Becoming a brother Book

Becoming a Brother captures the complexity and richness of a preschooler's responses to family change. Strictly speaking, four-year-old Simon became a sibling when Asher was born. But role transitions take time. Simon started becoming a brother when he first learned that his mother was pregnant. And he continued developing his new family role long after Asher came home from the hospital. Here, the boy's father, a developmental psychologist, weaves a detailed account of Simon's adaptation to Asher's arrival.

Becoming a Brother offers a rare view of a child's experience of a common family event. It provides a fascinating analysis of the psychological "work" a preschooler does before the baby is born. It probes a young child's emerging knowledge of conception, gestation, and birth and addresses important issues of self-understanding, of coping with normal family change, and of adjusting to the new sibling by resolving negative feelings, appropriately expressing positive ones, and learning how to talk to and play with the baby.

Mendelson presents a useful general model to account for the early interactions and emerging relationship between a child and a new brother or sister. The model focuses on the child's self-concept, interactive skills, and motivation to interact with the new sibling and reveals the ways in which the acquisition of the sibling role may be influenced by family members and by family relationships.

Morton J. Mendelson is Associate Professor of Psychology at McGill University.