How siblings damage mental health

When it comes to a large family, many people first think: great luck. But a study now suggests that teenage children at least can suffer from having lots of siblings.

Doug Downey is a professor of sociology and lead author of the study from Ohio State University. The results surprised him: "Other studies have shown that having more siblings is associated with some positive effects, so our results were not self-evident."

For the study, 9417 Chinese teenagers and 9191 American teenagers were surveyed. As it turned out, the happiest teenagers were those who had no siblings or at most one brother or sister. Siblings with two or more siblings were more likely to suffer from depressive symptoms or anxiety. It did not matter whether they were full or half siblings.

The more siblings, the less parental attention

The so-called concept of resource dilution could be relevant to the results: As the number of children increases, resources such as time, attention and financial resources also decrease in a family. Accordingly, a child with many siblings also receives less attention from their parents, which can have an impact on their mental health. The smaller the age gap between siblings, the more pronounced this effect. Doug Downey explained this by saying that children who are roughly the same age compete for the same parental resources.

An earlier study led by the same professor had revealed positive consequences of siblings - including that siblings showed better social skills in nurseries. Further research is therefore needed to examine other factors on mental health.

What do you think about the study? Are you an only child or do you have brothers and sisters? Feel free to let me know in the comments.

Guidebooks

Siblings - a very special love

Jan-Uwe Rogge, German

Guidebooks

Siblings - a very special love

Jan-Uwe Rogge, German