How to deal with tantrums

When my son was 2 and 3-years-old, he would have tantrums that lasted up to 45 minutes. He would flail about, throw things and lash out at me. I tried a method called holding to comfort him during his tantrums, which involves holding your child tightly facing away from you so they can’t hit you. However, holding did not work with my son; it just seemed to make him angrier. I noticed that his tantrums seemed to occur about 4pm in the afternoon when he was hungry and tired. So I was able to reduce the number of tantrums he had by giving him food at this time and reading him a book or doing some other relaxing activity.

Tantrums are most common in children between the ages of 18-months-old and 4-years-old. Major tantrums can involve serious aggression, breath holding, head banging and destruction of objects (Potegal and Davidson, 2003).

Tantrums can be reduced through:

1) Humour e.g. ‘Abracadabra, let me magic up an ice cream for you.’

2) Diversion e.g. let’s read ‘Goldilocks and the three bears now’.

3) Avoiding difficult situations e.g taking your child to the supermarket when they are tired.

4) Ignoring minor bad behaviour so that discipline doesn’t become a power struggle.

5) Replacing ‘no’ with ‘later’ or an alternative option.

However, don’t give into your child’s demands once a tantrum has started as this can increase the frequency of them.  Ignoring tantrums seems to reduce the length of time a tantrum goes on.  Parents should try to stay close by and remain calm if their child is having a major tantrum. If the tantrum goes on for more than five minutes, tell your child it is time stop now and count to ten. If the tantrum still continues, talk to your child in a quiet calm voice to reassure them you are still there as many children can become scared by their own loss of control.

Some children are violent towards their parents when having a tantrum. If your child tries to hit you put them in a safe place/different room where they cannot cause too much destruction. You can then reassure and comfort your child after the tantrum (Leung and Fagan,1991).

My book  ‘Psychology for Parents: Birth to teens’ is on sale as an e-book on Amazon and Smashwords.com.

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• Handling Toddler Temper Tantrums in Public (thelaboroflove.com)
• 8 Top Tips To Use When Your Toddler is Having a Tantrum (sarahockwell-smith.com)
• Toddler Tantrums: Who, What, When, & Why (itsterribletwos.com)
• Toddler Tantrum Tips (jackiesaulmonramirez.com)

How frequently should you reward your child for good behaviour?

Four Marbles (Photo credit: Terry Bain)

On a previous post, I talked about using marbles to reward my 3-year-old son for good behaviour. This involves talking to him about what behaviour I want to see from him such as washing his hands after going to the toilet and then offering him a marble every time he carries out that behaviour. I count up his marbles at the end of the day and I put the marbles in a jar. When the marbles reach the top, he is offered a reward. So far the marbles have reached the top of the jar twice and we have taken my son on a steam train and to a theme park as rewards. I do think this system is a good way of rewarding my son at his age as consistency is very important but what about older children? Older children may not respond well to every behaviour being monitored and rewarded. They may also see marbles as childish and want to be rewarded with pocket-money or treats. So how frequently should rewards be given?

Skinner was a famous psychologist who carried out experiments looking at how certain behaviours can be learnt by giving rewards. He found that the most effective way of giving rewards was to give them randomly. This is why many people become addicted to gambling because every now and again they do win money. The variable frequency of the rewards makes gambling more addictive. On the other hand, when rewards are given regularly, for example, every week, good behaviour in the middle may lapse as it is not specifically rewarded. Furthermore, when rewards are given at the end of a time period, for example, rewarding good behaviour at the end of a school term, children may take a break from the desired behaviour immediately after the reward is given. So how can parents use rewards to get the best behaviour from their children? Pocket money probably does need to be given regularly and consistently especially if it is being given for things like unloading the dishwasher every day. However, rewarding children every now and again with a special treat for good behaviour may be particularly effective. For example, you may want to give your child a special treat for a particularly good homework and if you do this on an irregular basis, it will encourage your child to produce more good homeworks in the hope that they will receive another treat at some point.

Some parents may worry they are treating their child like a dog with a carefully worked out system of rewards. They may prefer Alfie Kohn’s point of view that rewards and punishment are just ways of manipulating children’s behaviour. He suggests that when children are rewarded for behaviour they begin to think only about what they can get from a situation. Kohn argues that it is better to ask children to think about what they are doing and explain to them why you want certain behaviours from them. For example, you might talk to them about why it is important for the whole family to eat dinner together. He believes that when children understand the reasons why they should behave a certain way they are more likely to behave well. Internal motivation is more important than external rewards and punishment in changing behaviour.

I have some sympathy with Kohn’s opinion but my practical side argues that internal motivation takes too long and does not give quick results. If I want my son to do something now, I need rewards to incentivize him.  I also know that rewards work better than punishment.  However, I also make sure I explain to my son why I want him to behave in a certain way.

My book  ‘Psychology for Parents: Birth to teens’ is on sale as an e-book on Amazon and Smashwords.com.

Related articles

• Using marbles to reward good behaviour (psychologymum.wordpress.com)
• Options OR Choices Can Help Manage Children’s Behaviour (rennyadejuwon.wordpress.com)
• Why I Don’t Like Rewards and Punishments (aimingtowardjoy.wordpress.com)

How can parents help their fussy eater?

Eating Shiva (Photo credit: Mirror | imaging reality)

A few of my fellow mothers have talked to me about their children’s fussy eating habits. They have discussed their worries over their child’s weight gain and have told me that they can get quite stressed at meal times. All children have their good points and bad points but I have always felt lucky that my 3-year old son eats well. My mother-in-law can’t believe that one of his favourite foods is broccoli! So should I take the credit that he eats well? Is his lack of fussiness anything to do with my parenting style? I know that my friends who have fussy eaters and have older children who are not, say that they haven’t done anything different with their fussy eater. So what does the research say?

Research suggests that some children are naturally more picky eaters and can take longer to accept new foods than others. Sanders and colleagues (1993) compared fussy eaters with non-problem eaters by observing them at home during mealtimes. They found that the fussy eaters could be very difficult at mealtimes, for example, they would play with their food, complain about their food, refuse to eat their food, throw tantrums or regurgitate their food. However, they also found that parent of fussy eaters were more coercive in getting their children to eat food than parents of non-problem eaters.  It could be argued that parents of fussy eaters are inevitably going to pressurise their children to eat more in an effort to keep their children at a healthy weight. However, research suggests that pressurising children to eat more is counter-productive. It can lead to mealtimes becoming a battleground between children and parents. Sanders and colleagues (1993) found that the parents of the fussy eaters made significantly more negative comments at mealtimes.

Birch and colleagues (1984) found that pressurising a child to eat food by offering a reward can decrease liking for the food. Furthermore, if mealtimes are a negative experience, dislike for food increases. These findings are important because it is easy as a parent to use tactics to get your child to eat more. However, it appears feeding tactics can backfire and that it is better for parents to allow their child to completely self-regulate their food intake. Perhaps the only way parents can influence their children’s food consumption is by making mealtimes a positive experience and by enjoying healthy food in front of their children.  Galloway and colleagues (2005) found that parents who ate more fruit and vegetables themselves, had children who ate more fruit and vegetables. However, Fisher and colleagues (2002) found that parents who pressured their children to eat more fruit and vegetables, had children who actually consumed fewer fruit and vegetables. Galloway and Colleagues (2005) suggest that parents and children can influence each other in a cyclical way so that children’s initial eating style can lead to parent’s use of pressure to eat, which then leads the child to be less able to self-regulate their  food intake and so the parents add more pressure exacerbating the existing problems.

Picky eating can start early so what can parents do to stop it becoming a problem at an early stage? The research suggests that parents should take a relaxed approach. Toddlers are learning to regulate their food intake so although they may not eat much three days in a row, they will naturally make up these calories over the week. They can also find it difficult to eat at specific meal times so they should be allowed to snack on healthy food between meals. Toddlers should be encouraged to feed themselves and allowed to eat the amounts that they want so that they can learn to self-regulate their food intake. The advice is that if children do not want to eat a food, then they should be allowed not to. New food can take toddlers at least ten presentations before it is accepted. The fact that toddlers do not like to try new foods is natural and is an evolutionary mechanism designed to protect them from poisoning themselves or gastrointestinal problems (Birch, 1998). Parents just need to be patient about introducing new foods. Children will learn to eat different types of food as they observe their parents eating different types of food at mealtimes. This is why shared mealtimes is important.

My own question from looking at the research is how do you manage not restricting a child’s diet with concerns about obesity? Allen and Myers (2006) suggest that parents provide their children with an appropriate diet without being over controlling on what food their children eat. Children need to learn to self-regulate their energy intake and they actually do this better without parental intervention. However, they do recommend that parents of overweight toddlers be given weight management counselling to study the child’s food intake and activity level. They point out that children should not be encouraged to have a strict, low-calore, low-fat diet as this would not give children sufficient nutrients for growth. Fisher and Birch (1998) found that parents who restrict access to treats such as sweets, biscuits and chocolate actually have children who select and eat them more when given free access to them.

Having thought about this research, I have wondered whether I should be less controlling about my son’s food consumption. I do try to restrict my son’s chocolate intake although I have to admit without much success as he is always being given treats by grandparents and at people’s houses. I have also offered chocolate or sweets as a reward before, which I have realised I definitely shouldn’t be doing. I think the way forward is to allow him to eat as many treats as he wants when he is offered them, but to not have them at home too often. One thing that I think I have got right so far is that I have always been cautious about offering food when my son is upset as I do not want my son to associate food with comfort.

My book  ‘Psychology for Parents: Birth to teens’ is on sale as an e-book on Amazon and Smashwords.com.

Related articles

• Mumma’s Guide to the Fussy Eater… (mysmallpotatoes.com)
• Feeding Picky Eaters: Mealtime Strategies, Picky Eater Causes, and More (webmd.com)

Identifying dyslexia in children and getting help

Visual-dyslexia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Studies suggest that identifying dyslexia early and getting help is important as 95% of children can benefit from intervention programmes. The British Dyslexia Association (www.bdadyslexia.org.uk) recommends that if you think your child had dyslexia then it is better to get them assessed as soon as possible by an Educational Psychologist or a Specialist Dyslexia Teacher qualified to carry out the assessments. Some schools may be resistant to getting a diagnosis as it costs money. However, as a diagnosis will allow your child to get the support needed, it is probably best to go ahead with the assessments. Allowing the problem to continue may harm your child’s self-esteem as they continue having problems with reading and writing. Also research suggests that children who are poor readers at 6 years old find it difficult to catch up with other children (Torgesen & Burgess, 1998). So what are the signs of dyslexia and what can a parent do?

If there is a history of dyslexia in your family then there is an increased risk that your child will develop it. Early signs of dyslexia are: problems speaking clearly, no interest in letters or words, difficulty with motor tasks such as getting dressed, catching a ball or fastening buttons and confusing directional words such as left/right and up/down.

The most effective intervention programmes in schools seems to focus on phonological awareness. Children with poor phonological awareness may not understand that if you change the letter ‘c’ in the word ‘cat’ to ‘h’, the word would become ‘hat’.

Parents can teach letter sounds at home. For example, they can teach that the letter ‘c’ is pronounced as it sounds at the beginning of the word ‘cat’ rather than ‘see’ and that ‘k’ and ‘ck’ have the same sound. There is an excellent DVD made by the BBC, where all the different synthetic phonics sounds are presented. I bought the DVD on Amazon very cheaply for my son and it came with a workbook and poster of the different sounds.

You can also practice phoneme deletion with your children using word and picture cards. For example, you might have two cards with the word ‘mice’ on one and ‘ice’ on the other. You could then ask your child ‘if you take away ‘m’ from the word mice, what is left then?’ The cards could have pictures on to enhance the learning. Another technique is phoneme identification. You might say a single speech sound such as ‘t’ and show six pictured words. Your child then has to pick the picture that begins with ‘t’. Phoneme discrimination helps your child to really listen to speech sounds. This is where you present two pictures of similar sounding words to your child such as ‘cat’ and ‘hat’. You then say such just one of the words and your child has to pick the correct picture.

Parents can also play word games such as ‘I spy’ to focus on the letter sounds at the beginning of words or rhyming games such as how many words rhyme with ‘fox’. Getting children to clap out the syllables in a word also helps children to recognise how words are made up of different sounds so for example you could clap the three syllables in ted-dy-bear.

One study used a 14 week home- and computer-based training in phonemic awareness and letter-sound relationships with children who were genetically at risk of dyslexia.  Initially, the trained at-risk children kept up with untrained not-at-risk controls in reading ability. However, once the children started school, the trained at-risk children had delayed reading relative to the not-at-risk control children. This study shows the importance of support at school as well as at home and how the advantages of early intervention can be undone unless on-going help is provided. Therefore, it is important that parents push for support at school whilst continuing their efforts at home.

The good news is that schools are becoming more aware about how to support children with dyslexia and so if your child is identified as having dyslexia, they should get the help necessary.

My book  ‘Psychology for Parents: Birth to teens’ is on sale as an e-book on Amazon and Smashwords.com.

Should gifted children be accelerated?

Chess congress, Ormskirk England 2005. See http://www.ormskirkchess.org.uk/ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of my friends said that she was considering accelerating her 3-year old son the other day so that he starts school in September. He is October-born so would only be starting school 2 months earlier than an August-born child and he is ahead of his peers. However, I have my reservations but are they unfounded? The commonly held view is that it is not good to accelerate gifted children and that they will suffer emotionally and socially if they are put with older children but does research bear this out?

Research suggests that gifted children report more dissatisfaction if they are held back than if they have experienced some kind of acceleration. In ‘A Nation Deceived’ many studies are cited that show that accelerated children do better than non-accelerated children matched in terms of ability.

Potential Plus UK endorse the acceleration of gifted children at every age if the child is ready. They say this avoids the child becoming bored with repetitious learning and challenges them more. They also say that acceleration works better if the teachers have a positive attitude to it and if the parents are supportive.

Perhaps it depends on how gifted a child is as to whether there are benefits in accelerating them. Deborah Ruf (2005) identifies five levels of giftedness and says that the difference between children at the different levels is great. Some children may be up to six years ahead of other children whereas others are only advanced amongst their peer group. A level 5 gifted child would be able to read child and adult fiction and nonfiction by 4 to 5 years old, understand abstract maths concepts and be able to play adult level games by the time they were 3 to 4 years old. There are less that 0.1% of children at this level. A level 1 gifted child is able to read children’s non-picture books by age seven to seven and a half and is able to read two to three years beyond grade level by age seven. 10%-20% of children are gifted at level 1 (information taken from NAGC website). It may not be a problem to hold back a level 1 gifted child but a level 5 gifted child may be particularly frustrated.

The research suggests that I should be more open to the idea of accelerating gifted children. However, I still think that gifted children should have the opportunity, even if they are accelerated, to socialise and play sport with children of their own age. Otherwise, they may always feel smaller than their friends and it is unlikely that they would be picked for the school sports teams against bigger children. Gifted children may also be advanced in only one area such as mathematics, so it may be better for them to have other lessons such as Art or English with same-age peers. Schools may need to particularly flexible in catering for the needs of gifted children.

If I go back to my friend’s dilemma about whether to accelerate her 3-year old son or not, I would say that she has to judge at what level he is gifted to make a decision as to whether to accelerate him. I also believe that young children can benefit from play even if they are gifted so she needs to think about whether her son is still enjoying free play. Another thing she needs to consider is whether her son has the emotional maturity to deal with full-time schooling. Children may be intellectually advanced but still emotionally immature.

My book  ‘Psychology for Parents: Birth to teens’ is on sale as an e-book on Amazon and Smashwords.com.

Does it really matter how much television you let your kids watch?

A child watching TV. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to psychological research it does matter how much TV your children watch. One study found that the number of hours of TV watched between 1 and 3 years old was linked with attentional problems at aged 7. Psychologists suggest that this is because real life does not move as quickly as the animated cartoons on television and that if young children are allowed to watch these animations, they find real life slower and more boring. TV watching is not only linked with attentional problems but also increased aggression. This is not surprising when so many cartoons contain violence, just think of all those superheroes using violence to get rid of the bad guys. Children are very impressionable and are easily influenced by the characters they see on TV. However, this is the kind of research that I wish I could ignore as it makes life much more difficult for me. I would much rather put on the TV than spend time pushing trains round a train track with my 3-year-old. Unfortunately, this is where knowing too much psychology is a bad thing as I can’t help but feel guilty about allowing my son to watch too much TV. I promised myself I wouldn’t buy a DVD player for the car before my son was born but it was the only way to get me through long journeys with him and still have my sanity. I bought the DVD player when he was 9 months old after two journeys with him screaming on the motorway to get out of his car seat. However, I have tried to reduce TV watching time a home. This is not easy especially when I am trying to get dressed in the morning or cook dinner at night. With no TV to babysit my son, I have had to get quite inventive when cooking. I have ended up getting my son to measure out the spices or herbs into a bowl, which takes twice as long and makes a huge mess. I have also given my son play dough so that he can pretend he is cutting vegetables when I am doing it. I accept I might be slightly overdoing it and making life hard for myself but that is the cost of being a mum who knows too much psychology.

My book  ‘Psychology for Parents: Birth to teens’ is on sale as an e-book on Amazon and Smashwords.com.

How do you deal with a child who is upset?

Managing emotions – Identifying feelings (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My son fell down in the park the other day and started crying and I went straight to him, picked him up and cuddled him until he stopped crying. But am I mollycoddling my son too much and turning him into a wimp? I know that other mothers might see it this way and want their children to ‘toughen’ up.

As usual, when I have questions about my parenting style, I turn to psychological research for the answers. ‘Tuning into kids’ is a new parenting programme being run in Australia and it suggests that we should not dismiss or play down our children’s feelings. Parents are taught to accept and explore their children’s emotions rather than dismiss them. For example, when parents dismiss their children’s emotions they say to themselves that they want to change their child’s worried moods into cheerful ones. However, according to research, it is better for parents to try to understand why their children are worried and to find out what their children are thinking. According to Gottman and colleagues (1997), parents should be aware of their children’s emotions and help their children to understand and label their emotions. It may be hard for parents to accept their children’s strong emotions such as anger and jealousy but it is important to try to empathise with them. If parents can learn to deal with their children’s strong emotions, children feel validated. Parents can also use it as a time for getting closer to their children and to teach their children how to solve problems. Gottman and colleagues found that when parents coach their children in emotions, the children have fewer behaviour problems and better social skills.

Havighurst et al. (2010) compared 4 and 5-year-old children, whose parents had been taught emotion coaching (the ‘Tuning into kids’ parenting programme) with children whose parents had not been taught how to tune into their children’s emotions. The children whose parents had been taught emotions coaching had a much better understanding of different types of emotions and they also had fewer parent- and teacher-reported behaviour problems six months later.

This research suggests that I should continue to comfort my son when he is upset and not worry about making him independent. I do find it hard sometimes to deal with my son when he is angry but I have to remind myself to accept his strong feelings. Having read this research, when my son said he didn’t want to go to his new preschool a couple of weeks ago, I said to him that I understood that he was worried. I also resisted the temptation to say that he would be fine and instead told him that I had felt worried on my first day at school too. Acknowledging his worries seemed to make him much more willing to go into the new preschool and as I said in a previous post, he told me afterwards that he had enjoyed himself.

My book  ‘Psychology for Parents: Birth to teens’ is on sale as an e-book on Amazon and Smashwords.com.

Should aggressive make believe play be discouraged?

Recently my son has been playing lots of aggressive games. The characters in his games get shot, covered in volcano lava, eaten by sharks and killed by pirates. This has led me to ask myself whether I should play along with this aggressive make-believe play or discourage it. So what does psychological research say? Landy and Menna (2001) compared how mothers of non-aggressive children and aggressive children played with their children. The mothers and children were observed playing with a variety of toys through a one-way mirror. Dinosaurs and a crocodile were included amongst the toys to encourage aggressive play themes. Landy and Menna found that mothers of aggressive children were more likely to stop aggressive make-believe play. They were also more likely to say things like ‘That’s not nice’ or ‘That’s unkind’. In contrast, mothers of non-aggressive children would play along with the aggressive play, taking on the voice of certain characters and pretending to be scared, killed or eaten by crocodiles and dinosaurs. The mothers of non-aggressive children were also more likely to talk about the character’s feelings during the play, saying things like ‘I think she must be upset’. In addition, these mothers were more tuned into their children’s feelings during the play, so if their children started to show that they were uncomfortable with the aggression in the make-believe play, the mothers would suggest things like ‘the crocodile wanted to be friends now’. This study lends support to the idea that play enables children to work through their anxieties. Landy and Menna suggest that children become more aggressive if they cannot act out their aggression during play. If aggression is not released during play, then it ends up being acted out physically through hitting, biting and pushing. Cohen (2001) in his book ‘Playful Parenting’ argues that children use play to come to terms with their own and other people’s aggression. He believes that if aggressive play is forbidden it leads children to become more aggressive in real life. However, Gordon (1993) found that some children’s play can entirely revolve around killing and destruction.  This seems very much like some of my son’s play recently. Landy and Menna (2001) suggest that playing with children as much as possible and getting them to extend the themes in their play so that having a nice dinner or going on holiday are incorporated into the aggressive play can help children move away from repetitive aggression. Having read these studies I have allowed my son to engage in aggressive make-believe play as much as he wants to and I have also tried to reflect the feelings of the characters my son wants me to pretend to be. I know that he has learnt many of these games from the older boys at his preschool including words such as ‘Shoot, kill and die’ so I am allowing him to understand what these words mean at home in a pretend situation. He has also been quite upset recently by some boys saying ‘I hate you’ to him (I have spoken to his preschool about this) and I think allowing him to engage in aggressive make-believe play at home has helped him deal with his emotions. I am pleased to say that his play has become a little bit less aggressive this week but this seems to have happened naturally as things have calmed down at his preschool. However, I know that I shouldn’t be worried either way.

My book  ‘Psychology for Parents: Birth to teens’ is on sale as an e-book on Amazon and Smashwords.com.

How to discipline your child with 1,2,3 Magic

Reading (Photo credit: surlygirl)

A couple of weeks ago, I called my friend to wish her ‘Happy birthday’. She also happens to be a clinical psychologist, who works with children. The conversation got onto to my 3-year-old son and I told her I was having problems managing his behaviour. She suggested I try using a method called ‘1,2,3 Magic’. This is a method where you give your child three warnings for bad behaviour and if they continue, you give them a consequence such a timeout or taking away a toy. So how does it work exactly? Well the first time your child does something you don’t want them to do, you say ‘That’s 1’, the second time you say ‘That’s 2’ giving them time to stop their bad behaviour but if they continue you say ‘That’s 3’ and follow it with a consequence. By having a three-step system, it allows the child time to try to change their behaviour. I will point out that this was not the first time my friend had explained the method ‘1,2,3 Magic’ to me, but unfortunately the first time I didn’t fully pay attention. So prior to my conversation with her today, I have been going through the three steps but with far more words. For example, I would say ‘Stop throwing your food on the floor’ to my son, then if he continued, I would say ‘If you don’t stop throwing your food, you will go into timeout’ and then if he still didn’t stop throwing his food I would say ‘Now you are going into 3 minutes of timeout for throwing your food’. My friend explained that this method was far too wordy and that when you just say ‘That’s 1, 2 or 3’, your authority carries more weight. It also gives the child less room for argument. I have been using this method over the last couple of weeks and I have really noticed a difference in my son’s behaviour. Sometimes but not always he will stop what he is doing on the first or second warning. I hope the 1,2,3 Magic method will keep working its magic in my house.

My book  ‘Psychology for Parents: Birth to teens’ is on sale as an e-book on Amazon and Smashwords.com.

Are only children spoilt?

Child 1 (Photo credit: Tony Trần)

An increasing number of families have only one child often out of choice. However, there are social pressures to have more children as the commonly held belief is that only children are lonely, spoilt and lacking in social skills. China’s one child policy has led to a generation of only children who have been dubbed ‘little emperors‘. On the other hand, research such as Falbo and Polit (1986) and Falbo and Poston (1993) have pointed to the beneficial effects of being an only child in terms of increased achievement and higher self-esteem. The research has also highlighted the negligible differences in personality between only children, first-borns and those from two-child families. Mellor (1990) found that only children scored significantly higher than children from larger families for trusting others, being independent, taking initiative, being responsible and productive and having a good self-image and high self-esteem. Oliva and Arranz (2005) found that only children did not differ from other children with regards to family relationships, peer relationships and psychological adjustment. However, there is some negative evidence about being an only child: Jiao et al. (1986) found that children with siblings were more persistent, cooperative and popular than only children. Internet accounts of being an only child suggest that it can be quite a negative experience but then such accounts can be biased as only certain types of people are likely to write their accounts on the internet or to look for support from internet forums. A recent survey ‘Understanding society’ (2009) found that the greater the number of younger siblings in the household, the less satisfaction with family life. It also found that sibling bullying is found in half of UK households. Being an only child comes with a number of benefits, such as better achievement, higher self-esteem and closer relationships with parents. The perception that only children are spoilt is simplistic. It does not take into account that being spoilt with attention is actually a good thing for young children in terms of their self-esteem. I have two friends who are only children and they are generous, kind and very unspoilt! They say that their parents gave them lots of attention but that they weren’t spoilt materially. So maybe parents of only children just need to make sure they don’t spoil their children with material items.

My book  ‘Psychology for Parents: Birth to teens’ is on sale as an e-book on Amazon and Smashwords.com.