– A new research has confirmed that first-born Children achieve better at school because they benefit from more intense parental attention during the early years. The follow-up of thousands of families for more than a decade has shown that parents devote a lot of time developing the abilities of their eldest child, but become less involved in the early education of their subsequent children, sharing fewer activities with them.
– IQ tests showed that the stronger involvement of parents towards their first-born child gives them a precious edge over their younger siblings, a consequence that can be seen as early as the age of one. Those findings help understand the so-called “birth order effect,” a phenomenon wherein children born earlier in a family have more chances to get higher education, jobs and wages later in life.
– “As the household gets bigger time has to be split with younger children so they miss out on the advantage of being an only child for a time,” said Dr. Ana Nuevo-Chiquero, from Edinburgh University, who led the study. In fact, firstborns do not enjoy more “love,” this remains at a constant level, but they do enjoy more “attention,” a factor of utmost importance during the determining first years.
Alan (ChildUp.com)
