ScienceDaily (Dec. 10, 2009) — Children who bully at school are likely to also bully their siblings at home.

This is the finding of a study published online in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology.

Dr Ersilia Menesini and colleagues at the Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Italy, designed the study to investigate whether the age and gender of a child's siblings predicted whether children were likely to bully, or to become victims of bullying. They also looked for links between sibling bullying and school bullying

A total of 195 children aged between 10 and 12 took part in the study. All of the children had a sibling no more than four years older or younger than them. Children were given questionnaires that asked whether they were a victim of bullying, or bullied their peers at school, and whether they were a victim of bullying by a sibling or bullied a sibling at home.

Dr Menesini said: "We found that children with older male siblings were the most victimised group.

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