Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast, the deeper dive episodes designed to unpick a thorny topic so you can take away manageable actions you can implement today. I'm your host, Dr. Mary Henn, psychologist and parenting expert. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. Today's episode has come about because I've read several articles recently that have probably coincided with some books being published around siblings. And it got me thinking a little bit about what are some of the things that as parents, maybe we ought to know from the articles that I read, but just a general sort of bit of a 101 for us about siblings. And, you know, when we think about our relationship if we are one of a sibling, if we've got siblings, it's the relationship that we are going to have for a really long time, although there is more and more evidence showing that more and more siblings are becoming estranged as they get older. But it is one of those long-term relationships that we have as adults with our siblings that has an interesting dynamic that plays out with it. But also as parents, it's probably the dynamic that I would say that we can often find quite challenging, particularly at certain ages and stages of our children's development. So I wanted to kind of share some of the findings from these studies as food for thought and also findings and how they've interpreted those findings. And then to share with you sort of four things that I think are worth really noting as parents, because we can potentially impact these, but also that we being aware of them means that we can. Hopefully try not to fall in the trap of potentially reinforcing some of these ones. So let me just give you some feel of some of the data that was coming out in these research articles that I read. So in no particular order, I've just sort of jumbled them all up. So bear with me because I'm trying to kind of get the numbers from the notes that I've made. So second born children earn 1.9% less than their first born siblings by the age of 30. Now, this is a study that came, that was looked at, at the University of Copenhagen. And in fact, actually, they are presenting this at a sort of World Economic Conference, where they are, they've made a suggestion in terms of their hypothesis as to, you know, their prediction as to why is it that older siblings earn 1.9% more. So this is a study that has been done in Copenhagen. But we do know when we look at data from the UK, is that first borns slightly outperform their first born siblings. Their younger siblings, on average, remember, these are averages, there are always going to be extremes either way. But they slightly outperform their younger siblings in A-level results. What I would say, actually, it's probably quite an important caveat to sort of say here, and I've mentioned it in previous episodes, research studies that we talk about, and certainly research studies that get published, are generally studies, more often than not, that show a difference. And in order for that research paper to be published, it's going to have to be published in a way that is not published. For those of you who are not in that sort of academic or publication arena, it's a slightly kind of different way of going about it, is that generally speaking, research studies that find a difference are more likely to be published than research studies that don't find a difference at all. Now, slight caveat with that, if you were being cynical, when we start looking at things to do with food, potentially when those research studies are funded by big organisations who've got a vested interest in the outcome, they're going to have to be published in a way that maybe ultra processed food companies, you might get something different. So we're not, let's park that. So when we're talking about these differences, and these averages, for it to be published, the difference needs to be statistically different. So basically, the difference can not be accounted by chance, it has got such a tiny, tiny possibility that it could be due to chance, that this is why these research studies come out. So when we talk about, you know, first born slightly outperforming younger siblings, they are still outperforming them in a in a way that is significantly different than you would expect by chance. And this 1.9% of second borns earning less than their first born siblings means that it is significantly more than you would expect by chance, there will always be when we talk about data, there will always be outliers, there will be people who are at either extremes, there could be some some earning 2.6 or and some earning less, that where the difference is even less, but the difference is significant. So I just thought that that would be helpful to say. So we're beginning to see a bit of a trend when that comes to it. Also, to add to this is that the University of Edinburgh followed 5000 children from birth to the time that they were 14 years. And they found that first borns typically scored higher in IQ tests than their siblings. And the gap appeared as early as the first year of life. So that's what we're getting some pretty, you know, compelling evidence here about first borns. Don't worry, the reasons and the predictions as to why this might be the case is coming. I'm just trying to give you a bit of a bit more of a flavour for some of the statistics. Now, let me just now begin to give you some explanation. So we've got three data points that is showing this notion that older siblings typically do better. Now, let's begin this notion about why this might be the case. And certainly for the University of Copenhagen, their study, they propose almost like a germ hypothesis. All right. So this is that their proposal is that second born and subsequent siblings end up becoming more ill, and therefore that that has some plays a factor. So let me share some of the statistics around that. So siblings are two or three times more likely to end up in hospital. With respiratory illnesses in the first year compared with their first born siblings. So first borns are much less likely to. So subsequent siblings are two or three times more likely than first borns. And one of the reasons that they're sort of proposing for this is that the eldest sibling is probably likely by the time that their siblings arrive is likely the first born is likely to already be at nursery or preschool, kindergarten or school and is likely to pick up viruses and illnesses, which they then bring home that then infects their siblings. And what they're saying is, and that makes, I don't think any of us would sort of argue against this. It all kind of makes sense. Yep, I get that. What they're proposing at the University of Copenhagen is that the inflammation that occurs when a child is unwell, the process of managing and dealing with the body, from the brain and the body development to fighting the infections. And according to the University of Copenhagen, they're suggesting that their germ theory could account for almost half of the 1.9% wage gap between first borns and their siblings. Now, another plausible explanation, and I think this is the reality quite often, when we're looking at something such as psychology, which is not just, you know, there are subtle nuances, aren't there? Whenever we're doing anything about human and human behavior and the impacts of those, it isn't as simple as just simply I do X and Y happens again and again and again, because we've got a genetic predisposition in the child, we've got environment, and whilst we could argue that siblings share exactly the same environment, I am going to argue that actually, they do not. So hold on with that particular one. So there's lots of complications here. So another plausible explanation is that actually, parental time and attention becomes diluted as families grow. And first borns typically benefit from the one-to-one attention that they get until the sibling or siblings subsequently arrive. Now, I would potentially slightly counter this, or at least put some caveat question marks, and this may resonate with you, this may not resonate with you. But I would counter argue that with our first born children, this is, you know, the first borns, they're not going to have the same amount of attention as their first borns. And I think that's 100% the case with me, is we're often as parents, much more anxious, worried, nervous, and potentially we don't create the same opportunities for independence, risk taking, problem solving, you know, all of which we know are crucial to building confidence and resilience. So yes, that first born gets a lot more attention. When I think of the amount of time my eldest got, in terms of undivided one-on-one play, one-on-one, you know, bedtime stories could go on for a as long as they needed to, because I didn't have another child to go and see in their bedroom. So there was definitely a certain element of that parental attention, and it wasn't diluted because it was just that one child. However, depending on how you've navigated it with your first borns and subsequent, is that one of the huge bonuses and positives about the second, third, fourth, and fifth children is that we rush to them less quickly. We allow them to sort of sit with discomfort longer. And so often, they are much more independent, they're more likely to take risks. risks and I'm when I'm talking about risks here we're talking about healthy risks where they learn and as a result of that they they problem solve and they learn to bounce back and they just are often more resilient and potentially you could argue often more competitive because they are fighting for that bit of space so there is this other explanation about parental attention although I would make a counter to that and the third potential as to why we see the effect in terms of elders so the eldest gets it because they've they're sort of they get that one-to-one time they potentially get it because they have had that period of time where you know they then pass on infection so that their young their siblings are their development of their brain and body is somewhat scuppered and then the third possibility although we could probably come up the whole load more but the third possibility is what they've called the teaching effect and this is whereby older siblings in lots of ways get to consolidate their learning by helping their younger siblings so if they've learned how to ride a bicycle if they've learned how to build lego if they've learned how to do up their laces whatever it is that they've learned that they then invest and spend time showing their younger siblings not only have they learned it themselves but they consolidate and almost kind of like double down on that learning by then teaching and we all know that don't we it's this idea that you really learn something when you're instructing or helping someone else now that third possibility again we could argue well yes okay that eldest gets that effect with the second child but could we could equally argue that the second child gets a bit of that when they teach the third child so there are some possible different explanations that try to speak to this thing about the gap and the impact of your birth order and this advantage that appears to be the case in several research studies that show that there is this advantage to the firstborn so if you are listening to this and you have siblings then maybe give that some sort of consideration do you feel that you're l you know the eldest in your family is that is that and certainly my i would say that my two that is the case at the moment but it was still early doors eldest is 26 and youngest is 22 so still early doors but it is it is an interesting concept now what i would like to do is share four things that i think as parents these four things are probably things that i've talked about already with regarding siblings but i think that they are important considerations for us to remind ourselves of because they play into quite often the frictions that occur at home essentially the traps that we might fall into as parents when we're trying to support so the first one is that actually now this doesn't necessarily happen at a conscious level i've talked a lot about the roles that siblings take on within a family each each sibling has a role and that role and that description of who they are comes to them either intentionally oh you're mommy or daddy's little helper you're my robust one you're the you're the unreliable one you're the funny one you're the conscientious diligent one you're the peacekeeper so we sometimes we say this explicitly and our children here are saying that again and again sometimes it's not explicit but they take on that role through the way that we praise them or the way that we reinforce aspects of their behavior and some of the what's being documented out there is that actually that in lots of ways siblings will make an intentional choice to be different almost they're kind of like find their niche because there is only a certain find there is a finite amount of time and there is a finite amount of resources and where that when it comes to parents themselves and so actually if we take on a different role then that helps us differentiate ourselves from our siblings so it highlights our uniqueness and that seems to be pretty evident and if we if a role is already taken we're not going to be able to take on a different role we have to take on a new one and that might be quite an interesting one for us to think about if you are listening to this and you've got young children and you are expecting that in lots of ways if you've got your conscientious one then your next one's going to have to be different they're going to have to find their niche they're going to have to find their differentiator and so it's really thinking about how do we communicate roles and how might we accidentally communicate roles that we don't want our children to have that they may then take on through things that we say I mean when I think certainly back in terms of my own childhood I am a middle child I've talked about being a middle child quite often I was definitely seen as the peacemaker the reliable one the little helper so I know and there's more on this to come but that would have been something that I carried into my adulthood and that was a role that I took on and so that meant that when my children were little I was younger sibling arrived there was no option for her to take on that role because it was already taken so she had to set up something new so just be aware of that and actually the power of those roles in a positive but also in a negative way continues beyond childhood so it's just being aware of those roles but that we do unintentionally at a subconscious level pick up on those roles so that's number one number two number three number four number five number six number seven number two is that our birth order does have an impact beyond family and there's some research that is now showing that whether you were the youngest the eldest the middle whatever it was you were in terms of your birth order is that it can and has been shown to affect adult responses within relationships romantic relationships as well as friendships but also in the workplace if you have been a sibling that has been frustrated by feeling that your voice has never been heard then that can often play out in a workplace when you come across a dynamic with a with a fellow colleague or maybe a line manager or subordinate where that pattern of almost childhood behavior comes out in conflict resolution or in a situation that it almost takes you back to that situation and I think particularly where the role and the role of the child is extremely marked where you've got real big differences and where there has been huge amounts of friction as a result of that is that that can begin to play out so as a parent when you're listening to this it's important to be thinking about this when it comes to conflict resolution within your home so how those roles play out in terms of that conflict resolution and identity that your child has I am the unreliable one I'm the lazy one I'm the conscientious one I'm the good son I'm the good girl whatever that might be that will play out and importantly it's looking at how that might play out when your child looks at resolving conflicts or managing those situations when it comes to their friendships because it will equally likely play out in those scenarios if they find that a friend acts in a particular way that they that almost kind of reconnects them to some of the dynamics that might be going on in their life so when we're looking at helping and supporting our children manage conflict outside of home with their friendships we might just want to become a bit aware of right okay this child may well be responding in this particular way because this is how it manages this is how this child manages conflict or how they see their position within the household and therefore we can almost be more tailored in our approach so there's not going to be one size fits all when it comes to talking to our children about conflicts that they're having with their friendships or challenges that they're having or forging friendships or maintaining them because their birth order and the role with which they've taken on within the family is all going to impact how they go about approaching those particular challenges so for me having that knowledge means that it's just so much more empowering because we can approach things in a truly unique and a bespoke way rather than sort of saying that everybody's the same so the first one is about the fact that they we have these different roles and we choose them to be different the second is about birth order make having a significant impact beyond the family and in terms of relationships and also in terms of work the third is unsurprisingly is that our family role stays with us well into adulthood and impacts our self-image it shapes it absolutely shapes the labels and the roles that we've been given as a child shape who we believe we are are a self-image not in terms of what we physically look like but the image of what who we are as an individual our identity is all wrapped up so very often within those roles and what we can then see and again that's obviously in terms of adulthood but we can see that beginning to play out but where that might play out is if you've got a child who feels that the role of the academic one or the clever person or the one who who is successful if they believe that that has already been taken and therefore you may see that they're unmotivated, that they're not working hard. And you know it's not because they're incapable, they're perfectly capable. But in lots of ways, they just don't identify with that because they feel that that role and that job has already been taken by another sibling. So it's helping them. Of course, we want our children to understand their uniqueness and what differentiates them from their siblings. But it's also helping them understand that the roles are not earmarked for one individual child. You know, just because they deem a sibling to be the clever one in their mind doesn't mean that that automatically means that they can't also be. And it's not, I mean, none of us particularly want to give our child a label of being clever, but we may want to, there may well be labels about being resilient, about being hardworking, about being persistent, about being determined, about being resilient, a go-getter, a problem solver, whatever those might be, is that actually in lots of ways, when we can use a multitude of labels and a multitude of various different language to describe our children, they're less likely to fall into this rigid thinking of I am only this one, this one word encapsulates who I am. And therefore this one word can't encapsulate the other child. And so I think it's really important that we and therefore they need to pick another one. When we're, when we try to use lots of labels in terms of, you know, lots of words to describe each of our children and the qualities that they have and really helping them see that there are a multitude of things and a multitude of qualities and values, then that has a much more empowering impact as that we then see that not only from childhood into adulthood, but also in terms of their relationships and the way that they, that self-perception. So number three is our family role does stay with us well into adulthood. And the fourth one, which I've slightly alluded to earlier on, is that actually we all experience very different childhoods. Now I've sort of talked about this before. If you think about it, you might have three or four children, you might have one or two children, and we know that they experience childhood slightly differently because obviously we've got, they've got their temperaments and they've also got the people that they interact with. It's how they interpret a particular situation, the friendships that they forge, the experiences that they have, which are not never going to be identical, even with our identical twins, they're not going to be the same. But what we don't consider maybe is that with each child, the amount of time that we have left as a parent, the attention that we can give them. And that isn't just necessarily about with each child, we have less time with each child, we have less, we can give them less attention. That isn't the our personal circumstances change. The house we might be living in may well be very different. Our financial position may well be different. What we tend to spend our money on, what we do with our weekends, all of this is different and is shaped, then has that shaping effect on our child. And so actually our children are never going to experience the same childhood because the circumstances are around that are always going to be different. They're not uniform. With each child we bring up, they have different opportunities. And we sometimes get this, you know, when we get into those sort of older years where our children complain that, you know, I remember my eldest saying that, you know, his first mobile phone was the Nokia brick. And how frustrating, you know, whereas his sister's first mobile phone was a smartphone. Now that is absolutely, they didn't have the same childhood experience. And that was based on what was happening actually societally. And what was happening with the evolution of technology was that actually their childhood experiences were completely different when it came to that. And often I think as parents, we want to kind of just like, but no, but we're being the same. It just happens to be this and that. But actually being aware that that has fundamentally impacted their childhoods. Now, but it does help us think about what are the things that I might need to be more mindful as a result of this child's potentially, let's say, I don't know, you managed to get a huge promotion between your second and your third child. And suddenly you're doing lots of things with your, now that you've got to the third child that you were never able to do before. And of course, all of the family benefits by that. But obviously the exponential uplift that that gives the third child who might be young about those experiences and that exposure that they get, maybe different cultures, maybe different opportunities to communicate about things, different experiences that might then build confidence and how that is likely to then make the experience of that third child very different to the first child. So it's just being aware of that. It doesn't mean that your third child is going to have a better childhood than your first child, but it is being aware of how that might impact relationships between siblings, how it might impact the relationship between siblings, how it might impact the relationship between roles that each of those children take on, and also how we might then be able to be mindful of how that might create certain aspects of the conflict. So if we're seeing conflict, instead of simply looking at the argument that those siblings are having in those moments, it's thinking about what are all of these factors that are actually having the effect? Because I always say this, and this episode is not about the sort of sibling conflict piece. But when our children argue, it is not just about what has happened, the fact that they're arguing over what to watch on television, or one isn't playing a game properly, or one's gone into the bedroom of the other without their permission. Yes, of course, there's a certain element of that. But all of the weight that goes behind that argument is all about sibling roles, how siblings feel about themselves in terms of their self image, whether they believe that there's a love or acknowledgement made. We as human beings compare ourselves to others all of the time. It's the human experience. And with siblings, that comparison is magnified, because that's what's happening all of the time within their home. And so our children are watching their siblings all of the time. They're watching how we respond to them all of the time. And so it's just being aware, which is why I wanted to do this particular episode about how this can profoundly affect us in a real positive way. Because when we understand all of these things that might be going on in the background, it helps us in those moments, A, understand why I keep banging on about why we shouldn't referee what we don't see, because all of this is happening in the background. And so when we referee something that we don't see, we bring our biases into it, and we end up taking sides. So it really is super powerful by knowing that we have all of this to help us. So I hope you found that a really helpful episode. Of course, if you are listening to this episode, and you're sort of thinking, right, okay, I need to, Mary-Han's given me some really interesting things to reflect on. And now I want to know how I might implement those in terms of sibling harmony at home or sibling conflict, then do look. So if you go to the website, drmaryhan.com forward slash podcast, all of the podcast episodes that I have ever done, are there. And you can simply, top right hand corner, there's a little magnifying glass. If you put in sibling, just as a word, you will get everything that I have ever recorded or written about that is to do with siblings. And then you can then go in and then you can also unpick some of the other areas through those podcast episodes. Now, as always, if you have enjoyed this episode, and you have not yet followed the podcast, please do take a moment to do that. It makes such a big impact. I cannot underplay understate the impact that that has in sort of leveling up the podcast, allowing me to be able to do more with my production team, because it means that we can attract more listeners and more followers, and speak to more parents worldwide, who are looking for practical, pragmatic day to day tips for when it comes to parenting. So if you have not yet done so, then please do follow the podcast. All that means is that as the new episodes come out, they will appear in your library. However you listen to your podcast, they will arrive in your library, ready for you to press play when you want. So as ever, if you also have not rated or reviewed the podcast, then maybe just take a moment because that would mean so much. And it helps us reach others and spread the love. So until next time. you
PodcastTranscript AI