Journal of Counseling & Development ■ Spring 2007 ■ Volume 85 148 © 2007 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved. Historically, violence in the home was considered a private matter. In the 1970s, however, the feminist movement assisted in raising awareness throughout mainstream America about family violence, and since that time there have been many advances in the study of various types of abuse among fam- ily members (Ammerman & Hersen, 1991). Today, issues involving the maltreatment of older adults, child abuse, and spousal abuse are researched regularly by social scientists in an attempt to understand the causes of violence in the home and to develop programs designed to prevent family violence. Despite these advances, sibling abuse remains underrepre- sented in the professional literature. Data reported in several studies over the past 3 decades suggest that sibling abuse is pandemic and can have fatal results. For example, Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz (1980) found that as many as 40% of children in the United States engage in physical aggression against siblings, and as many as 85% engage in verbal aggression against siblings on a regular basis. Wiehe (1998) estimated that as many as 53 out of ev- ery 100 children are perpetrators of sibling abuse. Goodwin and Roscoe (1990) used the Confict Tactics Incidence Scale (Straus, 1979) to measure the frequency of abuse in families among 272 high school students, and they found that 60% of the participants reported being either a victim or a perpetrator of sibling abuse. In their national surveys of 8,145 families, Straus and Gelles (1990) reported that 80% of children ages 3 to 17 years commit some form of violence against a sib- ling. The most recent data regarding homicide in the United States indicate that siblings perpetrated 6.1% of all murders committed by family members in 2002 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2004). These statistics are startling and point out that sibling relationships can be marred by violence. The pervasive nature of sibling abuse can be better un- derstood when it is considered in relation to data regarding offcially verifed cases of severe intrafamily abuse. Approxi- mately 1% of children in the United States are severely abused by a parent (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, 2002), 1.8% of adult women experience extreme abuse by an intimate partner (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2003), and 3% to 5% of older adults experience some form of family-based elder abuse (National Center on Elder Abuse, 2005). Unfortunately, national statistics based on reported cases of sibling abuse “do not exist because generally cases of physical or emotional sib- ling abuse do not come to the attention of authorities” (Wiehe, 2000, p. 412). However, extensive national survey data reveal that serious violence between siblings is disturbingly com- mon and much more prevalent than serious child abuse by parents: 53% of children ages 3 to 17 years have committed acts of severe violence (such as punching, kicking, stabbing, or attacking with objects) against a brother or sister, whereas only 2.3% of parents have engaged in severe violence toward their children (Straus & Gelles, 1990). Collectively, these data suggest that sibling maltreatment might be the most common form of intrafamily abuse. Indeed, Straus and Gelles (1990), the authors of the most defnitive study of violence in families in the United States ever undertaken, concluded, “Children are the most violent persons in American families” (p. 110). Sibling relationships are ubiquitous. Caffaro and Conn- Caffaro (1998) found that 83% of the adult population in the United States was raised with at least one sibling in the family. Adults typically have more siblings than children, and, com- pared with statistics in the past, a greater percentage of current adults do not marry or marry at a later age. These fndings indicate that the sibling relationship is unique in its longevity and can be one of the most infuential relationships in one’s life. Therefore, the impact siblings have on one another should not be minimized (Felson, 1983; J. Newman, 1994). Why does sibling abuse occur? Authorities on the subject have proposed that maladaptive parental behavior and dys- functional family structures play key roles in the genesis of sibling abuse. Parental treatment has an impact on the sibling relationship. When the family structure supports power imbal- ances, rigid gender roles, differential treatment of siblings, and lack of parental supervision, there is an increased risk for sibling abuse (Bank & Kahn, 1982; Leder, 1993). In a study conducted by Wiehe (1997), the normalization of abuse by parents was found to be a key factor in the severity and Earn 1 CE credit now for reading this article. Visit www.counseling.org/resources, click on Continuing Education Online, then JCD articles. Mark S. Kiselica, Department of Counselor Education, The College of New Jersey; Mandy Morrill-Richards, Department of Counsel- ing, Educational Psychology and Research, The University of Memphis. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mark S. Kiselica, 332 Forcina Hall, The College of New Jersey, PO Box 7718, Ewing, NJ 08628-0718 (e-mail: Kiselica@tcnj.edu). Sibling Maltreatment: The Forgotten Abuse Mark S. Kiselica and Mandy Morrill-Richards Great advances have been made in the study of family violence in the past 30 years. However, sibling abuse and its prevalence in the family have largely been overlooked. In this article, the major issues associated with sibling maltreatment are highlighted, and strategies for helping the victims and perpetrators of sibling abuse and their families are described.