MORE AND MORE couples are opting to have just one child. Here are some of the most likely reasons why having siblings is a not good option:
Competition
Those limited resources can also create competition. Siblings may compete for parental attention. When more children are in the home, there is obviously more competition for parental affection, attention and resources. Depending on the parents and the family environment, this can result in rivalry, jealousy and comparison, which could potentially lead to anxiety and depression.
Stressful home environment
Living in a home with lots of different personalities and individual behaviors can lead to a more chaotic home environment with lots of noise, less privacy and more conflict. Some children might find this a stressful environment and find their nervous system is constantly in fight or flight, which could lead to various mental health issues.
Older siblings caring for younger ones
In large families, older children will often end up helping to care for younger siblings. This can lead to children taking on the role of parents, known as parentification, and can cause stress and resentment and the loss of freedom for the older children taking on adult responsibilities. This often occurs when the parents are out working a lot or choose not to be at home.
Not only does this have a negative impact on older-siblings-turned-caregivers, it can damage younger kids, too. Children in this situation can be bullied and mistreated by their older siblings, who are not mature enough to be taking on this role, resulting in varied mental health and self-esteem issues for the younger siblings.
Your siblings can affect your physical and mental health more than you might imagine. A recent study analyzed the relationship between family size and siblings’ mental health in the U.S. and China and found that teens from larger families have poorer mental health than those with fewer siblings. The study raises questions about why having siblings might take a mental health toll on some children. For older siblings in this situation, there is less time to develop as a child and more investment in being a worker in the family and picking up the slack. Alfred Adler’s birth order theory supports this. Though the theory is not perfect, it says that the order in which siblings are born affects life outcomes. One older study tested it on Latin American youth, focusing on substance use as a life outcome, and found that younger siblings were more likely to use substances than older ones, possibly due to the older siblings’ sense of authority and responsibility.
More research is warranted to explore the exact ways in which family size and resource dilution affect children’s and teens’ mental health, but there is significant evidence to support that a higher number of siblings and greater closeness in age can have a negative effect on younger siblings’ educational progress, specifically. By Manny Palomar, PhD (EV Mail FEB. 3-9, 2025 issue)
