FAVOURED SIBLINGS STUDY

No one wins in families where parents play favorites, new study shows

Parents who favor one child over another can run the risk of increasing behavior problems in all their children, according to new research from the Offord Centre for Child Studies. The findings are reported in the current issue of Child Development, published by the Society for Research in Child Development based at the University of Michigan.

Michael Boyle, an epidemiologist at McMaster University and lead author of the study, said researchers found that siblings who were treated differently from one another were more likely to show increased emotional and behavioral problems. This was as true for the favored ones as it was for those who perceived themselves to be “worse off”. The association was strongest in families where the differential treatment involved parenting styles characterized by anger, harshness and disapproval.

The research team, including Eric Duku and Yvonne Racine, also from the Offord Centre, looked at three child development studies, two Canadian and one in the U.S., involving some 5,500 families and almost 20,000 children between the ages of 4 and 16.

In all of the studies, mothers were asked to describe their behavior toward each of their children, both positive behaviors (warmth, responsiveness and engagement) and negative behaviors (anger, harshness and disapproval). Teachers also rated each child’s behavior and emotional state.

The study concluded that inequitable parental treatment of siblings can affect all siblings in the home and have a negative influence on the entire family, fueling sibling rivalry and contributing to aggression and anger. According to Boyle, “it has an overall effect on the family system and sense of support and sense of expectancy”. Disfavored siblings feel resentment, while favored siblings feel uncertainty about the future, presumably because they view the parenting behavior as unfair and unpredictable.

The researchers distinguished between fair treatment and identical treatment, however, noting that children are able to understand and accept different treatment when it is based on special circumstances, as in the case of a disabled child or other situation requiring special treatment.

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