A few days ago Lola told us in an entry that having siblings is a very positive aspect for children, since they can be very useful to share joys and sorrows with them.
However, this does not mean that the only children will necessarily be miserable (surely many unique children who read this entry will be able to corroborate it) and, in fact, a new study has recently appeared that will surely reassure those mothers who only They have a child and have no intention of having more.
This study, conducted at the Ohio State University, in the US, comes to say that Children who grow up without siblings are no less able to develop good social skills than those who do.
The study, in which more than 13,000 primary and secondary school students have been analyzed, is motivated by the growing interest of knowing how it affects children to grow up without siblings, now that the size of families is smaller than it does years.
To carry out the analysis, the authors compiled interviews conducted between 1994 and 1995 in which questions were asked about the popularity of the students. Children were asked to mention up to five friends of each sex and then the “votes” were counted to see which children were more popular and which children were less.
When analyzing the results, it was observed that the votes were not influenced by the presence of brothers, that is, the only children were no less popular than those who did have siblings, from which it follows that the only children have the same social skills as those who grow up relating to their siblings.
"In all the combinations we evaluated, the brothers had no impact on how popular a student was among their peers.", commented one of the authors of the study.
In discussing the results, the researchers commented that the only children, despite not having siblings, are able to learn to relate and socialize with other children in school, in extracurricular activities and in many other areas in which their experiences converge with those of other children.
The truth is that, a priori, the study makes a lot of sense. If I stopped to do a reflection exercise trying to guess which co-worker has siblings and which does not, I would surely fail several times (or perhaps not so much, if we consider that the probability of having siblings is high). What I mean is that it is practically impossible to say, because of the character of a person and their social skills, whether they have siblings or not.
Luckily, humans are social series and, normally, when one does not have a brother to play with, life is sought to be able to do it with other children (be they neighbors, classmates, cousins, etc.). Even parents, sensitive to these issues, often try to look for activities in which their child can interact with other children. So, in short, I don't think having only one child is a problem for him, although personally, I love to see how my two children share games, smiles and even anger and tears.
