Abstract
Adolescents’ healthy, holistic development is shaped by family processes. The arrival of a newborn sibling is a brief, intense transition to siblinghood (TTS) that reorganizes roles and attention; yet short-term adolescent outcomes in this window are seldom examined, and findings remain inconsistent. Using two-wave national data on Chinese junior secondary students (N = 8,896), we estimated lagged models adjusting baseline outcomes and tested maternal and paternal support as indirect pathways. Relative to no TTS, both first-time and additional TTS were associated with higher depressive symptoms and lower academic performance, while the cognitive association appeared primarily for first-time TTS. Pooled interaction tests showed no slope difference for depression or academics, and indirect paths via maternal but not paternal support partially accounted for several links. Findings highlight short-term challenges around sibling birth and suggest that strengthening everyday parental support may help adolescents navigate TTS.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
