10 BIG ways small families differ from large families.

Size matters big time when it comes to raising children.

One of the most significant yet underestimated changes in parenting in recent years is the trend toward raising smaller families. 

The post-Second World War Baby boom saw family size peak in developed countries like Australia, with a birth rate of 3.1 in 1961.  Significantly, the mean number of children for each family was four, dropping to three children per family when baby boomers became parents.

The decrease continued, with two children being the norm for the current group of parents. This has also been accompanied by a massive increase in families with only children, with between 12 and 15% of families now having one child.

This picture has been replicated all over the world.

While family life should never be reduced to a mere numbers game, family size undoubtedly impacts how children are raised.

A family of two children is a very different place for a child to grow up in than a family of four, which was the norm a short time ago. Families with three children tend to bridge the gap, sharing characteristics of both small and large families.

Here are ten ways that small (two or less children) families differ from a large (four or more children) family:

1. Space

Children in small families get lots of parental attention, which can be both a boon and a burden.

A boon because they are the beneficiaries of greater exposure to adult language, adult concepts, and higher expectations than a child who grows up in a family where kids outnumber the adults. This ‘hothouse’ effect usually adds up to a terrific head start for children in the highly competitive world of modern education.

But growing up in a small family can burden a child when parent expectations are excessive, and they constantly feel that they’re under the parenting microscope. Sometimes, these kids need the space to be, well,….kids.

2. Risk-taking

There’s a relationship between family size and children’s propensity to take learning and social risks. Safe risk-taking is partly in children’s makeup, but a healthy environmental component is also determined by where they sit in the family order and family size.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that first-born children are low risk-takers when it comes to opting for new experiences or trying new activities when failure is an option. Many eldest children follow a similar educational and career path as their parents.

The youngest children in larger families are usually life’s great risk-takers, confident enough to try just about anything without fear of failure. They are also more likely to pursue educational and career paths that are at odds with their parents’ backgrounds.  

Small families are more likely to produce children who are conservative by nature and risk-averse. It will be interesting to see how it plays out at a future national level when conservative yet achievement-oriented firstborns by far make up the greatest percentage of the population.

3. Parent-child relationships

It’s through one-on-one time that parents build strong bonds with their children. It’s easy for parents of small families to have one-on-one time with their children. When the brood grows one-on-one time with a parent becomes a rarity for most children, and an impossibility for middle children unless parents go to special lengths to organise.

It’s no coincidence that many adults who grew up in large broods often confess to being closer to one or more of their siblings than to their parents. Being raised in a large family meant one-on-one time was just a pipe dream.

4. Independence

It’s a parenting quirk that the more children you have the less you know about the minutiae of each child’s life. Unless there are special circumstances such as illness or a disability parents tend to take more of a back seat with each subsequent child. So younger kids usually have more freedom than their elder siblings and a greater opportunity for autonomy.

This autonomy can show itself in a child’s greater propensity to make their own decisions, less likelihood to please adults, and greater independence at an earlier age.

In small families parents often do a great deal for children because they can. In large families parents quite naturally do less for kids, forcing children to call on their own resources.

5. Help

My own post-graduate research into family size showed that children in large families generally help at home with out being paid. Chores are shared around and there’s an expectation that everyone pulls their weight with cleaning, cooking and other household jobs.

When families shrink the expectation to help out is not as strong.

The likelihood of children being paid for their chores increases when families reduce in size.  Shared responsibility is a central, guiding value in large families, while small families tend to value individual endeavour.

6. Parenting style

In small families the parental focus tends to be on raising individual children rather than the whole gang as occurs in larger broods. In small families parents generally make a range of decisions such as the choice of school with individual children in mind.

In large families parenting is more tribal with parents more likely to make decisions with the greater good in mind, or that suit most children. Parents in large families often just want peace “so what worked for the first born will do for everyone else” is frequently the norm. 

Whereas children’s achievement and attainment are high drivers in smaller families impacting on decision-making, and driving parents to do “what’s best for each child.”

7. Alloparenting

Large families have a build-in system where children learn to parent–alloparenting.  That is, elder siblings looking after younger siblings in a variety of ways such as simple child-minding, nappy-changing, helping with homework or even being the go-to person for a child when they experience difficulty at school.

Significantly, alloparenting kick starts a range of high relational traits in a child such as empathy, listening and nurturance.

Opportunities for children to take responsibility for the welfare of others doesn’t present itself so naturally in small families, so parents may need to provide children with nurturance opportunities such as keeping pets and mixing with families with children of different ages.

8. Discipline

“Right! If you keep up the fighting I’ll turn the car around and we’ll all go home. You can forget going to the beach today!”  

If you relate to this statement then it’s likely you grew up in a large family where discipline was frequently group-based.  Parents didn’t have the time or energy to get to the bottom of children’s poor behaviour. So siblings monitored each other’s behaviour to keep the peace, or rather, keep their parents happy.

Discipline in small families is very individual and can be time-consuming as parents try to get to the bottom of issues, to identify the perpetrator, and ensure that there is no underlying issue causing the poor behaviour.

In one-child families discipline is a rarity, as these children usually have no reason to misbehave. There is no one to jostle with for attention.

9. Sibling relationships

Relationships between siblings can impact on children just as much as the relationship they have with parents. In large families relationships can be complex. However the advantage for child growing up in a large family is that he’s likely to find at least ally, which is a great comforter, and at least one antagonist, which gives him good practice for handling conflict in the classroom and in the workforce later on. 

It’s no coincidence that parents of two child families report that they experience greater sibling rivalry than parents of any other sized family.

A child in a family of two looks across the breakfast table where 100% of his rivalry sits every morning.  Having your competitor and companion wrapped up in one sibling is a tricky proposition indeed.

10. Influence

Large families are usually hierarchical by nature with a dominant older sibling ruling the roost. Younger siblings learn to bide their time knowing their time will come to have their own way.  Similarly, children who keep tyring to get their own way when parents or even siblings deny their request usually experience the less than pleasant wrath of an older sibling putting him or her in their place.

Meanwhile, a child in a small family who won’t take no for answer can easily pester his or her parents to give in. Anything for some peace! Single, persistent voices are impossible to ignore when families are small and difficult to hear amongst the competing din when families are large.

Finally…..

Family size is dictated by many factors, including economic factors as well as the age at which parents start a family. There is no right or wrong family size.

However, it’s useful to consider the ways that family size impacts how children are raised and how parents parent. It’s more significant than most people think.