How to Raise an Only Child: Myths and Truths

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Adapted from Parenting an Only Child, The Joys and Challenges of Raising Your One and Only

You have to wonder why, when the U.S. Census reports that the single child family is the fastest growing family unit, people tell parents with only one child that they really should have another. Those proponents of large or larger families claim your only child will be spoiled, lonely, or selfish.

These social stereotypes and others date back to the 1890s and have no basis, in fact one could question if they ever did. It is parenting style more than the number of siblings that influences how an only childor any child for that matterturns out.

So when someone, perhaps your parent, an in-law or friend, tells you that you need to have another child, here are the real facts about only children and the myth of misfortune that wrongly still surrounds them. The facts are based on decades of new research.

Myth: Only children are aggressive and bossy.

Fact: Only children learn quickly that attempting to run the show, a ploy that they may get away with at home, doesnt work with friends and a bossy, aggressive attitude is a quick ticket to ostracism from the group. Lacking siblings, only children want to be included and well liked.

Myth: Only children prefer more solitary, non-competitive amusements because they are alone a great deal of the time.

Fact: This preference has more to do with social class than family size. The interests in these amusements stem from parental values and the home environment of middle- and upper-middle class families, which are more likely to have a single child.

Myth: All only children have imaginary companions to compensate for their loneliness.

Fact: There is no scientific evidence to support this. Jerome Singer, Ph.D., professor of psychology and child study at Yale University, confirms that the imagination required to create make-believe friends is not the exclusive property of the only child, the isolated, the ill or the handicapped. Imaginary friends serve a purpose of meeting a needto confront loneliness, to combat a fear, or to compensate for feelings of weakness in relation to adults or older children. Any child can feel that need.

Myth: Only children are spoiled.

Fact: Being spoiled is a reflection of our society. The Chinese feared they were raising a generation of little emperors when their only child policy was in effect. Looking back 20 years later they found the only children were not particularly spoiled and found no difference in only childrens relationships with friends when studied with children who had siblings.