Background information
The strange freedom of parenting older children
by Michael Restin
What you need to know about only children
1.10.2018
Translation: machine translated
Prejudices about only children persist. Yet science has long since shown that whether someone grows up with or without siblings does not determine their entire life. Regardless of whether you are an only child yourself or have decided to have just one child: Here are a few facts to counter the niggles.
Single children are not uncommon. Families with two children are still the norm in Switzerland. But one sixth of all women only have one child. That's not much fewer women than those who have three or more children. Single children are also not a modern phenomenon. There have always been times when families had fewer children. The idea that there used to be mainly large families in which everyone sat in front of the fire with grandma in the evening has little to do with reality. If anything, it applied to a few wealthy families. Nevertheless, prejudices about only children persist. And parents regularly have to justify their family situation.
A psychologist named G. Stanley Hall is also to blame for this. As important as his research undoubtedly was towards the end of the 19th century - he was also known as the Sigmund Freud of the USA - his theories did no service to children without siblings. At the time, he deliberately chose eccentric people for his studies of only children. The result: decades later, psychologists were still propagating the view that siblingless children were fundamentally more difficult and less well equipped for life than others.
Table talks for grown-ups and surrogate siblings from the neighbourhood
Today, there are stacks of studies that show that G. Stanley Hall was quite wrong. Only children are no more solitary, lonely or self-centred than other people. On the contrary: the few differences that researchers have found in recent decades between children with and without siblings are actually in favour of only children. On average, only children are somewhat more social, intelligent and adaptable than children with many siblings.
The fact that only children often have a cognitive advantage is no surprise to journalist and author Jeffrey Kluger, as he writes in his book "The Sibling Effect". It has been shown time and again that families with one child often talk about many more topics and in a more adult language than when there are two or three siblings at the table. However, first-born children and children with only one sibling scored slightly better than single children. Kluger suspects that this is because first-born children have the opportunity to teach their younger sibling something. And conversely, the younger sibling receives a lot of exclusive attention from the older one.
A further advantage, according to Kluger, is that only children often learn to entertain themselves alone at an early age. Many are very good at playing or reading while completely absorbed. Those who know what to do with themselves and feel comfortable on their own are also less likely to feel under pressure to join a group of mates that doesn't suit them. At the same time, most siblingless children know how to satisfy their need for other children: They make friends with neighbourhood children and kindergarten buddies or maintain a close relationship with cousins.
Individual children also have the advantage that all of their parents' resources, be it time or money, are exclusively available to them. If they come from a family without financial problems, there are often more opportunities to go to a good school, travel the world with their parents, learn an instrument or take dance lessons. It is also easier for parents to take their wishes and needs into account, be it the beloved spaghetti bolognese for dinner or a visit to the petting zoo on Saturday afternoons. Many only children have a particularly good and close relationship with their parents.
(Almost) all a bit of an only child?
But of course, not everything is rosy in the life of an only child. For example, trombone lessons, painting classes and expensive private tuition often come with the expectation that the child will make something of it. And while the exclusive attention from parents is nice, it can sometimes be too much for children. The temptation to protect a child like a delicate little plant from every breeze, to spare it sadness, disappointment and anger at all costs, is greater when there are no other siblings demanding attention at home. If siblingless children have little contact with other children, they also do not yet practise sharing and waiting, negotiating and compromising to the same extent as others do in the early years.
But before you start thinking too much about siblingless children, you might also need to ask yourself: What is an only child? If a child has their first sibling at the age of seven or ten - didn't they experience formative years in which they didn't have to share toys and parents as an only child? Isn't every first-born child an only child at first, unless they are born as twins? And: doesn't a siblingless child who spends a lot of time with cousins at grandma's or other children's daycare centres also learn a lot of what others learn with their siblings? That's why, despite all the good advice, every child is different. And you know yours best.
Header image: Many prejudices still cling to only children today.
A passionate journalist and mother of two sons who moved from Zurich to Lisbon with her husband in 2014. Does her writing in cafés and appreciates that life has been treating her well in general. <br><a href="http://uemityoker.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">uemityoker.wordpress.com</a>
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