16/04/2008 :: UK :: The Telegraph
First-born children bear the brunt of family discipline as their parents strive to exert their authority, according to new research.
Mothers and fathers mete out harsher punishments on their eldest children to keep them in line.
First borns are also more likely to suffer financial penalties – such as having pocket money stopped – academics claim.
However when younger children come along they are increasingly allowed to “get away with murder” in the home because parents grow tired of so-called tough love.
The report, published today, says second, third or fourth born children run a greater chance of going off the rails when they grow up.
According to academics, they are more likely to drop out of school, drink, take drugs or become teenage parents.
The findings – in a study published in the Economic Journal – will raise fresh questions about the way some parents raise their children.
Ginger Zhe Jin, an assistant professor of economics at Maryland University, in the United States, who co-wrote the report, said: “Tender-hearted parents find it harder and harder to engage in ‘tough love’ since, as they have fewer young children in the house, they have less incentive to uphold reputations as disciplinarians.
“As a result, the theory predicts that last-born and only children, knowing that they can get away with much more than their older brothers and sisters, are, on average, more likely to engage in risky behaviour.”
Academics studied data from the US Bureau of Labour Statistics to find out how children born at different times turned out.
First-born children were generally better behaved and less likely to get into serious trouble in their teenage years, says the report.
Second or third-born children were also more skilled at “playing the system” after seeing how their older siblings were treated by their parents, the researchers found.
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