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  • Essay / Parenting Children: The Effects of Being an Only Child

    Chances are you have at least one sibling (if you're American). There's an even greater chance that they can do something much better than you. Don't worry though, you probably excelled at something your sibling didn't excel at. Think about why this could have been your strong point. Was it because what your siblings were good at had already been taken? Now think about this: what if you were an only child? Instead of having one thing to be good at, you would probably have many facets. This is the case of the young Chinese woman in the documentary 2 Million Minutes, who is an only child and undeniably astonishing. 2 Million Minutes follows 6 different students – a boy and a girl from America, China and India – as they apply to college. The documentary According to Dr. Nina Howe and Dr. Holly Recchia, a sibling relationship has four main elements in the early stages. The first is that sibling interactions tend to be “strong, uninhibited emotions of positive, negative, and sometimes ambivalent quality.” The second is based on the fact that siblings have a very close bond due to the fact that they spend all their time together. The third is that each sibling will put different effort into each sibling relationship, creating a gap. The fourth is the age difference between children – it can either make a difference or break it. An age difference means there could be a power struggle between siblings, or there could be a support system. According to Jensen, Alexander C. and Mchale, in a study done to examine the relationship between parents' beliefs about their children and their academic achievement, parents those who thought one child was smarter than the other saw that this child outperformed his brother or sister the following year. Conversely, parents who thought one child was not as competent as the other saw that child not performing as well as the other sibling. They speculate that this might be because children pick up these expectations from their parents and strive to meet these expectations. In the case of an only child, this effect would not occur – parents can expect their only child to succeed. The child would not face competition in the household, where those with more than one child