and tomorrow's going to be yours. That can create a healthy relationship with parents and siblings. The more attention children feel from parents, the more connected they feel to the parents and actually the more likely they'll see siblings as friends and not rivals."

(77) The other is to avoid comparing siblings with each other. It's easy for some parents to try to encourage one child by comparing him or her with a sibling. But Kennedy suggests that parents should look at how much they're reinforcing competition by pitting siblings against each other. She says: "Sometimes it feels like the easier way to get a child to do something that a sibling is doing, but we are then getting them into gazing at each other as rivals again, rather than as friends."