COVID-19 came out of nowhere, and it locked everyone in their houses. Normally, we’d get to socialize with others and go outside on a regular basis. Instead, now people are sitting inside their homes and with their families. Since teenagers are stuck with no one to talk to, its only natural to start interacting more with your brother or sister. The pandemic has made siblings grow closer with each other and bond. Who would’ve thought a global pandemic would help brothers and sisters grow together? If anything, we thought siblings would’ve started gradually hating each other.

For Jacob Choubani, a sophomore at EBHS, spending his days at home has made him much closer to his 4th grade brother Jayden. Before, each would come back from school, complete their homework, and then play video games. There were days where not a word would be exchanged, and arguments were frequent. “The only times we talked was when I would pick him up from the bus stop and walk him home,” He recalled. Nowadays, they like to crack inside jokes with each other at the dinner table and look at their parents’ confused faces. One of the things they do most often with each other is gaming. In the early days of the pandemic, they enjoyed playing Uno, and now they’ve recently started playing a new video game together, Halo.

Ariana D’Onofrio, 10, has a similar story. She and her senior brother Christian used to have a mediocre relationship. “Pre pandemic we ignored each other a lot and fought more often, and a bit has changed from that to now” Ariana stated. However, a lot has changed since then, as being stuck with your brother or sister at home for 8 months, something is bound to change. “I think we got closer over the pandemic because we bonded. Also, we couldn’t hang out with friends so we hung out with each other.” Joarder and Sanjida Rashid, who are sophomore and senior respectively, watched movies together. Like many of us, they binged movies and TV shows on streaming services. Joarder remembers all the fun they had together while watching Aladdin on Disney Plus. “One time, we stayed up 9 hours in the living room watching anything and everything.”

As the amount of COVID-19 cases rise, the possibility of another lockdown is very real. From now until the foreseeable future, minimizing the amount of times we go out and staying at home is the way life will continue as it has. For some of us, that may be just what we need to grow more fond with our siblings and develop a sense of companionship with them.