Big families may mean health, development and economic advantages for

children
For five years I have lived a strange double life. Well, triple life, really.
On one level, I am a TV journalist, travelling around the world in search of troublemakers.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya. On another, I am a homemaker, helping my wife and packing
lunches for our half-dozen children.
Last and least, I am an amateur academic, who has been commissioned by a think tank to scour
dozens of social policy studies in search of proof that having a brother or sister is a good thing.
Writing about the virtues of siblinghood might seem a strange hobby for a parent struggling under the
weight of a six-strong brood. After all, even Brad and Angelina say they find their six children a
struggle.

Aggression between siblings may impact a childs mental health as much as peer bullying:
U.S. study
Weve heard them all before Leave me alone! Dad, Billy hit me! Its not your turn! in fact, many of us with
brothers and sisters have uttered them in anger and frustration ourselves.
But a new study from the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that sibling aggressions effects on childrens and
adolescents long-term mental health should be taken more seriously.
According to the study, children ages 0-9 and adolescents ages 10-17 who experienced some form of sibling
aggression were more likely to experience mental health distress, often akin to the types of problems seen in children
bullied by their peers.
Read more

There are many contraceptive-inducing forces behind the increasingly popular choice to have only
one child the housing market, expensive child care, lost career momentum.
But although want of cash is a real disincentive, for first-time parents who say they cannot afford
family expansion, want of accurate information may also be a factor.
Every year, new inflation-busting estimates emerge from the press offices of financial services
companies. Some peddle pseudo-scientific acronyms such as COTS (Cost of the Sibling).
But none takes into account the economies of scale of a multi-child family. How clothes and toys are
bought for one and handed down to another. How the average cost of a child falls as they share
everything from household heating to bath water. How parents pay less for play dates if siblings
entertain one another. How sibling discounts apply, from school places to theme park tickets.
So, with the help of Swedish researcher Therese Wallin, I set about pulling together data that put a
different cost/benefit complexion on the shall we have another? conversation.

The latest studies suggest growing up with a brother or sister can help
guard against food allergies, multiple sclerosis and some cancers
Some of the most startling literature comes from medical research. It has long been known that
siblings by sharing germs at a young age and mutually priming immune systems provide some
protection against atopic conditions such as hay fever and eczema.
But the latest breakthroughs suggest growing up with a brother or sister can also guard against food
allergies, multiple sclerosis and some cancers. For reasons that have yet to be fully fathomed, these
benefits do not apply to children simply by dint of spending time sharing bugs with other youngsters
as they would, for instance, in day care.
The other epidemics of modern childhood, obesity and depression, are also potentially reduced by
exposure to siblings. A clutch of major studies from all over the world shows that the more siblings a
child has, the thinner they will be. Put simply, siblings help children burn off fat.

With each extra brother or sister, a child will be, on average, 14% less
obese
One U.S. study honed its analysis down to an amazingly precise deduction: With each extra brother or
sister, a child will be, on average, 14% less obese. Reductio ad absurdum? We can scoff at such a
definitive conclusion, until we realize that no one in medical academia has suggested that having a
sibling ever made anyone fatter.
None of this is rocket science. When we compare like with like, regardless of family background,
children with siblings tend to enjoy better mental health. Obviously, again, this is to generalize
massively. The world is full of happy singletons.
But dig into some of the big data sets out there and unignorable patterns emerge. On experiences on
which nation states hold a big corpus of statistics, events such as divorce and death, for example,
strong correlations exist.
Cause is not always correlation, but it stands to reason that when parents split up or die, a child will
benefit from having a sibling to turn to. That solidarity runs throughout the lifespan. After all, a
sibling is for life, not just for childhood.
Indeed, policymakers with an eye to areas beyond elderly care may need to wake up to the shifting
sands of family composition. In the late 20th century, the received wisdom among sociologists was
that it mattered not at all to society at large whether more people were sticking to one child. Now that
assumption is being questioned.
Is the valuable role played by siblings in elderly care factored into the welfare debate? Will an
economy with fewer creative middle children be as competitive? How easy will governments find it to
wage wars when more parents are reluctant to see their only child march to the front?

Siblings have ousted parents as being the key driver behind personality
development
More broadly, the last decade has seen a major evolution in academic thinking about siblings. They
have ousted parents as being the key driver behind personality development. And where, 30 years
ago, academics such as Toni Falbo argued that to be born an only child was to have won the lottery of
life, now research is running in the opposite direction.
A slew of reports by serious scholars have chipped away at the idea that family size is the product of a
consequence-free decision.
Researchers have shown that siblinged children will have stronger soft skills and keener emotional
intelligence than single children. They will be better at gratification deferment (because they have
learned to wait their turn) and hit motor milestones such as walking and talking more rapidly than
those without sibling stimulation.
Some of the most recent evidence even suggests that a child with a brother and/or sister will have
more evolved language skills and do better at exams. This information is truly revolutionary. For
decades, the assumption of academic ideas has been that less is more.
Have too many children and, as a parent, you will not be able to leverage your resources on to a
solitary stellar-achieving child. Indeed, for parents who cannot stop themselves hovering above and
over-scheduling their hurried offspring, a sibling for their one-and-only can be the antidote to pushy
parenting.
There is a danger of suffocating a child with too much pressure, says Amy Chua, the best-selling
author of The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a parent so determined to wring the last drop of
performance out of her children that she would arrange marathon daily violin lessons, even on
holiday. Having more than one, said Chua, had blunted her laser-like focus.
Why large families are healthier and cheaper, by the man who has SIX children under 14
Children with lots of siblings do better in exams, are healthier and less likely to be obese or depressed than an only child, according to
Sky News presenter Colin Brazier.
Mr Brazier, who has six children under the age of 14 with his wife Jo, works with social policy think tank Civitas alongside his journalism
career.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, he said large families had many health and social benefits and were not as expensive as people are
led to believe.
He said: 'There are many contraceptive forces behind the 10 per cent rise, in the space of a generation, in the number of mainly middle
class British parents having only one child.The housing market, expensive child care, lost career momentum.
'Our only sibling subsidy - child benefit - has been capped for all and axed for many. But although want of cash is a real disincentive, for
the nearly two-thirds of first-time parents who say they cannot afford family expansion, want of accurate information may also be a
factor.'
Mr Brazier, 44, recalled a story he read during a news bulletin eight years ago, he said, where the cost of raising a child was said to
have reached 250,000.
He decided to team up with Swedish researcher Therese Wallin to see if it really was expensive to have more than one child.
In his article, Mr Brazier said the average cost of having a child fell with every extra birth, with hand-me-down clothes and toys, heating
and bath water being shared, and sibling discounts for theme park tickets and schooling helping to keep costs of parenting down.
He claimed that having brothers or sisters for playtime 'helps children burn off fat', citing an American study which said a child was 14
per cent less obese with every extra addition to the family.

+2
Mr Brazier, a former war correspondent and now Sky News anchor, also works for a social policy think tank

Mr Brazier said: 'We can scoff at such a definitive conclusion, until we realise that no one in medical academia has suggested that
having a sibling ever made anyone fatter.'
The former war correspondent said recent studies showed growing up with a sibling was a shield against some food allergies and
serious illnesses such as multiple sclerosis and some cancers, but did not explain why there was not more protection for children who
spend a lot of time with others in day care or school.
In a previous piece for the Daily Mail, Mr Brazier said: 'One study, of half a million Army conscripts, revealed that one in ten onlychildren developed asthma. In the largest families the figure was closer to one in 200.'
He argued that children in larger families learned to walk and talk earlier than only children because they are encouraged by their
siblings, and show greater emotional intelligence.
He also said they are better at waiting their turn.
'Some of the most recent evidence even suggests that a child with a brother and/or sister will have more evolved language skills and do
better at exams,' he wrote.
Mr Brazier suggested having more children could be the 'antidote to pushy parenting'.
'Have too many children and, as a parent, you will not be able to leverage your resources on to a solitary stellar-achieving child,' he
said.
Mr Brazier said his eldest daughter, 14-year-old Edith, had announced she would not be following in her parents' footsteps in having a
large brood of her own.
But in a previous article for the Daily Mail, Mr Brazier said he and his wife followed the example of Lady Longford, a historian who had
eight children and said she had so many because she was curious to see how they all turned out to be so different from each other
despite sharing the same genes.
His book Sticking Up For Siblings is due for publication by Civitas in August.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2351866/Colin-Brazier-Large-families-better-childrens-wellbeing-according-Sky-Newspresenter.html#ixzz31C3VVQiT
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The News Story

Growing Up with More Than Two Siblings Lowers Your Divorce Risk

A new study by sociologists at Ohio State University finds that having lots of siblings is correlated with significantly lower
rates of divorce.
Reports the Las Angeles Times, in a sample of 57,000 American adults, Among those who had married, each additional
sibling a person had was associated with a 2% decline in his or her odds of having divorced. Only-children were not only
less likely to marry than those with siblings; they were more likely to have divorced.
The Times speculates that siblings help us to learn many behaviors that help promote lifetime marriageconflict
negotiation, family cohesiveness, and even the desire to live with others. Whatever the reason, the researchers speculate
that when it comes to preventing divorce in adulthood, the more siblings the better.
Yet more reason to be sorely concerned about the steady disappearance of large families.
(Melissa Healy, Growing Up with More Than Two Siblings Lowers Your Divorce Risk, Las Angeles Times, August 13,
2013.)

The New Research

Breathing Easy with Both ParentsAnd Lots of Siblings

Epidemiologists have long understood that an intact family shields children from poor health. However, a team of
Canadian researchers found themselves highly puzzled when they not only confirmed that children are healthier when
living with both parents but also established that these children are usually freer from illness when living in a home with a

large number of siblings. Both findings appearunexpectedly pairedin a study published by scholars from the University
of Calgary.
Based on data collected for 102,353 children ages 0 to 17 years in 2003, the study examines the relationships between
childrens health and their social circumstances. As the researchers expected, children in intact families enjoy some
significant health advantages. When the authors take children in intact families as their basis of comparison, they find that
those in a stepparent family were more likely to have asthma (Odds Ratio [OR]: 1.19). They also find that, compared with
children from households with two biological parents, children in single mother-only families were significantly more likely
to have asthma (OR = 1.23) or migraines/severe headaches (OR = 1.24). In line with a good deal of other research, these
findings were largely unremarkable.
What the Canadian team finds perplexing is their finding that having a greater number of children in the household
appears to decrease the likelihood of a child having a poor health outcome; while in contrast, having a personal health
care professional appears to increase the likelihood of poor health being reported. (Having lots of brothers and sisters
does more to protect good health than does having a doctor?) The researchers admit that the resource dilution
hypothesis makes the relationship between family size and childrens health seem counter-intuitive. But they reason that
perhaps something other than resource dilution may be at work, citing studies [that] have shown that having many
children in a household has protective effects on the development of respiratory infections (via the hygiene hypothesis).
Whatever the theoretical explanation, this study suggests that the healthiest place for a child may well be in the
intact, child-rich family.
(Source: Bryce J. Christensen and Robert W. Patterson, New Research, The Family in America, Summer 2010, Vol. 24
Number 3. Study: Charlemagne C. Victorino and Anne H. Gauthier, The Social Determinants of Child Health: Variations
Across Health Outcomes: A Population-Based Cross-Sectional Analysis, BioMed Central Pediatrics 9:53, August 17,
2009.)
Some of the most startling literature comes from medical research. It has long been known that siblings by sharing
germs at a young age and mutually priming immune systems provide some protection against atopic conditions
such as hay fever and eczema. But the latest breakthroughs suggest growing up with a brother or sister can also
guard against food allergies, multiple sclerosis and some cancers. For reasons that have yet to be fully fathomed,
these benefits do not apply to children simply by dint of spending time sharing bugs with other youngsters as they
would, for instance, in day care.
The other epidemics of modern childhood, obesity and depression, are also potentially reduced by exposure to
siblings. A clutch of major studies from all over the world shows that the more siblings a child has, the thinner they
will be. Put simply, siblings help children burn off fat. One American study honed its analysis down to an amazingly
precise deduction: with each extra brother or sister, a child will be, on average, 14 per cent less obese. Reductio ad
absurdum? We can scoff at such a definitive conclusion, until we realise that no one in medical academia has
suggested that having a sibling ever made anyone fatter.
None of this is rocket science. When we compare like with like, regardless of family background, children with siblings
tend to enjoy better mental health. Obviously, again, this is to generalise massively. The world is full of jolly
singletons. But dig into some of the big data sets out there and unignorable patterns emerge. On experiences on
which nation states hold a big corpus of statistics, events such as divorce and death, for example, strong correlations
exist.
Cause is not always correlation, but it stands to reason that when parents split up or die, a child will benefit from
having a sibling to turn to. That solidarity runs throughout the lifespan. After all, a sibling is for life, not just for
childhood.

Indeed, policymakers with an eye to areas beyond elderly care may need to wake up to the shifting sands of family
composition. In the late 20th century, the received wisdom among sociologists was that it mattered not a jot to
society at large whether more people were sticking to one child. Now that assumption is being questioned. Is the
valuable role played by siblings in elderly care factored into the welfare debate? Will an economy with fewer creative
middle children be as competitive? How easy will the state find waging war when more parents are reluctant to see
their only child march to the front?
More broadly, the last decade has seen a major evolution in academic thinking about siblings. They have ousted
parents as being the key driver behind personality development. And where, 30 years ago, academics such as Toni
Falbo argued that to be born an only child was to have won the lottery of life, now research is running in the opposite
direction.
A slew of reports by serious scholars, such as Prof Judy Dunn of Kings College London, have chipped away at the idea
that family size is the product of a consequence-free decision. Researchers have shown that siblinged children will
have stronger soft skills and keener emotional intelligence than single children. They will be better at gratification
deferment (because they have learnt to wait their turn) and hit motor milestones such as walking and talking more
rapidly than those without sibling stimulation.
Some of the most recent evidence even suggests that a child with a brother and/or sister will have more evolved
language skills and do better at exams. This information is truly revolutionary. For decades, the assumption of
academic ideas such as the Dilution Theory has been that less is more.
Have too many children and, as a parent, you will not be able to leverage your resources on to a solitary stellarachieving child. Indeed, for parents who cannot stop themselves hovering above and over-scheduling their hurried
offspring, a sibling for their one-and-only can be the antidote to pushy parenting.