ARTICLE

How important is the child’s position in the family?

According to a few scientific researches, birth order can condition the individual’s life. Curiosly, those studies show how order or position affect a human being.

This theory would help us to understand and to distinguish between inborn behaviour and acquired traits.

Apparently, last-borns develop better social skills, and consequently they are more extroverted, sociable and creative than their siblings. However, elders are considered to be more intelligent due to their higher intelligence quotient (IQ). Moreover, it seems that they invest more time into youngers than middle-borns or last-borns do, so they tend to show brotherly love and responsibility towards them.

On the other hand, an Italian survey reported that the fewer children there are in a family, the greater the possibility of them suffering from asthma or eczema.

Furthermore, still on the medical subject, it has been proved that the risk of becoming overweight decreases in later-borns. The same thing occurs in children from three-child families, whereas only children usually have a higher risk of becoming obese. 

On the whole, and following these theories, families ought to have at least three children in order to reduce health risks, and also to have the opportunity to check if that information reflects reality.