If you are close to your siblings, what do you attribute that to?

[Zeetah]

If you’re close to your siblings, why do you think that is?
Was there anything your parents did to help you forge a great relationship?

I’m not close to mine at all. Admittedly we are very different personalities, but also growing up we all just did our own thing and we didn’t really do many fun family activities, eg we stopped going on family holidays or day trips once we were out of primary school, we never did anything like family film & takeaway nights, cinema trips, camping, or participate in any sports or activities together.

I think only a small part is down to parenting style - favouring one child or comparing siblings will not help create a good bond, of course, but I think most of it is down to personality and you can't do much about that as a parent.
I used to be very close to one of my siblings, I absolutely adored her, but as we've grown up her mental health issues have become more and more difficult to handle and we are now not in contact (though I presume we will start talking again in the future). There is nothing you can do as a parent to influence that.

I'm close to my sister. But there's just the two of us and we are close in age.

DH is close to his brother but neither of them are close to their sister. They're all quite self-centred people and I think that's because their parents also were.

Think it does depend on personality.

We never did family holidays or activities together.

My brother and I didn't get on from when he was 16 until he turned 21.He's my closest friend now and always messages daily asking how I am. I would be lost without him.My sisters are 11 and 9 younger than me. There have been times when we've stopped talking but with them it was for a week at the most.

I do always do nice things for them like send random chocolate, or small gifts.

Because if they weren’t sisters they are people I would be friends with anyway.

I don’t know, because our dynamic is a bit odd due to age gap and other shit family stuff.

But I do keep an eye on my own children and try and facilitate good relationships. We have three and I will notice when two have been spending a lot of time together and the other is getting a bit distant. I’ll then take the youngest out for a bit to let the oldest two have some time together. I also point out when they are kind to each other and so on.

It’s hard to balance meddling too much and not enough. They are all very close right now though, so on the right track.

The internet, probably. We all live in different countries and a different one from our parents/home country.

We didn't speak that much before they left but the sudden availability of FaceTime coinciding with a parent becoming seriously ill and the first one of us to have a child meant we had a reason and an easy way speak and look at videos/photos regularly.

Now we are all late 30s and text each other and send snaps most days and speak every couple of weeks (due to time zone difference I often wake up to find messages and photos, so I start the day thinking of them which is nice)!

Personality has a bit to do with it; my brother has turned out to be very like me and we get on super well but I'm also proud of the woman and the mum my sister has become. She's been acting (and treated like) 30-something teenager for ages, but having a child was the making of her.

I'm so interested to know. I suspect not taking each other for granted, respect for difference and parenting play a part. DB and I were playmates and played loads of imaginary games. I preferred sports and he played music. We drifted as teens and argued a lot. Then he developed schizophrenia. I've literally saved his life several times and when he calls first thing he does is ask for money.

I'm close to mine. Our mother has definitely been a contributing factor, she's always encouraged us to be each other's champions and supporters growing up. So we'd always celebrate each other's successes together. We're also a very open family, and have always had 'a problem shared is a problem halved' attitude towards things and I think that's made us closer too.

We are all quite different, but our mother always sold that as a positive rather than something negative. We were never allowed to use our differences as an excuse for not making an effort with each other and we were always encouraged to find ways to connect and communicate despite our differences.

I’m really close to my brother and sister we at times have lived in different continents and now are spread throughout the Uk but we are always in touch by phone or text. We support each other and they would be the first people I would go to for advice. We are all very different characters but with the same morals and compassion.
I think coming from a stable family background makes a huge impact on your upbringing and all my siblings and myself have went on to have long and happy marriages to good partners.

One sister, two years younger. We live at different ends of the country, but we are still close. She'd be my 3am phone call.
We had quite a difficult 'the clever one/the pretty and confident one' dynamic when we were kids. I don't really know where it came from - my parents say they always tried to avoid it, but it was definitely there. By our mid/late teens we were good friends though - part of the same friendship group and would go out together.
We shared a flat for a bit in our early twenties.
Nowadays, we are very close. Partly this is circumstance - she married a good friend of mine and my DH's, we had our first children within weeks of each other and the second ones are also close in age and they all get on well. We have similar views and lifestyles.
I don't know if anything my parents did or didn't do had any real affect on any of that. They were both very good at doing things with us both, separately and together - I felt as though I had my own relationship with everyone in the family. (DH's family split very much along gender lines when he was young, and while that meant he did some amazing things with his dad, it's something we're trying not to replicate with our own children.)
Interesting to read other people's thoughts on this - quite a range of responses.

Our parents rarely organised activities for us and we were lett to our own devices a lot so I think we ended up playing together loads out of boredom! One of my siblings I've always been very, very close to and I think that's because our personalities are very different in a way that compliments each other. My other sibling is very similar to me and we were a nightmare living together as teens, but do very well seeing each other a few times a year as adults!

I'd attribute it to my parents treating us scrupulously fairly, plus the fact my sisters are really good fun. They are my closest friends and we enjoy hanging out.

My DP has sisters and I'd say the relationship is more of an "obligated family" one - they get together on big occasions but don't chat massively beyond that.

My brother and sister are closer in age but they're not close at all. They don't really get on but are civil when they need to be. I'm younger than them both by 10 years so we all weren't really close whilst growing up but since we're now all adults I would say we talk more now. I'm closer to my brother because we have similar interests and we do hang out as friends.

My brother’s quite a lot younger than me and has a different Dad. His Dad was physically and emotionally abusive towards me growing up and my Mum turned a blind eye. My brother was honestly a little shit as a child, he was in and out of A&E constantly because he’d done something ridiculously stupid and hurt himself. He used to hit me a lot, poured nail polish in my hair once, chucked metal toy cars at my head etc. He once went into my room and smashed my deceased Great Gran’s thimble collection up. My Mum just made excuses for him, quite often his actions would somehow be my fault because I was older so ‘should know better’ .

He’s 21 now and by all accounts, grown into a lovely and mellow young man. He has a wonderful long-term girlfriend and they have bought a flat together. I’m not close to him in the slightest though, he was ten when I left home so I feel like I barely know him. His Dad died suddenly a couple of months ago and I offered my condolences but it was a weird situation for me because his Dad terrorised me for years so I didn’t feel sad at all, relieved if anything.

I’d like to have a closer relationship with him but it’s one of those strange things, where do you start really? I just don’t know very much about him.

When I was a child my parents worked very hard Dad low paid paid work but did massive overtime and Mum was did all washing by hand, cooked meal from scratch every day and baked at least twice a week. I have 4 sisters and no brothers. We did not have much but whatever we had we shared. Siblings range from oldest 12 years older than me to youngest 4 years younger. My older sisters often took me and younger sister to Saturday morning cinema or to the park near to our house and swimming in summer holidays. As I grew up I always babysat my older sisters children. I am extremely close toy nephew's and nieces too, probably because of that. We don't live close geographically but make effort to keep in contact by phone each week by WhatsApp and meet up 4 or 5 times each year for a meal or sometimes they visit me on holiday as I have house in France with 7 bedrooms so we can all meet up there and a few nieces or nephew's too.

We’re 8 years apart so never really fought or had any competition (although she is very much the favourite child). I looked after her a lot when I was a teenager and she’s always come to me for advice, I think we’re very compatible personality types