Adolescents' Perceptions of Sibling Caregiving

The purpose of the current study is to examine adolescents' perspectives of sibling caregiving and how sibling caregiving is associated with adolescent development and family relationships. Using role theory as a framework, focus group data were collected from 13 primarily white (n = 10) female (n = 9) adolescents in a suburban midwestern city and inductive thematic analysis was conducted. Overall, our findings revealed that sibling caregiving is an important part of adolescents' lives and may have important links to adolescent development and family relationships. It is important to note, however, that while these findings are not without limitations (i.e., lack generalizability) due to sample size and characteristic (predominately female and white), the examination of adolescent's perspectives is an important avenue as we highlight the multidimensional nature of sibling caregiving, and the influence that sibling caregiving may have on adolescents' development and family relationships within this sample.