If your children are like mine and they are close together in age, one of the “bonuses” is that they may very well move in the same social circles and interact with some of the same peer group. Some kids really like this, while others may want to have their very own friends that they don’t have to share. In my own family, we have been through “stages”—there was a period around the middle school years where my kids really needed to separate and carve out their own identities and this meant having their own friends too. Overall, however, there have been a lot of shared friendships over the years.
Other people tend to view my kids as a “pack”—with only around a year between each birth, they have always been very close with each other and great playmates for one another. It was very common that when one of them brought a friend home, they were soon all playing together. As the parent, I tried to be sensitive to what was going on and support a child who wanted to have time alone with a friend without the siblings tagging along, but I also did not force it. If they all wanted to play together and they got along well, then I didn’t intervene.
Now that my children are past those difficult middle school years, they are much more relaxed again about sharing friends. This is good for the friends since it almost always turns out that someone starts out as a friend with one of them but then becomes at least friendly with the others. I can think of only a couple kids who were boycotted by the others and these kids ended up being short-term friends anyway.
I do think that it is important to stress individual identities and not force siblings who are close in age to share friends. It may happen naturally, but we parents can also understand when our children need to have some peer time to themselves. Watch out for hurt feelings or for the initial friend getting “dumped” if a guest tends to like one of the siblings more than the other(s).
Also: Fostering Closeness in Siblings
Reasons to Have a Small Sibling Age Gap