ONLY CHILDREN - A BLESSING OR A PROBLEM?

Only Children – a blessing or a problem?

Only children are, in contrast to 10 or more years ago, on the increase. Preschool teachers report that the number of only children is growing. Some schools indicated that only children are as many as 50% of the children in the preschool. The question we need to ask ourselves is whether there is any significance in the fact that one-child families are increasing. Should we attach any meaning to this fact and how does the status of being an only child affect these children?

Thirty years ago, an only child was considered to be at a serious disadvantage. It was said by eminent researchers like Hurlock in her definitive work “Child psychology”, that only children were at risk to be spoiled and socially maladjusted. For families to have only one child was considered decidedly selfish.

Today our view of the position of only children has changed considerably. Society has changed considerably. Probably the most significant change for the average middle class family was the position of women. We do not have reliable estimates on the number of mothers working in South Africa but preschools report that few mothers still stay at home. The average middle-class family is a two-income family. Women move out into the market place taking their place alongside men, working long hours. Professional women tend to delay having their children and when they do have children, they often feel one is enough. Few of these mothers plan to stay at home. The longest period of time they can afford to stay away from work is between 6 weeks and 4 months. A few mothers are in a position to work flexi-time but most just cannot afford to stay at home. Being a full-time mother is not considered viable anymore.

All mothers, whether they consciously acknowledge this or defend themselves or not, have feelings of guilt placing their babies and toddlers in care. Although society has changed and the role of women has changed, at the route of our guilt lies an age-old perception that “good” mothers stay at home and look after their own children. The phenomenon of the working, professional woman has not been around long enough to change the perceptions in our minds; thus, the reason for our feelings of guilt.

Guilt is never a good bedfellow for positive relationships. The middle-class only child family usually has enough material possessions and money to allay their inevitable feelings of guilt over their only children. Children with their uncanny ability to determine their parents’ soft under-belly manipulate these feelings of guilt to their advantage. All children do it; it is normal. It is how we as parents react to the manipulation that makes the difference.

Consider this true picture: ...On 30 January 2001, I am standing in a Supermarket queue. Behind me a father and a young boy, more or less 8 years old is waiting in the same queue. Mother is still shopping in the supermarket. The father accidentally pushes the trolley against the legs of the little boy. He complains but not too much and the incident is over quickly. About 5 minutes later the mother returns and immediately the little boy starts whining about his father hurting him. He kicks up so much fuss that mother starts promising him anything he wants to eat. Chocolate? No. Biltong? No. What he really wants is his mother and father to feel guilty.

I do not know if this child was an only child; if he was not, he gave a very good, classic performance of how to make your parents squirm. The problem with only children is not that they are only children; the problem is how we as parents react to this situation. The situation is further complicated by the fact that we live in a permissive society. There is a general rebellion against “control”. In this regard Katz & McClellan (1997:13) says: ...The research ... on parenting styles suggest that children’s overall competence, including social competence, benefits from authoritative rather than permissive or authoritarian parenting. They continue and explain that authoritative parenting in the preschool years, characterised by ...high nurturance and high control... as well as emotional warmth and good communication, produce children that is high in confidence and social skills that take these preschool children successfully into their teens and beyond.

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Only Children – a blessing or a problem?

When you have more than one child, parents learn by experience that control is the only way of survival. Children learn emotional and social skills not only from their parents but also within the dynamics of their peer group. Living and playing in a peer group is different from living with adults. Adults understand and are considerate, while young children learn to be understanding and consider others by playing, giving and taking amongst siblings and peers. With an only child parents learn to accommodate, thinking that control is actually suspect and detrimental to their child’s development. Besides, making rules and expecting your child to adhere to the rules might make the child dislike his or her parents. Research contradicts these assumptions. Parents who have only one child must compensate for the lack of “hands-on” experience in acquiring emotional and social skills by providing their children with the authorative parenting style Katz & McClellan (1997) are talking about. Control, combined with emotional support and high verbal interaction, provides children with the following:

• A feeling of security. No 3-year-old wants to be in control. They will test the limits but the fact that there are rules and that the “gods of his world” are actually in control is comforting;


• Control provides children with examples of social skills. For instance, not interrupting while someone else is talking, awaiting your turn and not throwing a tantrum, saying please and thank you, not making a nuisance of yourself in company, having respect for other people, possessions and rules of society and using acceptable language in the appropriate places. None of these skills are genetic. They are acquired by children at a young age from the example of their parents;


• ...a combination of nurturance and control, encouragement, demandingness, and communication provides the emotional and social context required for optimum development (ibid). The wonderful thing is, that like most other things the benefits of this parenting style stays with the individual into adulthood. The tragic thing is that this must happen in the preschool years.

How do we provide our children with this kind of environment? It is a sad fact that we are prepared for most things in life but usually not for parenthood. Somehow, it is assumed that we are genetically programmed to be good parents. It is also a fact that our own parents’ parenting style is our main source for our own parenting styles unless we consciously try to change our style by reading and improving our knowledge about being a parent. Being a good parent and a role model, or a substitute parent in case of preschool teachers, means that we constantly need to reassess ourselves in terms of the relationship between child and the parent. We need in fact to cultivate a reflective style of thinking and doing. By observing our children carefully we will not only be able to get to them better but we will also learn how to provide learning opportunities that will help them become well-adjusted teens and adults.

One of the biggest disadvantages for only children is the fact that their parents do not have a backdrop of normal child behaviour to use as a gauge in assessing their children. This can be compensated for by getting information about child development, either by reading or talking to child specialists like preschool teachers.

What do we say about only children? No, they are not inherently a problem and like all children, they certainly are a blessing. However, children do not become blessings all by themselves. As parents and teachers, we must provide love, structure, and learning opportunities and be willing to learn from our children how to be good parents and good teachers. Good parenting does not happen by itself. A parent is someone who has to do things that you don’t like, at times that do not suit you, and you have to do it repeatedly. The reward is immense, though!

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