THE BURDEN: The Older Sibling Athlete

Published on: 7th June, 2010

THE BURDEN: The Older Sibling Athlete  | read this item

by Madhuli Kulkarni – A Sport Psychologist

 

This article is with reference to your article ‘SIBLING RISK TAKING ON THE BASE PATH’ I have worked with quite a good number of siblings who have played the same sport. Here is a very interesting and a very similar situation that you have shown in the article but with a slightly different explanation to it.

I was working with a group of Table Tennis players for quite a lot of time. I had group sessions and individual sessions with the players. We could see positive results in the performance of almost every player I had worked with except for Neha, though she had tremendous potential she was always an underperformer. I had couple of rounds of discussion with Neha on what was going wrong and what needs to be done but still it was not working. And somewhere deep inside I had this feeling that the main issue is something very different from what we are looking at. But somehow was very difficult to reach to that issue with Neha. So I decided to involve her Coach and her parents to get in to the root cause of the issue. After talking to her parents and coach I got the idea that earlier she was not like this she was very tough player but over the past two three years she has changed a lot on the table and off the table as well. She has become very reserved, she does not meet people, likes to be with herself, extreme mood swings, etc apart from the under and inconsistent performance in the game. Now my focus was to find out what changed two three years back that had such a profound impact on her. 

I asked Neha to meet me after an important tournament which was scheduled in that week. She came after the tournament, “How was your match, Neha?” I asked. “Not very good, Uma this time also won the title.” She said. Uma is her younger sister who also plays Table Tennis but in a level below Neha’s age group. “Great! I got the news yesterday.” I said. “Did you read the article on her in today’s newspaper?”  She asked. “Oh, yes. She has been the unbeatable player for the past two years now……(something clicked in my mind). We are so proud of her.” I said to which she just nodded her head in agreement. “How do you feel about her performance Neha? I asked and very patiently waited for her response. She took a small pause thought something and then said, “Good, I am also proud of her, (now she looking down somewhere) she joined the sport a year after me and now she is performing even better than me. She has the potential, she is better than me…..”. At this point of time I thought that she was not talking to me but she was saying this to herself. That was her ‘Self-talk’. I felt I had strike the cord so without missing the thread and without disturbing her, I asked her in a very soft voice “Does that hurt you?” Suddenly tears started flowing from her eyes. As if she has been holding them for the past two years.  I sat next to her, holding her hand, “Does Uma say anything to you, or your parents compare your performance with hers, or has anybody else  commented on  your performance comparing it with Uma’s?” “I have a very good relation with Uma, we discuss a lot on what needs to be done by both of us to improve our game, my parents have been very supportive, and for the rest of the people they don’t remember that even I play Table Tennis. People read about Uma in the newspaper and congratulate her but nobody even asks me my performance.”

In a typical Indian context it’s an unspoken expectation (though people’s perception has been changing now) that the eldest sibling needs to be more stable, responsible, emotionally mature and should perform better than the younger sibling as the younger one would look up to the elder one as his role model and would strive to reach that level. And if the elder one does not perform better than the younger then that it’s very disgraceful.  Neha was carrying the burden of this expectation which was imposed by nobody else but by herself, and was shaped by this typical way of thinking. She had the fear that if she does not perform better than her younger sister then she is not to be respected, or she is not worthy.  This made her very conscious, restricted her from taking risks in the game and forced her to play safe games. Safe games rarely give you a victory. Thus this affected her game and life and her overall confidence and self worth. On the other hand Uma had no such burden of expectations and therefore she was very free, took calculated risks while playing, never attached her winning or losing with her self-worth and continued improving her game.  

I would not call this as a sibling rivalry at this stage; it was more of an expectation burden. The a few reason that there was no rivalry between the two at that time was that they had the age difference that was not quiet close, they were competing in different age groups and were not directly competing with each other,   parents were supportive and never compared both of them with each other, but yes if proper care is not taken then this type of situation can further turn into a sibling rivalry between the two.

Well with Neha, we had a couple of sessions on how she can look at her performance and at her younger sister’s performance differently and not mix the two. Within a few days we saw a drastic positive change in Neha’s performance and it has continued till date.

  • Share/Bookmark

Readers Comments

  1. kalyani says:
    June 11, 2010 at 12:08 am

    I agree to this point of view that under performance of one sibling may be due to ‘self talk’ and not necessariliy be sibling rivalry. Many a times we do generalise it to sibling rivalry but this article gives a new dimension refered as ‘self imposed burden’. I think this is even more dangerous as it not just affects the performance of a player but also affects the individual.

    Reply – Quote
  2. Wordpress Themes says:
    June 23, 2010 at 11:00 am

    Amiable post and this mail helped me alot in my college assignement. Thanks you as your information.

    Reply – Quote
  3. cna training says:
    June 24, 2010 at 6:25 am

    nice post. thanks.

    Reply – Quote
  4. veterinary technician says:
    June 25, 2010 at 6:37 am

    found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. i bookmarked it and will be back to check it out some more later

    Reply – Quote
  5. physical therapist says:
    June 28, 2010 at 12:51 am

    I’ve recently started a blog, the information you provide on this site has helped me tremendously. Thank you for all of your time & work.

    Reply – Quote
  6. WP Themes says:
    June 30, 2010 at 12:48 pm

    Genial brief and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you as your information.

    Reply – Quote