1. 1. RP British Accent Pronunciation News article: Bully in the next bedroom - are we in denial about sibling aggression? Part 2 For more British Accent tips visit: http://www.learningbritishaccent.com
2. 2. The children were all particularly mean to the younger sister Tracy, who had been the focus of their mother's attention.
3. 3. In the afternoons, after school and before their father came home from work, they would tease Tracy until she phoned her mother to try to get them to stop.
4. 4. "I remember us saying to her: Mum can't do anything about it - she isn't coming here, recalls Laura.
5. 5. And my dad - I think he was so overwhelmed that he only ended up dealing with the most serious things."
6. 6. Her father later told Laura that he had sent her foster brother back to the orphanage because he was being bullied so much by Laura's middle sisters, a pair of twins.
7. 7. There is a growing recognition of sibling bullying. One paper published this spring in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence highlighted ways in which it differs from playground or cyber bullying.
8. 8. Twenty-seven pairs of adult siblings were questioned about how they had treated each other during childhood.
9. 9. Most reported they had been bullied, with around a third saying it had gone on for several years.
10. 10. About three-quarters of the sample said they had been both bully and victim.
11. 11. Despite the aggression, victims and perpetrators gave high ratings for closeness, both before and after the incidents they described.
12. 12. Most strikingly of all, a majority viewed it as acceptable and almost all the respondents - 85% - said such behaviour should be expected.
13. 13. "From the young person's perspective and the parent's perspective, we do expect that siblings are going to fight with one another," says Robin Kowalski, the lead author of the study.
14. 14. "But there's normal discord within sibling relationships, and then there's bullying. And I can't tell you where that line is."
15. 15. Corinna Tucker says that some parents believe conflict between siblings can be healthy since it teaches them how to handle difficult situations.
16. 16. But her study, based on the large telephone survey of children, showed that children who reported recent sibling aggression were more likely to be suffering from mental distress.
17. 17. Research led by Dieter Wolke at the University of Warwick on large samples of British and Israeli schoolchildren has found that half the children who suffered from sibling bullying also suffered bullying at school
18. 18. - and that this group was particularly at risk of unhappiness or developing behavioural problems.
19. 19. "If you only have sibling bullying or school bullying you are about 2.7 times more likely to have behaviour problems, but if you have both then it's 14 times more likely," says Wolke.
20. 20. "And the point about this is that you don't have any escape. It's 24/7."
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