Science Confirms the Obvious: Parents are More Strict with Older Kids

Theory explains why younger siblings are oh-so-good at being bad

By Laura Allen Posted 04.23.2008 at 3:57 pm 7 Comments

It's Good to be the Younger Sibling Does the youngest have it the easiest? A new study confirms the obvious. iStockphoto

The latest breakthrough in the burgeoning field of birth-order research reveals that parents discipline older kids much more severely than the younger ones. My own thoroughly unscientific poll also finds that this experience is common: Four out of five friends felt that hell yeah, younger siblings got away with murder. Well, not murder per se, but other transgressions such as sneaking home at 5 AM, shoplifting car stereos from Caldor, and smearing Vaseline on the family toilet seat.

The finding, which is reported in this month’s issue of The Economic Journal, jives with other birth-order studies. They paint a picture of first-borns who receive copious and enviable investments from parents (food, time), and risk-taking later-borns who’ll do anything to snatch some attention.

The new study, which used an experimental game to model parent/teenager interactions, posits its own theory of why the bratty younger sibling scenario is so typical. Parents, the researchers say, have an incentive to be more strict with older kids. Not only does this strategy keep older kids in line, but it might deter the younger ones from following suit. But as younger siblings reach their teen years and the eldest ones leave home, parents lose the drive to follow through on threats.

"Tender-hearted parents find it harder and harder to engage in 'tough love' since, as they have fewer young children in the house, they have less incentive to uphold reputations as disciplinarians,” says study author Lingxin Hao of Johns Hopkins University. “As a result, the theory predicts that last-born and only children, knowing that they can get away with much more than their older brothers and sisters, are, on average, more likely to engage in risky behaviors.”

Moreover, Hao and colleagues posit that the trend toward smaller families in the U.S. may be resulting in more spoiled children. Are kids more ungrateful, heedless, and as my mother frequently used to tell me, the eldest—“snippy”—these days? Seems that way . . . but maybe I’m just getting old. Clearly another “obvious” study is in order.

Readers of all birth-order ranks, do tell: What did the younger kids in your family get away with?

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7 Comments

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Zazzy

04/24/08 at 3:50 pm

Lol, I am the youngest person in my family.

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imaduck

04/26/08 at 9:51 pm

Wow, obviously they didn't survey my family. My brother was always touted as the brilliant, perfect child who never did anything wrong, despite the fact that he drank, smoke, did drugs, and I always outperformed him on just about every academic mark imaginable (although I did this several years after then him, so nobody cared).

However, yes, I'd say as a generalization this has been true in most families I've seen. It seems to be a combination of the "set a good example," the overprotectiveness/overworry that goes with the first child, and the "protect the baby" attitudes that are very common.

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robdur5233

from Clarkston, GA

08/11/08 at 4:32 am

Like many young people of my generation, I had to develop my own kind of mental and emotional dodge ball skills of a sort of mentally and emotionally switching gears or train of thought tracks in order to escape extreme parental punishment in the form of my much bigger and stronger mother or father when they pulled off their pants belt to use like a bull whip on my body. Once, when my father was stationed in Darmstadt in the former West Germany, I found out what the slang word for sex meant, the f**k word, my father made me tell him where I had learned of that word and proceeded to beat me for a solid eternity it seemed like to me in my small bedroom in the apartment our family lived in on post there. It was entirely legal then to beat your kids, or any other parents kids too, or for a husband to slap his wife around too if she "misbehaved". It affected me so much that I totally withdrew and became extremely introverted and to this day I cannot have a successful male/female relationship because if it and their attitudes they beat into me a total abject terror or parental punishment. I helped to end legal wife or female beating in Germany, Texas and Georgia some years ago, helping to get it made illegal because it is torture, deliberate physical torture that creates permanent psycholocal and emotional harm in human beings or any other animal similar to us in biology.

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watermia

10/09/08 at 2:01 am

Parents may be more strict with the older kids, but the younger kids get pushed around a lot by their older siblings, so it's not like they get a free pass. At least in my family it was very hierarchical by age, with the youngest squarely at the bottom of the totem pole.

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dazelmer

01/20/09 at 6:18 pm

So basically: Parents care more about the older children and just don't really care about the younger ones.
In my family I have an older sister and younger sister and my parents had strict movie watching rules for my older sister and I, she even had to wait until I was 13 before she could start watching PG-13 movies. However, my younger sister was watching those same movies when I turned 13, she was on 10.

But I think the best part of this "study" is that for some reason all children know it, and yet parents continuously deny it. Is it just one of those things that gets forgotten with age?

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thequestion

04/24/09 at 6:37 pm

I agree with the results of the study, but I am wary of robdur5233's opinion on spanking. Being an older brother and the recipient of many a spanking, I know that:

1. my little brothers (and little sister) get away with more than I did at their age

2. spanking is not deadly

I am sure that there are and have been many parents who have abused their children by beating them (whether they deserved it or not), but so long as the parents control themselves, spanking (not beating) is an effective disciplinary measure that - at least in my experience - works just as well or better than all its alternatives.

The bottom line is, you can survive pain. Spanking is not a health or emotional hazard to children unless the parents (or anyone else who is in charge of discipline) have violent tempers or don't really show that they love their children.

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curricula

10/28/09 at 11:06 pm

Well, here is my own theory on why this study could be true. Perhaps it is also from my own experience as well. Parents expect a lot from the older child. How many times have we as the older child heard from our parents that we should always set a good example for our younger siblings? Well, i had when i was a kid and staying with my parents. I was the eldest kid in my family with two younger siblings. And i must admit that sometimes this also "fan into flames" more sibling rivalry as well. Parents may not be aware of it, but among the kids, this can lead to jealousy, etc..Parents should take time to explain to the older kid on why certain discipline was taken so that he/she does not feel being 'picked on'.

judy
www.child-central.com