Introduction

Children’s exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is a well-documented form of family adversity with wide-ranging consequences for emotional development, relational functioning, and long-term wellbeing. National and global estimates indicate that many children witness or experience multiple forms of domestic and family violence, often in combination with other adversities (Whitten et al., 2024). Research has consistently linked IPV exposure with trauma symptoms, behavioral problems, and disruptions in socioemotional development (Wood & Sommers, 2011; Holt et al., 2008; Graham-Bermann & Levendosky, 1998). Yet despite this extensive literature, children’s experiences are often conceptualized individually: studies typically focus on parent–child dynamics or on children’s internal psychological responses rather than on the relational environments in which violence unfolds.

Siblings — often co-witnesses, caregivers, and sources of emotional support — remain strikingly understudied within IPV research. Early observational work found that children from violent homes were not simply more conflictual with one another; in fact, siblings in shelter samples sometimes showed less aggression and more mutual support than comparison peers (Waddell et al., 2001; Piotrowski et al., 2021). Building on this foundation, subsequent quantitative studies have demonstrated that sibling relationship quality can moderate the pathway from interparental conflict to children’s emotional insecurity and psychological problems: high-quality sibling bonds buffer distress in ways that low-quality bonds do not (Davies et al., 2019; Iturralde et al., 2013; Piotrowski et al., 2014). Importantly, these effects are not uniform across dyad composition — sibling warmth has been shown to reduce the intergenerational transmission of relationship hostility in sister pairs while operating differently in brother pairs, pointing to the centrality of gender in how sibling support functions (Masarik & Rogers, 2020). Qualitative work with children in DV-affected homes deepens this picture by revealing that siblings actively position themselves as caregivers, protectors, and identity-makers rather than passive bystanders — and that these roles are relational, age-ordered, and gendered (Callaghan et al., 2016; Åkerlund, 2017). At the same time, sibling relationships in violent homes are not inevitably protective: recent longitudinal evidence identifies trajectories of increasing sibling violence victimization that are associated with elevated IPV risk in early adulthood, underscoring that sibling dynamics can move in damaging as well as protective directions (Lee et al., 2025). More recent qualitative work further suggests that siblings engage in comforting, monitoring, and coordinated helping behaviors during family violence (Piotrowski et al., 2022; Bender et al., 2024), and a recent scoping review confirms that scholarship on siblings in domestic and family violence contexts remains sparse, conceptually diffuse, and lacking in qualitative depth (Donagh et al., 2023). This represents a significant gap given the central role siblings may play in how children experience, interpret, and survive violence within their homes.

This gap became especially visible in [Author’s] earlier fieldwork in a Latin American context, where survivors consistently described siblings as the individuals who shielded, guided, or protected them during episodes of parental violence. Although that work focused on a distinct cultural and geographic context, the consistency of sibling-centered accounts suggested broader patterns worthy of closer examination. These observations, combined with emerging evidence that sibling relationships can serve both protective and risk-enhancing functions in violent households, motivated the present study.

Latine families require particular attention. Cultural norms such as familismo and respeto, alongside gendered expectations around caregiving, shape relational responsibilities and everyday dynamics within many Latine households. Prior research suggests that in contexts of adversity, Latine children may experience heightened expectations of mutual support, silence surrounding family conflict, and gendered role differentiation (Coohey et al., 2013; Haselschwerdt et al., 2019). Yet Latine siblings’ experiences of co-witnessing IPV remain largely unexplored, particularly through qualitative approaches that center their own meaning-making. Recent reviews also highlight that existing IPV intervention models underserve Latinas by overlooking cultural norms, immigration stressors, and family-based coping systems central to many Latine households (Cardenas et al., 2024).

Drawing on prior fieldwork and on emerging sibling scholarship, this study was organized around four core analytic patterns observed across the data: protective labor, divergent memory, relational silence, and moral reframing of parents. These patterns anchored the analytic process and generated five interrelated themes reported in the findings, with therapeutic disclosure and deferred processing emerging as a fifth theme reflecting how childhood patterns of silence and minimization persist into adult help-seeking. Together, these themes constitute the empirical basis for the sibling shield framework introduced here.

The present study addresses these gaps by examining how fourteen sibling pairs (N = 28) who identify as Latine recall and interpret their childhood experiences of IPV in adulthood. Data were collected using a three-stage interview sequence (individual, dyadic, and follow-up individual) designed to capture both private meaning-making and relational co-construction, and to allow participants to process the experience of revisiting shared memories with a sibling. Findings reveal the complex relational and cultural contexts in which sibling dynamics develop and are remembered across the life course.

This article introduces the sibling shield framework, which conceptualizes the forms of protective labor—emotional, physical, and interpretive—that siblings undertake in the context of childhood IPV and the long-term emotional reverberations of that labor. The framework builds on and extends existing evidence: where quantitative studies have established that sibling relationship quality buffers children’s adjustment in violent homes (Davies et al., 2019; Iturralde et al., 2013), and where qualitative work has identified sibling caring as a site of agency and relational coping (Callaghan et al., 2016; Åkerlund, 2017), the sibling shield framework names the specific, embodied, and gendered forms that this protection takes — and traces their consequences across the life course through memory, silence, moral reframing, and deferred therapeutic processing. By centering co-witnessing siblings rather than individual survivors, this study reframes childhood IPV exposure as a collective, relational experience shaped by loyalty, silence, memory, and culturally informed caregiving roles.

Conceptual Framework

Understanding how children interpret and respond to IPV requires a theoretical lens that accounts for the emotional, cognitive, relational, and cultural processes shaping their early experiences. Children do not merely witness violence; they navigate it through interpretive systems rooted in trauma responses, family relationships, gendered expectations, and cultural norms. These domains are especially salient within Latine families, where values related to obligation, discretion, and unity influence how children understand conflict and their roles within the family system. This study draws on five interconnected bodies of scholarship—trauma and memory research, relational sociology, feminist theories of gendered family labor, Latine family studies, and a life course perspective—to analyze how siblings interpret, remember, and respond to IPV across the life course.

Trauma, Memory, and Meaning-Making

Research in trauma and autobiographical memory demonstrates that children’s recollections of violence reflect both physiological responses to threat and psychological strategies that maintain emotional stability. IPV is frequently encoded through sensory impressions rather than coherent narrative sequences, producing memories that are vivid yet fragmented, nonlinear, or incomplete (Brewin, 2014; Fivush & Merrill, 2016; van der Kolk, 2014). Embodied and somatic dimensions of traumatic memory — including physiological arousal, sensory intrusions, and bodily fear responses — often persist independently of verbal or narrative recall (Levine & Kline, 2007; van der Kolk, 2014). Recent research further shows that childhood trauma disrupts autobiographical memory specificity, producing both overgeneral recollections and gaps that reflect adaptive attempts to regulate distress (Borrelli et al., 2024). These patterns reflect adaptive responses to overwhelming experiences. Children also rely on minimization, reframing, and strategic forgetting to preserve essential attachments and reduce emotional distress, particularly when violence involves caregivers on whom they depend for survival (Brewin, 2014; Ehlers & Clark, 2000; Fivush & Merrill, 2016; Herman, 2015).

Three insights from this literature are central to the present study. First, memory is shaped by survival needs more than chronological accuracy. Second, children’s narratives are reconstructed over time as they make sense of past events with new emotional and relational resources. Third, meaning-making is foundational to how individuals interpret violence across the life course, influencing how adult siblings align, contest, or reinterpret their shared history. These dynamics help explain why siblings exposed to the same IPV events may remember them differently or assign distinct moral significance to them later in life.

Relational Construction of Memory and Silence

While trauma scholarship illuminates individual cognitive processes, relational sociology emphasizes that interpretations of violence emerge within relationships. Family life is co-experienced and co-interpreted: siblings often serve as companions, witnesses, emotional regulators, and everyday collaborators who shape one another’s perceptions and coping strategies (Mauthner, 2002; Eisikovits & Koren, 2010; Dirks et al., 2015; Howe & Recchia, 2014). Differences in birth order, household responsibilities, and physical proximity during violent episodes can give siblings diverging vantage points. Over time, siblings may negotiate shared meanings—sometimes explicitly, but often through silence, avoidance, or tacit agreement about what is “not to be talked about.”

This perspective highlights that memory is not simply an internal archive, but an interpersonal process shaped by relationships, secrecy, loyalty, and collaborative meaning-making (Fivush & Haden, 2003; Howe & Recchia, 2014). Relational sociology therefore provides a critical foundation for understanding how siblings craft parallel or divergent narratives about childhood IPV, and how shared silence can become a binding feature of sibling ties well into adulthood.

Gendered Family Labor and Protective Roles

Feminist scholarship offers insight into the patterned responsibilities children assume within families. Gendered expectations often position girls as emotional caretakers—soothing siblings, mediating conflict, or absorbing blame—while boys more often engage in monitoring, physical intervention, or other outward-oriented protective behaviors (Ridgeway, 2011; Thorne, 1993). These patterns are not innate but emerge from socialized understandings of competence, obligation, and familial duty.

This literature is essential for interpreting how siblings come to view themselves as responsible—emotionally or physically—for one another’s safety during IPV. Gender, age, and birth order shape children’s sense of duty, emotional labor, and strategies for navigating harm. Such frameworks provide the conceptual grounding for understanding the differentiated protective roles that siblings often assume in violent households and the long-term emotional consequences of this labor.

Life Course Perspective and Sibling Relationships Over Time

A life course perspective provides the developmental scaffolding that connects childhood IPV experience to adult meaning-making. Life course theory emphasizes that early relational experiences are not simply left behind but are carried forward, reinterpreted, and renegotiated as individuals move through successive roles and relationships (Elder, 1998; Umberson et al., 2010). Applied to siblings, this perspective draws attention to how protective roles, shared memories, and patterns of silence established in childhood may persist, intensify, or transform across adolescence and adulthood — shaping not only how siblings remember violence but how they communicate, seek help, and understand themselves in relation to one another years later.

Two competing hypotheses from the sibling literature inform this analysis. The congruence hypothesis proposes that the quality of sibling relationships established early in life remains relatively stable over time, so that protective or supportive patterns formed in childhood continue into adulthood (Buist et al., 2013; Whiteman et al., 2011). The compensation hypothesis, by contrast, suggests that siblings may serve a heightened buffering function specifically under conditions of family adversity, with protective closeness emerging in response to threat rather than reflecting a preexisting relational baseline (Jenkins & Smith, 1990; Gass et al., 2007). Both hypotheses are relevant to the present sample: participants were adults retrospectively interpreting childhood dynamics, and their accounts reveal both remarkable continuities — such as persistent silence — and significant shifts in how they understood their shared history when given structured opportunity to revisit it together. A life course lens therefore helps explain not only what protective labor looked like in childhood but why it is still felt and carried into adulthood.

Latine Family Dynamics and Cultural Norms

Scholarship on Latine families further contextualizes the relational processes described above. Cultural values such as familismo emphasize interdependence, loyalty, and the prioritization of family unity; respeto reinforces hierarchical respect and deference; and norms of discretion—captured in practices of withholding sensitive information or the notion that “no se dice”—discourage open discussion of family conflict (Bravo et al., 2014; Cahill et al., 2021; Calzada et al., 2013; Stein et al., 2014). Relatedly, marianismo values emphasizing self-silencing, emotional restraint, and interpersonal harmony can further discourage verbal processing of conflict and shape how girls in particular interpret responsibility during parental violence (Da Silva et al., 2021). These values shape how children interpret responsibility, silence, and moral obligation, particularly in the face of parental conflict.

Such norms may influence children’s willingness to seek help, their decisions about discussing violence with siblings or outsiders, and the meaning-making processes they use to preserve family cohesion (Son et al., 2022). Latine family scholarship thus provides a cultural lens for understanding how children allocate responsibility, manage silence, and interpret violence within broader expectations of loyalty and unity.

Integrating Theoretical Perspectives

Together, these five bodies of scholarship — trauma and memory research, relational sociology, feminist theories of gendered family labor, Latine family studies, and a life course perspective — provide a multidimensional framework for analyzing how siblings navigate, remember, and carry childhood IPV into adulthood. Trauma and memory research explains how violence is encoded sensorially and reconstructed over time; relational sociology clarifies how meaning-making emerges within sibling relationships rather than in isolation; feminist scholarship highlights the gendered structure of protective labor and caregiving; Latine family studies illuminate the cultural logics shaping communication, silence, and relational duty; and a life course perspective connects childhood experience to adult interpretation by attending to both continuity and change.

Critically, these frameworks do not operate independently. Sensory trauma encoding shapes what siblings remember; relational dynamics shape how that memory is shared or suppressed; gendered socialization shapes whose labor is expected and invisible; cultural norms shape what may be named or disclosed; and life course processes shape how all of these dynamics are revisited and reinterpreted as siblings move into adulthood. By integrating these perspectives, the present study situates childhood IPV exposure within a constellation of emotional, relational, and cultural forces. This theoretical foundation guides the analytic approach and shapes the interpretation of sibling narratives, without presuming or prefiguring the findings that emerged from the data.

Methodology

This qualitative, exploratory study examined how adult siblings who identify as Latine make meaning of childhood exposure to IPV. A qualitative design was selected because meaning-making processes surrounding IPV are relational, emotionally layered, and often embedded in memories that are fragmented, nonlinear, or affectively charged. Qualitative approaches are well suited for capturing the complexity of these experiences and for documenting how individuals interpret family conflict across time (Levitt, 2021; Tracy, 2020). The study was informed by trauma theory and relational perspectives on family violence, emphasizing participant agency, emotional safety, and flexible, participant-led storytelling (Herman, 2015; Knight, 2015; Tracy, 2020).

Design and Participants

The sample included fourteen sibling pairs (N = 28) who lived together during periods of parental or caregiver IPV. All participants were 18 years or older at the time of data collection and met the following eligibility criteria: (1) identify as Latine; (2) lived with a sibling during IPV exposure; and (3) felt comfortable discussing these experiences in confidential interviews.

Recruiting two siblings per family was methodologically intentional. Including two members of each sibling unit increased the pool of potential participants—an important consideration in exploratory IPV research—while enabling examination of relational processes that cannot be captured through single-participant interviews. Limiting each family to two participants helped maintain analytic depth and emotional safety, avoiding the complexities and pressure dynamics associated with interviewing triads or larger sibling groups.

The final sample consisted of ten sister–sister pairs and four sister–brother pairs. Participants had grown up in California, South Carolina, Texas, New York, Florida, and New Mexico. Education levels varied, although each dyad included at least one participant with some college education. At the time of interview, participants ranged in age from 18 to 36 years (M = 27.2), reflecting young to early middle adulthood. Younger siblings ranged from 18 to 29 (M = 23.9) and older siblings from 25 to 36 (M = 30.5), meaning all participants were recalling childhood IPV experiences from a retrospective adult vantage point. Recruitment used purposive and snowball sampling through community networks, survivor networks, and peer referrals—appropriate strategies for studies involving stigmatized or emotionally sensitive topics (Hennink et al., 2020). Recruitment materials described the project as examining “childhood experiences of family conflict and sibling support,” a trauma-sensitive entry point used prior to screening for IPV exposure. Participants received $50 per interview session (total possible compensation: $150) (Table 1)

To protect confidentiality while preserving participant agency, the initial dyad was offered the option of selecting a pseudonym or using an assigned participant identifier. As they opted for participant identifiers, this system was adopted consistently across all subsequent participants and is used throughout this article in the format of dyad number, gender, and age at time of interview (e.g., D1, Female, 32).

Ethical Considerations

Institutional Review Board approval was obtained prior to recruitment. The consent process emphasized confidentiality, voluntary participation, and the right to withdraw at any time. Because dyad interviews involve shared space, confidentiality between siblings was explicitly discussed, and participants were encouraged to disclose only what felt safe to share together.

Trauma-informed practices guided all interviews, including grounding strategies, attention to emotional cues, and distribution of resource sheets after each stage (Knight, 2015; Ford & Courtois, 2013; Herman, 2015). The researcher’s positionality as a survivor-scholar informed rapport-building, reflexive practice, and sensitivity to participants’ emotional needs, consistent with best practices for research involving violence and trauma (Levitt et al., 2017; Tracy, 2020).

Data Collection

Data were collected in 2024–2025 using a three-stage interview sequence designed to distinguish individual memory and interpretation from relational co-construction, and to attend to the emotional aftermath of dyadic disclosure. This sequencing allowed each participant to speak privately before and after the joint interview, preserving both independent voice and relational meaning-making (Eisikovits & Koren, 2010). All interviews were conducted remotely via secure videoconferencing, though in-person options were offered.

Stage 1: Individual Interviews

Each sibling completed an individual semi-structured interview (60–90 min). These interviews provided private space for participants to reflect on memories, interpretations, and emotional experiences independent of their sibling (Eisikovits & Koren, 2010).

Stage 2: Dyad Interviews

Sibling pairs then participated in a joint interview (60–120 min). Dyadic interviewing allowed observation of how siblings co-constructed meaning, negotiated divergent memories, and articulated shared or unspoken understandings (Eisikovits & Koren, 2010). Dyad sessions were conducted only after both participants affirmed comfort with the joint format, and a brief safety check preceded each interview.

Stage 3: Follow-up Interviews

Finally, participants completed a follow-up individual interview (45–60 min). These sessions allowed them to process the dyad conversation, clarify discrepancies, and express thoughts they preferred not to share in front of their sibling.

With consent, all sessions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Interview guides explored memories of IPV incidents, protective or supportive behaviors, communication across the life course, and opportunities for disclosure or healing. Participants were invited to describe how their interpretations had changed across time.

Trauma-informed practices were used throughout, including ongoing consent, emotional check-ins, pacing adjustments, and monitoring for distress (Knight, 2015). After each stage, participants received a resource sheet listing IPV and mental health services.

Analytic Approach

Analysis combined reflexive thematic analysis with narrative analytic elements. Reflexive thematic analysis facilitated identification of patterned meanings across interviews (Braun & Clarke, 2019, 2022), while narrative analysis illuminated the structure, tone, and moral function of participants’ accounts, including silence, minimization, and reframing (Fivush & Merrill, 2016).

The analytic process unfolded in several stages. The author—serving as the sole coder—read all transcripts repeatedly to develop descriptive and interpretive codes. A single-coder approach aligns with reflexive thematic analysis, which prioritizes interpretive depth and researcher reflexivity over interrater reliability (Braun & Clarke, 2022). Codes were compared within and across dyads to identify convergent and divergent memories, relational patterns, and protective behaviors. Analytic memos documented coding decisions, emerging insights, unexpected contrasts, and reflexive considerations related to positionality (Levitt et al., 2017; Nowell et al., 2017). Initial codes were grouped into candidate themes based on conceptual coherence and analytic relevance, then reviewed across the full dataset to assess whether they captured meaningful patterns at both the semantic and latent levels (Braun & Clarke, 2022). Themes were collapsed, distinguished, or renamed across multiple iterations as analytic clarity developed. Disconfirming cases and discrepant accounts between siblings within the same dyad were examined deliberately to test the boundaries of emerging themes rather than smoothed over. Final themes were interpreted through trauma theory, relational sociology, and feminist perspectives, with each theme grounded in both participant language and theoretical relevance.

To ensure rigor and trustworthiness within a single-coder design, this study employed iterative consent and narrative return as paired methodological practices. Rather than treating consent as a front-loaded procedural requirement, consent was revisited across data collection, analysis, and representation. Narrative return involved reintroducing participants into the interpretive process at analytically consequential moments including sharing preliminary findings and emerging thematic interpretations and explicitly inviting participants to clarify, contest, or reframe emerging understandings of their narratives. Peer debriefing with qualitative colleagues supported conceptual rigor and reduced the likelihood of interpretive blind spots (Tracy, 2020). An audit trail was maintained through detailed analytic memos, and reflexive journaling documented the researcher’s positionality, emotional responses, and analytic decisions throughout.

Pilot Framing

Although this study is exploratory in scope, it also evaluated the feasibility and emotional demands of multistage dyadic interviewing and emotional demands of multistage dyadic interviewing, refined the three-interview sequence, and examined the added value of dyadic data for capturing relational meaning-making. These methodological insights inform planning for a larger ongoing study.

Results

Analysis of the interviews revealed five interconnected themes that illuminate how siblings remembered IPV, protected one another, and made sense of their experiences across the life course. These themes reflect the relational processes outlined in the conceptual framework, particularly the dynamics of the sibling shield, divergent memory construction, silence, moral reframing, and partial therapeutic engagement. Although each theme is presented separately for analytic clarity, they frequently overlapped within participants’ narratives.

Theme 1: The Sibling Shield and Gendered Protection in Practice

Participants offered detailed accounts of how they and their siblings responded during episodes of IPV, describing these moments as patterned sequences rather than isolated incidents. As one older sister reflected:

“When I look back on it now, it really does feel like a pattern more than, like, separate memories. At the time you don’t think of it that way because you’re just trying to get through it, but it was the same kind of thing over and over. Not exactly the same every single time, but close enough that all of us kind of knew what came next.”

(D8, Female, 33, older sister).

Many recalled subtle warning signs that signaled the need to act. One older sister described the sensory texture of these moments:

“It was never just one thing. It’d be the way he came in the house, or how my mom answered him, or even little stuff like the TV getting turned down. And then the whole house would get quiet in this weird way. Once that happened, you knew. You knew something was about to start.”

(D9, Female, 30, older sister).

These cues prompted siblings into roles that were never explicitly discussed but repeated over time:

“We never had some conversation about it, like, okay, if this happens you do this and I do that. It was never like that. It was just something that got repeated enough that everybody kind of fell into their part without anybody saying it out loud.” (D6, Female, 35, older sister).

Older sisters typically organized protection around movement and physical closeness. One described her role simply:

“For me it was always about getting her away from it and keeping her close to me. That’s what I felt responsible for. I wasn’t thinking in some big way like, oh, I’m protecting her. I just knew I needed to get her out of there and keep her with me.”

(D7, Female, 31, older sister).

Another recalled the urgency and deliberateness of these movements:

“As soon as I could tell things were shifting, I’d go get her. Usually I’d grab her hand or her arm and just move fast. We’d go to the bathroom, or the bedroom, or wherever we could get out of the way. I wasn’t really explaining anything in those moments, I was just trying to get her somewhere safer before it got worse.”

(D1, Female, 32, older sister).

Once hidden, older sisters used physical proximity and deliberate distraction to regulate younger siblings’ fear:

“Sometimes we’d end up in the bathroom sitting on the floor by the tub, and I’d just hold her there. I’d talk to her about random things or try to distract her, not because I had some plan, but because I didn’t want her listening to everything in the other room. I think I was trying to calm both of us down.”

(D11, Female, 30, older sister).

For younger siblings, these hiding spaces left vivid sensory impressions that persisted into adulthood:

“I remember being in the closet once and noticing the smell of shoes and just staring at the light coming in from under the door. It’s weird, because I don’t remember every word that was said, but I remember those details really clearly.”

(D3, Female, 22, younger sister).

Older brothers more often located their protective efforts closer to the conflict. One explained:

“My instinct was different. I didn’t usually go hide somewhere. I stayed closer to where it was happening. Not because I wasn’t scared, because I was, but because I felt like I needed to know what was going on in case it got worse.”

(D12, Male, 27, older brother).

Another described his positioning:

“I’d stay in the hallway or by the doorway where I could still see into the room. I didn’t want to be too far away. I knew I probably couldn’t do much, but I felt like I needed to be right there, especially if it looked like it was turning toward my mom.”

(D13, Male, 36, older brother).

Some brothers recounted actively intervening:

“Sometimes I’d do little things on purpose, like walk through, turn on a light, say something from the hallway, just to kind of interrupt whatever was building. I don’t know if it always worked, but in my head it felt better than doing nothing.”

(D10, Male, 19). Others described feeling physically overmatched yet compelled to remain:

“There were definitely times I felt way too small to actually stop anything, but I still put myself there. It was like, even if I can’t really win here, I can’t just stand back either.”

(D13, Male, 36, older brother).

Participants consistently emphasized that these roles were never negotiated verbally. Coordination happened through looks, gestures, and rapid physical cues:

“It was mostly looks, honestly. I could look at my sister a certain way and she already knew. Or I’d just move toward her fast and she’d move too. We didn’t need to stop and explain anything because by then it was already understood.”

(D2, Female, 29, older sister). Younger siblings understood urgency without explanation:

“I didn’t always understand exactly what was going on when I was little, but I understood her urgency. Like if she came and got me really fast or her voice changed, I knew it was serious. I knew something bad was happening even if nobody was explaining it to me.”

(D7, Female, 18, younger sister).

Reflecting on the full pattern in adulthood, one participant offered a particularly clear articulation of the gendered division of protective labor across her sibling group:

“We were just kids, but looking back, we were doing a lot for each other in those moments. Nobody had to say, okay, now it’s time. We just knew. Everybody had their part, and that was how we got through it.”

(D14, Female, 32, older sister).

Across the sample, protection was described as embodied and repeated — pulling, holding, hiding, watching from the hallway, standing guard near doorways, silently signaling when to move:

“It didn’t feel random. It felt like once things started, everybody’s body kind of knew what to do. Somebody was pulling you, somebody was watching, somebody was trying to keep things quiet. It was the same kinds of movements over and over.”

(D9, Female, 25, younger sister).

Theme 2: Divergent Memories and Minimization of Frequency

Sibling pairs frequently discovered during dyad interviews that their memories of childhood IPV diverged far more sharply than they had expected — sometimes to the point of describing fundamentally different versions of what they believed to be the same event. As one older sister reflected:

“I think I assumed we remembered it basically the same way, just because we were in the same house and lived through the same stuff. But hearing her talk about it, I was like, wait, that’s not even the version I carry in my head. It honestly felt like we were talking about two different experiences sometimes.”

(D4, Female, 32).

In several dyads, one sibling recalled a sequence of escalating actions as a single episode while the other remembered those same details as spread across separate incidents on different nights. One pair illustrated this vividly. The younger sister described:

“For me it was all one big night. I remember the yelling, the doors slamming, something getting thrown, my mom stumbling — I held all of that as one memory. But then my sister was like, no, that wasn’t one night, that was different times. And I was like, really? Because in my mind it’s all one thing.”

(D8, Female, 28).

Her older sister’s account diverged sharply:

“That’s what surprised me, because to me those were separate incidents. I could picture them happening in different places, on different nights. So when she said it like it was one event, I remember thinking, no, that’s not how I remember it at all.”

(D8, Female, 33).

These discrepancies often surfaced in real time. One participant recalled the moment of recognition mid-conversation:

“She said, you know, that night when everything happened, and I remember stopping her because I was like, wait, what do you mean that night? In my head those things weren’t the same night. I’d never put them together like that before.”

(D5, Female, 25).

Her sibling had not anticipated the divergence:

“I think I was talking about it like it was obvious, like we both knew which night I meant, and then when she looked confused I realized, oh, okay, maybe we’re not talking about the same memory the way I thought we were.”

(D5, Female, 23).

Such differences prompted visible surprise and uncertainty. As one participant put it:

“I was honestly kind of shocked listening to him. Not in a dramatic way, just more like… wow, I really thought we were going to tell the same story.”

(D10, Female, 27).

Others described a destabilizing uncertainty about whose version was more accurate:

“There were moments where I just stopped because I really didn’t know anymore. I was like, maybe she’s right. Or maybe we’re both right in pieces. I wasn’t sure whose timeline was more accurate after a certain point.”

(D2, Female, 25).

Memories differed not only in sequence and scope but also in emotional tone. One participant described the visceral fear she carried:

“I remember being really scared. Like my whole body felt tight, my heart was beating hard, and I just felt frozen listening. That’s what stayed with me.”

(D3, Female, 22).

Her older sister’s memory of the same period was strikingly different:

“That’s so different from how I remember it, because I mostly remember being annoyed that it woke me up again. I mean, I knew it was bad, but my first thought was more like, here we go again, I just want to go back to sleep.”

(D3, Female, 28).

In several cases, one sibling recalled physical aggression while the other remembered the same night as primarily verbal:

“I remember things getting physical at least some of those times. I remember something being thrown, I remember movement, I remember it feeling like it crossed a line.”

(D9, Female, 30).

Her younger sister’s account diverged:

“And I kept thinking, no, I remember yelling. A lot of yelling, yes, but in my head it was mostly that. So hearing her describe more than that, I was like, maybe I didn’t see all of it, or maybe I remember it differently.”

(D9, Female, 25). Despite these discrepancies, siblings typically agreed that certain episodes belonged to what they referred to collectively as “the bad ones”:

“We might disagree about what exactly happened first or what happened on which night, but there are definitely certain incidents that both of us would put in that category of the really bad ones.”

(D1, Female, 32).

Across interviews, participants also tended to minimize the overall frequency of violence even when describing multiple incidents. One participant acknowledged this tension directly:

“My first instinct is still to say it wasn’t all the time. Like, I don’t think of it as constant. But then once you start actually talking through examples, it’s like… okay, maybe it was happening more than I usually admit to myself.”

(D14, Male, 24).

Phrases such as “it didn’t happen a lot,” “once in a while,” and “not all the time” were common starting points. Yet as dyad conversations unfolded, siblings added forgotten or previously unmentioned examples:

“That’s what happened once we got talking. One of us would mention something, and then the other would go, oh, and there was that other time in the kitchen. Or that night in the car. And then it started feeling a lot less isolated than we first made it sound.”

(D7, Female, 31).

Her younger sister confirmed:

“Yeah, it was like once one memory came up, another one would come with it. Stuff I hadn’t thought about in a long time started coming back.”

(D7, Female, 18).

By the end of some dyad interviews, participants expressed a revised understanding:

“By the end of the conversation, I remember thinking, maybe it really was more than I’ve let myself think. Not because she told me anything totally new, but because hearing it next to my own memories made the pattern harder to downplay.”

(D14, Female, 32).

Many described their recollections as fragmented rather than absent. While the physical layout of homes remained vivid, chronology was far less clear:

“I can picture the house really clearly. I know exactly where the hallway turned, where the rooms were, where we’d go hide. That part is sharp. What’s not sharp is the order — like what happened first, or whether that was the same night as something else.”

(D4, Female, 26).

Participants recalled sensory fragments without certainty about whether they belonged to one incident or many:

“I remember pieces more than full scenes sometimes. Like the feel of the carpet, the TV light, hearing footsteps, stuff like that. But I couldn’t always tell you if those details all belong to one specific incident or if my memory kind of stitched different nights together.”

(D6, Female, 35).

These fractured, uneven, and sometimes contradictory memories reflect how trauma encoding, vantage point, and protective roles shaped not only what siblings remembered but how they assembled the past. As one older brother observed:

“I think where you were in the house, what you were trying to pay attention to, and what your role was in that moment changed what stuck with you. So it makes sense to me now that we remember it differently. We weren’t actually experiencing it from the exact same place, even if it was happening in the same house.”

(D13, Male, 36).

Theme 3: The Unspoken Pact of Silence

Across all sibling pairs, participants described a striking absence of direct conversation about the violence — both in childhood and for many years afterward. As one older sister reflected:

“We really didn’t talk about it. Not when we were kids, not when we got older, not even when we were close in every other way. It was just this whole part of our life that somehow never became something we sat down and discussed.”

(D6, Female, 35).

Silence was rarely attributed to explicit instructions from adults; rather, it was experienced as something automatic and mutually understood:

“Nobody had to tell us, like, don’t talk about this. It wasn’t that. It just felt understood. Like we all somehow knew that this was not something you brought up.”

(D2, Female, 29).

Participants recalled going to school the next day after a frightening episode, sitting side by side at breakfast, or sharing a bedroom at night without mentioning what had happened:

“That part feels so strange now. We could have had a horrible night, and then the next morning we’re sitting there eating breakfast or getting ready for school like nothing happened. Not because nothing happened, but because nobody was going to be the one to say it first.”

(D1, Female, 24).

Some remembered noticing visible signs of distress in a sibling without acknowledging them:

“I remember looking at my sister across the table and knowing she was upset. You could see it in her face, in how quiet she was, in how tense she looked. But even then, we just kind of looked away and kept going. We didn’t talk about it.”

(D11, Female, 25).

Questions such as “Are you okay?” or “Did you hear that?” were described as virtually nonexistent:

“We didn’t ask each other, are you okay, or did you hear that, or anything like that. I don’t remember those kinds of conversations at all. It was more like everybody knew, but nobody said it.”

(D9, Female, 25).

One participant reflected on why such questions never arose:

“Honestly, if she had asked me back then what happened or how I felt, I don’t think I would’ve even known how to answer. I wouldn’t have known where to put something that big. So I think part of why we never asked is because we wouldn’t have known what to do with the answer.”

(D4, Female, 26).

Attempts to break the silence were rare and short-lived. A small number of participants recalled beginning to reference a frightening night and stopping when their sibling signaled not to continue:

“I remember once starting to say something about one of the nights, and she just kind of looked away and changed the subject. She didn’t have to say don’t. I could tell from her face that she didn’t want to go there, so I dropped it.”

(D5, Female, 23).

Her sibling confirmed:

“Sometimes it was just a look, or a little head shake, and that was enough. It was like, okay, we’re not doing this right now.”

(D5, Female, 25).

These moments reinforced the sense that naming the violence carried an almost unbearable weight:

“Saying it out loud felt too big. Like once you actually named what was happening, it became heavier somehow. I think part of us felt like if we didn’t say it, maybe we could keep it a little more contained.”

(D13, Female, 29). As one participant put it plainly:

“That’s really what it was. We learned how to move around it. We knew how to function around it, how to keep going around it, but not actually through it.”

(D8, Female, 33).

Silence persisted into adolescence and adulthood. One participant noted:

“What’s kind of wild is that it didn’t just stay in childhood. Even when we got older, even when we were adults, it was still mostly unspoken.”

(D10, Female, 27).

Many siblings described close, active relationships in which childhood IPV remained a carefully avoided subject:

“We talk about everything else. Work, relationships, family stuff, stress, all of that. We’re close. But that part of our childhood? That’s the one thing we just never really touch.”

(D3, Female, 28).

During dyad interviews, hearing each other describe specific episodes often produced visible shifts — leaning back, looking down, pausing for long stretches. One older brother described the experience:

“There were moments in the interview where I just kind of sat back because I didn’t realize he remembered it that clearly. Or remembered me being there in that way. I think I said something like, I didn’t know that stayed with you like that.”

(D12, Male, 27).

His younger sister reflected on what the conversation revealed:

“Hearing him talk about it, I realized there were parts of it I didn’t know he was carrying. I remember thinking, wow, I didn’t know you were that scared, because he never showed that when we were younger.”

(D12, Female, 20).

Several participants acknowledged that the dyad interview itself created conditions for a conversation that might never have happened otherwise:

“I don’t know that we would’ve had this conversation on our own. Maybe eventually, but honestly I’m not sure. It took being here, being asked directly, for us to even go there together.”

(D14, Male, 24).

Importantly, participants emphasized that silence did not reflect indifference. As one older sister explained:

“I don’t think the silence meant we didn’t care. It definitely wasn’t that. If anything, I think sometimes it was because we cared and didn’t know how to bring it up without hurting each other or opening something we didn’t know how to handle.”

(D1, Female, 32). Care was expressed through indirect channels — practical help, checking in during stressful moments, humor:

“We checked on each other in other ways. Like if something stressful was going on, or somebody needed help, or even just sending a random text. We were there for each other. We just didn’t connect it back to that history out loud.”

(D9, Female, 30).

For many, silence had become woven into the very rhythm of their relationship. As one younger sister reflected:

“That was kind of the rhythm of it, if that makes sense. Something would happen, we’d protect each other however we could, and then the next day life just kept moving. And we moved with it, without really naming any of it.”

(D7, Female, 18).

Theme 4: Moral Reframing and Parental Goodness

Participants frequently spoke about their parents in ways that separated violent behavior from overall character. As one participant explained:

“I think that’s always been hard to explain to other people, because the violence was real, but I still didn’t experience my parent as only that. In my head, those moments were terrible, but they weren’t the whole person. I think I’ve always separated the behavior from who I understood them to be overall.”

(D6, Female, 27).

Even when describing frightening incidents, participants added qualifiers that preserved a more complex image of their parents:

“Even saying all of this, I still want to say he was a good dad in a lot of ways. That’s what makes it complicated. He wasn’t like that all the time. There were these really scary moments, yes, but that’s not the only version of him I knew.”

(D14, Female, 32).

This moral reframing was pervasive across the sample:

“I feel like every time I tell one of these stories, I also feel the need to explain the good parts too. Like I can’t just leave it at the violence, because that wouldn’t feel complete or fair to how I remember them.”

(D1, Female, 32).

Alcohol or substance use served as a primary organizing explanation. Participants anchored many of their memories to sensory markers of drinking:

“I remember the signs more than anything at first — the smell, the bottles, the way he walked different, the look on his face changing. You could kind of tell before anything actually happened that it was going in a bad direction.”

(D11, Female, 30).

Violence was often narrated as something that emerged when a parent “had too much” rather than as part of a stable identity:

“In my mind back then, and honestly even now sometimes, it was like that behavior came out when they had too much to drink. I didn’t think of it as, this is who they are all the time. I thought of it as what happened when things got out of control.”

(D12, Female, 20).

Siblings sometimes finished each other’s sentences when referencing alcohol as the trigger, reinforcing shared explanatory frameworks:

“Even now, if my sister starts talking about one of those nights, I already know where she’s going. We both kind of go back to the same explanation, which is usually, yeah, that was when the drinking started.”

(D8, Female, 28).

Her older sister confirmed:

“Yeah, it’s almost automatic. We don’t even have to spell that part out all the way because we both know that was usually the lead-up.”

(D8, Female, 33).

Accounts of violence were consistently paired with memories of parental care. One participant described how these contrasting memories coexisted:

“That’s the part that sits weird together. I can tell you about a really bad night, and then in the same breath I can remember them doing caring things too. Those memories exist right next to each other for me.”

(D3, Female, 28). After recounting frightening incidents, participants frequently shifted to describing birthdays, school support, family outings, or everyday nurture:

“I’ll talk about one of the bad incidents, and then my mind goes straight to things like birthdays or rides to school or family outings. It’s not me trying to erase what happened. It’s just that those things are also part of the memory when I think about my parent.”

(D5, Female, 25).

They remembered parents staying up late to help with homework, cooking favorite meals, working multiple jobs:

“I remember my parent helping with homework late at night, making food we liked, working all the time to make sure we had what we needed. Those are real memories too. So when I talk about the violence, those other things come up right alongside it.”

(D7, Female, 31).

These positive memories were often told with warmth before the narrative returned to more painful events:

“Sometimes I catch myself smiling when I’m talking about the good memories, because those parts were real and they still feel warm to me. And then it’s strange because right after that I’m back talking about something painful. That’s just how the memories come.”

(D1, Female, 24).

Many participants described understanding their parents as existing in “two different versions”:

“It really did feel like two versions sometimes. There was the parent we knew in everyday life, who could be loving and supportive, and then there was this other version that came out during drinking or a fight. That’s how I made sense of it for a long time.”

(D13, Female, 29). In adulthood, participants continued to use language that softened or contextualized the violence:

“Even now I hear myself doing that, like I’ll start describing what happened and then I’ll stop and say, but I don’t want to make them sound like a monster. Because that’s not how I hold them in my mind. And also, people do change. Some of that has changed a lot over time.”

(D14, Male, 24).

Statements such as “he loved us, though” or “he really tried” were common even when participants acknowledged significant fear and harm:

“I can say I was scared and confused by a lot of it, and that it affected me, and still say he loved us. Those things don’t cancel each other out for me. Same with saying he really tried in some ways. Both can be true.”

(D2, Female, 25).

This moral reframing allowed participants to sustain affection and loyalty while accounting for painful experiences:

“I think that’s how I’ve been able to hold onto love for my parent without pretending nothing bad happened. I needed some way to make sense of both things at once — the care and the harm — because both were there.”

(D10, Male, 19).

It also shaped how participants initially evaluated the need for support:

“I didn’t grow up thinking, oh, I need therapy because of this, at least not at first. I think part of that was because I understood my parents as basically good people who had problems, not as abusive monsters. So I didn’t immediately frame what we went through as something I was allowed to seek help for.”

(D4, Female, 32).

Theme 5: Therapeutic Disclosure and Deferred Processing

When asked about help-seeking in adulthood, most participants reported that they had not pursued therapy specifically for childhood IPV. As one participant explained:

“I’ve been to therapy, but not because I sat down and thought, I need to deal with what happened in my childhood around the violence. That wasn’t really how I framed it. It was more for other things going on in my life.”

(D6, Female, 35).

Many had engaged in counseling for anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, academic stress, or burnout, but said childhood violence was not the primary focus:

“I went to counseling for anxiety and stress, mostly, and some relationship stuff. The childhood violence wasn’t really the main reason I went, and honestly it didn’t come up that much. It was kind of there in the background, but not something I focused on.”

(D10, Female, 27).

For those who mentioned IPV in therapy, disclosure was typically brief and indirect:

“I might mention it, but usually in a really general way. Not like sitting there and telling the whole story. More like referencing it and then moving on.”

(D3, Female, 28). Participants described referencing “fights at home” or “some rough nights growing up” during intake before quickly redirecting to present concerns:

“I think I said something like, yeah, there was a lot of fighting at home growing up, or some rough nights, but then I went straight into what was bothering me in the present. I didn’t stay with the childhood stuff for very long.”

(D14, Male, 24).

Several were unsure whether their therapists followed up, noting that they themselves steered the conversation elsewhere:

“I honestly don’t even remember if the therapist tried to follow up or not, because I know I redirected pretty fast. If it started getting close to that topic, I’d usually move it back to whatever was happening in my life right then.”

(D9, Female, 25).

A few recalled completing intake questionnaires that indicated childhood exposure to conflict or feeling unsafe but chose not to elaborate:

“I remember checking boxes on forms about conflict at home or not feeling safe sometimes, but when it came time to actually talk about it, I didn’t really go into detail. I kind of left it there.”

(D4, Female, 26).

In the small number of cases where IPV was discussed more explicitly, these conversations rarely continued across multiple sessions:

“There were maybe one or two times where I talked about it more directly, but it didn’t become an ongoing thing in therapy. It would come up, and then the next session we’d be back on something else.”

(D11, Female, 30).

Participants described touching on childhood experiences briefly before returning to current stressors:

“I feel like I touched on it for maybe a few minutes once, and then we went right back to current stress — work, relationships, just day-to-day stuff. And then once I felt a little better, I stopped going, so we never really circled back to the childhood part.”

(D1, Female, 32).

Some expressed genuine ambivalence about whether revisiting childhood violence would be helpful:

“I go back and forth on whether talking about it in therapy would even help me. Part of me thinks, yeah, maybe there’s more there than I realize, and another part of me thinks that was a long time ago and I don’t know if I want to sit in it like that.”

(D13, Female, 29).

The dyad interviews occasionally prompted participants to reconsider this stance. Hearing a sibling’s detailed account shifted perspectives in unexpected ways:

“This interview did make me think differently about it, because hearing my sister talk about it brought up more than I expected. It made me realize maybe I haven’t thought through all of it as much as I assumed.”

(D8, Female, 33).

For some, the experience of listening revealed dimensions of shared exposure they had not previously recognized:

“Hearing her describe it in that much detail made me realize how much she was carrying from those nights. I knew we both lived through it, obviously, but I don’t think I had fully understood the level of fear she was holding onto.”

(D12, Male, 27).

His younger sister offered a parallel reflection:

“I didn’t realize how much he remembered, or how much he was paying attention back then. Listening to him made it feel bigger somehow — like we were both more affected than I usually let myself think.”

(D12, Female, 20).

A few indicated they might bring these experiences to therapy in the future:

“I could see myself maybe bringing some of this up in therapy now, just because this conversation made me think about it differently.”

(D14, Female, 32). Others explicitly stated that although the conversation had been eye-opening, they were not ready to pursue further exploration:

“Even though the conversation was eye-opening, I don’t know that I want to open that door any further right now. I’m not sure I’m ready for that, or even sure it affects me in a way I want to dig into.”

(D10, Male, 19).

Across the sample, childhood IPV appeared in adulthood primarily as background context — acknowledged briefly, if at all, in therapeutic settings:

“It’s more like background context in my life than something I’ve really centered in therapy. I know it’s there, I know it matters, but it usually comes up as a detail, not the main focus.”

(D2, Female, 25).

Processing of these experiences remained largely deferred, sustained by the same patterns of minimization, moral reframing, and silence that had taken shape in childhood:

“I think a lot of why it stayed in the background is because that’s how we learned to hold it from the beginning. You minimize it, you explain it, you don’t talk about it too directly, and then years go by and that pattern is still kind of running.”

(D4, Female, 32).

Together, these five themes illustrate how siblings remembered, navigated, and carried childhood IPV into adulthood. As one participant reflected:

“When I think about it now, it’s not just about what happened back then. It’s about how we carried it, how we made sense of it, what we talked about and didn’t talk about, and how that followed us into adulthood.”

(D13, Male, 36).

The findings highlight patterned forms of protective labor, divergent recollection, relational silence, moral positioning of parents, and limited therapeutic engagement — interconnected dynamics that shaped both immediate responses to violence and long-term interpretations of its significance. As one participant summarized:

“It all kind of connects, honestly. How we protected each other, how differently we remember things, how we stayed quiet about it, how we still try to make sense of our parents, and how little we’ve actually processed it in therapy — it’s all part of the same story.”

(D6, Female, 27).

Discussion

The findings from this study demonstrate that childhood exposure to IPV is not solely an individual psychological experience but fundamentally relational shaped by the presence, actions, and interpretations of siblings who co-witness violence. Existing research has documented the developmental, behavioral, and socioemotional consequences of IPV exposure (Wood & Sommers, 2011; Holt et al., 2008; Whitten et al., 2024), yet most scholarship conceptualizes children as isolated witnesses or focuses largely on parent–child dynamics. The present study extends this work by highlighting siblings as central actors whose protective labor, shared silence, divergent memories, and moral interpretations structure how IPV is experienced and remembered. These findings align with and expand trauma and memory research, relational sociology, feminist theories of gendered family labor, and work on Latine family dynamics.

Siblinghood as Relational Safety and Gendered Protective Labor

Consistent with trauma and autobiographical memory research, participants described heightened vigilance and rapid attunement to subtle shifts in household atmosphere—tone, footsteps, or “the house going quiet”—as indicators of escalating danger (Fivush & Merrill, 2016; van der Kolk, 2014). Prior research similarly finds that siblings in IPV-affected homes develop relationally patterned coping strategies, including mutual soothing and coordinated monitoring (Bender et al., 2024). Their immediate protective responses appear to reflect both survival responses and relational co-regulation, suggesting that sibling proximity became a source of stability when adult safety was uncertain (Wood & Sommers, 2011; Graham-Bermann & Levendosky, 1998).

Relational sociology helps explain how these protective routines solidified into familiar sibling roles. Through repeated exposure to violence, children developed well-rehearsed relational patterns—leading younger siblings to hiding places, watching hallways, or intervening verbally—that became embedded in their understanding of who they were to one another (Mauthner, 2002; Howe & Recchia, 2014; Dirks et al., 2015). Participants described these roles as enduring into adulthood, though the nature and consequences of that persistence varied across individuals and dyads.

The division of protective labor was patterned along gendered lines, echoing feminist scholarship that documents how girls are disproportionately positioned as emotional caretakers, while boys are socialized toward monitoring or intervention (Ridgeway, 2011; Thorne, 1993). Older sisters in this study described soothing, shielding, and relocating younger siblings, whereas the older brothers in the four sister-brother dyads more often described physically proximate or outward-facing roles. These patterns are consistent with gendered family labor research and extend it by showing how such expectations intensify under conditions of threat. However, these gendered observations must be interpreted with caution: the sample includes no brother-brother dyads, and older brother behavior is represented by only four participants. Claims about male protective labor therefore reflect a preliminary pattern rather than a definitive finding. Notably, the dominance of sister-sister dyads in this sample — ten of fourteen pairs — means that the findings most robustly illuminate the gendered labor of older sisters, including the emotional and caregiving burdens placed on girls within Latine families where such responsibilities may already be heightened (Calzada et al., 2013; Coohey et al., 2013; Haselschwerdt et al., 2019; Masarik & Rogers, 2020).

Memory, Silence, and the Relational Construction of the Past

The divergence in siblings’ memories documented here also connects to a broader literature on family narratives and shared remembering. Research on family memory demonstrates that co-witnesses to the same events routinely construct divergent accounts shaped by age, vantage point, emotional proximity, and post-event conversation (Fivush & Haden, 2003; Reese & Fivush, 1993). Within IPV-affected families specifically, children’s divergent appraisals of conflict are well documented: siblings often show low correlations on self-blame and threat appraisals even when they agree on the objective features of violence (Iturralde et al., 2013). The present findings extend this work by showing that divergence is not only cognitive but also spatial and relational — shaped by where each sibling stood, what role they played, and what they were trying not to see or hear. The dyadic interview format was particularly valuable here, allowing divergence to surface in real time rather than through retrospective comparison alone.

The study also demonstrates how siblings’ memories of IPV are shaped by both trauma and relational positioning. Participants’ recollections—rich in sensory detail but ambiguous about sequence or frequency—echo research showing that traumatic events are often encoded in fragments rather than linear narratives (Fivush & Merrill, 2016; Brewin, 2014; van der Kolk, 2014). Divergent recollections between siblings frequently mapped onto where each had been positioned during violent episodes: behind closed doors, in hallways, or in the room where conflict unfolded. The fragmented, sensory-based recollections described by participants align with research showing that trauma narrows autobiographical memory and disrupts temporal organization (Borrelli et al., 2024). Thus, memory was not merely personal but structured by the routines of the sibling shield.

Silence emerged as one of the most enduring relational strategies. Participants emphasized that silence was neither explicitly taught nor imposed; rather, it became a mutual, intuitive practice that protected them from overwhelming emotion and preserved a functional sense of normalcy. This pattern reflects scholarship showing that children exposed to family violence often use minimization, selective remembering, and silence to maintain stability and attachment (Brewin, 2014; Da Silva et al., 2021; Herman, 2015; Wood & Sommers, 2011). Over time, silence became woven into the texture of sibling relationships, shaping what could—and could not—be discussed well into adulthood.

Moral reframing further shaped how participants made sense of violent parents. Many attributed harmful behavior to alcohol, stress, or momentary loss of control while emphasizing parental affection, effort, or sacrifice. This aligns with prior work showing that children exposed to IPV often construct narratives that separate parental identity from harmful actions to preserve emotional security (Herman, 2015; Brewin, 2014; Howe, 2005). These moral interpretations also contributed to participants’ limited disclosure in therapeutic contexts, where IPV was often minimized or mentioned only briefly.

Cultural norms specific to many Latine families further shaped the relational patterns documented here. The unspoken coordination, shared commitment to protecting younger siblings, and collective silence are consistent with values of familismo — emphasizing interdependence, loyalty, and the prioritization of family unity — and with norms of discretion that discourage open discussion of family conflict (Cahill et al., 2021; Calzada et al., 2013; Stein et al., 2014). Participants’ moral reframing of parents, including the persistent tendency to contextualize violent behavior through explanations of alcohol, stress, or personal struggle, may also reflect cultural pressures associated with respeto and marianismo — values that discourage children, and particularly daughters, from positioning parents as morally culpable (Da Silva et al., 2021; Haselschwerdt et al., 2019). The finding that therapeutic disclosure was consistently deferred or incomplete may similarly reflect culturally shaped norms around keeping family matters private and seeking support within rather than outside the family system. These interpretations are culturally informed but speculative given the exploratory nature of this sample; future research should examine directly how participants themselves connect their silence and help-seeking patterns to cultural values.

Theoretical Contributions of the Sibling Shield Framework

The findings reconceptualize childhood IPV exposure as a relational and collective experience shaped within the sibling unit. The sibling shield framework integrates five bodies of scholarship — trauma and memory research, relational sociology, feminist theories of gendered family labor, Latine family studies, and a life course perspective — to explain how siblings co-construct safety, coherence, and meaning during and after violence.

Trauma and memory research emphasizes that children encode violence through sensory fragments and embodied vigilance rather than coherent narratives (Fivush & Merrill, 2016; Brewin, 2014; van der Kolk, 2014). This study extends that work by showing how those fragments are shaped by siblings’ protective routines. What participants remembered—being pulled down hallways, listening for footsteps, or hiding beneath blankets—was inseparable from the relational positions they occupied during IPV, illustrating that memory formation and protective labor are intertwined.

Relational sociology highlights that meaning-making emerges through shared practices and relationships (Mauthner, 2002; Morgan, 2011; Finch, 2007). The study extends this perspective by showing how siblings co-produce silence, reinforce or challenge each other’s interpretations, and collectively maintain moral narratives about parents. Divergent memories across dyads were patterned by the protective division of labor—who watched, who hid, who intervened—demonstrating that memory is not merely distributed but structured by relational roles.

Feminist scholarship on gendered family labor provides insight into why protective roles fell along gendered lines. Consistent with research showing girls’ disproportionate emotional caretaking and boys’ monitoring or intervention (Ridgeway, 2011; Thorne, 1993), older sisters in this study described soothing and organizing younger siblings, while older brothers described watching hallways or stepping toward conflict. These roles were not explicitly taught, but emerged from gendered expectations intensified under conditions of threat.

Finally, Latine family studies clarify how cultural norms—familismo, respeto, and discretion—shaped participants’ silence, responsibilities, and moral interpretations (Calzada et al., 2013; Coohey et al., 2013; Haselschwerdt et al., 2019; Stein et al., 2014). These norms informed the unspoken coordination, the shared commitment to protecting younger siblings, and the tendency to morally reframe parents’ actions. These cultural interpretations enrich the analysis but should be held carefully: not all participants explicitly invoked cultural values in explaining their behavior, and attributing findings to cultural norms risks flattening the heterogeneity within Latine communities across different national origins, generational statuses, and family structures. Future research should examine more directly how participants themselves understand the relationship between cultural values and sibling dynamics in IPV-affected households.

Taken together, these strands show that children’s experiences of IPV unfold within relational ecologies of harm and care. The sibling shield framework positions siblings as co-survivors whose coordinated labor profoundly shapes how violence is endured, interpreted, and remembered across the life course. Critically, this framework does not propose that sibling relationships are uniformly protective: recent longitudinal evidence documents trajectories of increasing sibling violence victimization in IPV-affected homes, with consequences that extend into early adult intimate relationships (Lee et al., 2025). The sibling shield framework therefore names one direction that sibling bonds may take (toward coordinated protection and meaning-making) while acknowledging that other trajectories exist and warrant equal scholarly attention. Given the exploratory nature and size of this sample, the framework should be understood as a conceptual tool for organizing and interpreting qualitative observations rather than as a fully validated theoretical model. Its value lies in naming processes — protective labor, memory divergence, relational silence, moral reframing, and deferred processing — that existing individual-level frameworks have not systematically addressed, and in generating testable propositions for future research across larger and more diverse samples. By bridging trauma theory, relational sociology, feminist scholarship, Latine family research, and a life course perspective, the framework challenges individual-level models of childhood IPV exposure and advances a relational, culturally grounded understanding of how children navigate and survive violence within their families.

A note on researcher positionality is warranted. As a survivor-scholar with personal experience of childhood IPV within a Latine family, the researcher brought both interpretive sensitivity and potential blind spots to this work. Familiarity with the emotional terrain participants described facilitated rapport and likely contributed to the depth of disclosure across interview stages. At the same time, this positionality may have inclined the analysis toward narratives of resilience and sibling solidarity, potentially underweighting accounts of sibling conflict, ambivalence, or harm. The reflexive journaling and peer debriefing practices described in the Methods section were employed specifically to surface and examine these tendencies. Readers should weigh the findings with this positionality in mind, recognizing it as both a resource and a constraint in the interpretive process (Levitt et al., 2017; Tracy, 2020).

Limitations

This exploratory study has several limitations that warrant careful consideration. The purposive sample was small and not designed to be representative; findings should be understood as generating hypotheses rather than establishing prevalence or generalizability. The age range of participants (18 to 36 at the time of interview) is relatively restricted and skewed toward young adulthood, which may not capture how sibling shield dynamics are understood or carried by older adults with greater temporal distance from childhood IPV. Mental health history, current therapeutic engagement, and prior trauma processing were not systematically assessed; participants with significant untreated trauma symptoms or those in active crisis may experience and articulate these dynamics differently. The sample is also dominated by sister-sister dyads (ten of fourteen pairs) with no brother-brother representation. This compositional feature means that the gendered findings, while meaningful, reflect sisters’ experiences far more than brothers’, and cannot speak to all-male sibling constellations. Participants were adults recalling childhood experiences; retrospective accounts are analytically valuable for examining meaning-making but are shaped by time, emotional distance, and intervening life events. The study recruited siblings who remained in contact and agreed to participate together; estranged, conflictual, or geographically separated sibling pairs may show substantially different patterns. Dyad interviews may have influenced disclosure, as some participants may have withheld accounts they would have shared individually. This study focused on Latine families in the United States; findings should not be assumed to generalize across racial, ethnic, immigration, or socioeconomic contexts without careful cultural interpretation. Finally, the study also did not systematically assess the severity, frequency, or type of IPV experienced across households. Participants described a range of experiences, and it is possible that variation in IPV severity shaped the forms of protective labor, memory, and silence documented here in ways the current analysis was not designed to examine. Future research should attend explicitly to IPV severity and typology as potential moderators of sibling dynamics.

Implications for Practice, Policy, and Research

The findings underscore the importance of recognizing siblings as active participants in navigating IPV rather than peripheral witnesses or background figures in children’s narratives. For practitioners across clinical, school-based, advocacy, and child welfare settings, this means routinely assessing sibling dynamics alongside individual experiences. Understanding who a child turns to when afraid, how siblings communicate during escalating conflict, and what protective routines they have already developed provides critical insight into the relational strategies that sustain children’s safety. Safety planning can be strengthened by building on these existing patterns—for example, identifying safe rooms where siblings already retreat together, validating protective behaviors rather than pathologizing them, and creating opportunities for siblings to process distress jointly in developmentally appropriate ways. At the same time, practitioners should remain attentive to the emotional and developmental burdens placed on older siblings, who often take on caregiving or protective roles that exceed their capacity and become sources of strain well into adulthood.

Policy implications are equally significant. System responses to IPV—including shelter placement, child welfare interventions, supervised visitation protocols, and family court decision-making—often prioritize parent–child safety while overlooking sibling bonds. The present findings show that these bonds may constitute children’s most consistent source of emotional regulation and physical safety. Policies that separate siblings or fail to include sibling assessments in safety planning may risk undermining these stabilizing relationships, particularly when those bonds have served as a primary source of co-regulation during violence. This is especially true for Latine families, where cultural norms around mutual responsibility and familial interdependence make sibling ties particularly salient. Ensuring that siblings remain together whenever safe and feasible, and that their relational roles are taken seriously in case planning, may substantially enhance children’s resilience during and after IPV-related interventions.

Finally, the study highlights several directions for future research. Expanding the sibling shield framework requires including a broader range of sibling constellations—especially brother–brother dyads, siblings who are estranged or have limited contact, and families where IPV produced long-term relational rupture or sibling-to-sibling violence. Future work should also examine the conditions under which sibling relationships in IPV-affected homes move toward harm rather than protection, building on emerging longitudinal evidence that documents trajectories of sibling violence victimization with lasting consequences (Lee et al., 2025). Research should also examine siblings across diverse racial, ethnic, immigration, and socioeconomic contexts to clarify how local cultural norms shape the form, meaning, and cost of protective labor. Longitudinal and mixed-methods designs could illuminate how protective roles, silence, and moral reframing evolve over time and intersect with adult wellbeing, relationship functioning, and help-seeking behaviors. Integrating narrative, dyadic, and trauma-focused approaches may further deepen understanding of how children collectively navigate danger and how those relational strategies reverberate across the life course.

Conclusion

This study demonstrates that understanding childhood exposure to IPV requires shifting analytic attention from individual trajectories to the relational systems through which children navigate harm. Siblings emerged in this work not as background figures but as central agents whose coordinated responses, emotional attunement, and interpretive labor shaped the texture and meaning of violence across the life course. By illustrating how protection, silence, and memory are produced collectively, the sibling shield framework extends existing models of childhood IPV and offers a more relationally grounded account of how children survive instability within their families.

The framework also underscores how culturally informed expectations—particularly within Latine families—structure the responsibilities children assume, the ways they make sense of parental behavior, and the long-term patterns that persist into adulthood. Attending to these relational, cultural, and developmental dynamics — including how protective roles and silence established in childhood persist and transform across the life course — reveals forms of caregiving, vigilance, and emotional burden that remain invisible when IPV is conceptualized solely through individual symptoms or parent–child dyads. In doing so, the study highlights the need for clinical and institutional responses that recognize siblings’ roles in sustaining safety and continuity, as well as the enduring relational costs of this labor.

As an exploratory study, this work also demonstrates the analytic value of dyadic methods for capturing how memories are negotiated, how silence is maintained, and how siblings shape one another’s interpretations of childhood adversity. These methodological insights provide a foundation for future research that can trace how protective roles evolve, how relational histories influence adult wellbeing, and how cultural contexts shape the meaning of surviving violence together.

By foregrounding siblings as co-survivors, this study reframes childhood IPV exposure as a relational process marked by both strength and strain. Recognizing these dynamics is essential for developing more nuanced theories of harm and resilience, for supporting children who rely on one another in the absence of reliable adult protection, and for ensuring that the relational labor they perform is neither overlooked nor forgotten.