My Siblings Hate Me
Life is stressful enough as a teenager. You’re likely already trying to balance school, other activities, friends/social life, and parental expectations. When you have tense and complicated relationship with your brother(s) or sister(s) on top of all this, it can be overwhelming… and isolating at the same time.
Your siblings are supposed to be the ones you can confide in, right? The ones that understand the way things are in your family. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s not like that and you can have siblings, even close in age, and still feel all alone.
If you find yourself in this situation here are some tips:
- Evaluate if you would like to have a closer relationship with your siblings. Sometimes being close with siblings is not the best choice.
- Apologize, if an apology or explanation for your behavior is needed.
- Work on reaching out… maybe it’s a “how was your day?” while you’re getting a snack after school, maybe it’s wandering into their room after dinner to say hi.
- Focus on shared interests to start reaching out. Do you like the same music? Follow some of the same people on Instagram? Have funny family quirks you can both laugh at?
- Keep trying to connect with them, but also honor their space. It’s a slow process to repair or build a connection so don’t get discouraged, but also acknowledge that your sibling might need a little time as well.
- Reach out for help! If the above ideas are not working, reach out to a parent, other adult or counselor to help you.
Have you done something else that helped improve a relationship with a sibling?
Blog written by Sentier therapist.
