Track 2

Track 2

I’m going to begin this section of my talk by saying something about only children, that is children without siblings. Historically, only children were relatively uncommon. However, these days, as families are becoming smaller, being an only child has become relatively more common. There are many reasons for this trend - social, economic, and political, which I won’t go into at this point.

However, I will say that having an only child generally means that parental resources can be concentrated on the one child. And I would add that, by parental resources I mean not just money but also care and attention. Only children have frequently been seen as different from children with siblings and subjected to negative stereotype.

They are often considered to be less tolerant of others - i.e. less able to accept differences, to allow those with different points of view to say and do as they like. Not surprisingly, they are sometimes said to be less co-operative than other children - in other words, less able to work effectively with others.

On the other hand, only children are often highly regarded for their autonomy, that is to say, their ability to make their own decisions without being unduly influenced by others. In short, the picture that’s emerging is of children who are rather unconventional, that is not quite ‘normal’ in social terms.

I think it’s important to say here that many of these views have been challenged. In fact more recent research has found that only children are in fact very similar to children with siblings…