Only children - only child

ONLY CHILDREN - A BLESSING OR A PROBLEM?

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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