Early childhood years is time when the child is provided with all sorts of stimuli such as social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic, psychological and physical (Darragh, 2010). According to Yavuzer (2013) first six years of life has a significant importance on children in terms of not only shaping improvement of child in all developmental fields but also laying a foundation of some future personal traits such as habits, beliefs and characteristic. In these years, children think differently from adults so it is wrong to judge them according to our rules or “true” patterns. They have the same feelings with adults such as jealousy, anger, sadness or happiness but they express these feelings differently from adults because of not having developed the skills to control their emotional responses yet. Although they try to suppress some of these negative feelings, some emotional responses give them away (Reit, 1985).

        Gottesman (2013) stressed that a death, divorce of parents, exposure to violence or birth of a new sibling can affect children easily and these effects reflect on their behaviors. For example, they might have some sleeping or eating problems or show bullying behaviors. She added that sibling rivalry is one of these events which can cause some long-reaching effects and is a vital subject for young children, their families and people around them. Volling et al., (2010, p.387) described sibling rivalry as “… the feelings of envy, jealousy, and competitiveness that exist between brothers and sisters within the family”. Although sibling rivalry brings to mind negative meaning at first glance, according to Reit (1985) it is a fact of life and every sibling around world undergo this experience. While even some small changes can affect a person’s life throughout, addition of a new “favorite” to the family can even push the child to the complicated feelings (Gottesman, 2013). Yavuzer (2013) emphasized that the child might feel some conflicts about his new sibling. Research revealed that participation of a new baby made the firstborn preschool children happy at the beginning, but especially after few weeks they showed some negative responses (Nadelman & Begun, 1982). In addition to some feelings like insecurity and loneliness, some behaviors like becoming introverted and removing from parents result from jealousy might be experienced in this process (Yavuzer, 2013). Larmo (2007) stressed that in fact the feelings of rivalry caused to be anxious of older child because he thought that if parents recognized these negative feelings or behaviors towards sibling, they could give up from loving him. Since the child could not deal with these negative feelings, parents should take due precautions rather denying them. To reduce negative effects of sibling rivalry, it is required to examine and understand these effects better and accept them as a normal and healthy part of family life. For families, real purpose should be to manage this rivalry and conflict effectively rather than prevent it to occur. The fights and debates of siblings are sometimes unavoidable but if it is managed appropriately, it can provide them with the opportunity of acceptance of existence and can allow them to make a bargain with his sibling (Reit, 1985; Sparrow, 2006). It will be beneficial for parents, teachers and educators to learn what factors affect the sibling rivalry and how this term might be got over without any hurt. Detailed review of literature conducted on sibling rivalry issue in Turkey revealed that there is not enough number of quantitative data collection instruments for researchers (Yiğen, 2005; İnce, 2009). The purpose of this study is to develop a Turkish sibling rivalry scale to identify 3-6 year-old children’s rivalry behavior with their younger sibling.

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