Sibling relationships and self-regulation development in early childhood

How Does the Role of Siblings Impact Self-Regulation in Early Childhood?
Introduction
Growing up is not easy. Self-regulation of the emotions can be difficult to achieve for children, especially if they lack support and guidance in their environment. Social learning theory posits that children learn from watching others. This is also the basis of Vygotsky’s theory on the zone of proximal development, which holds that students can engage in active and self-directed learning by being around others who have the skills the learners seek to acquire (Barker, Quennerstedt & Annerstedt, 2015). The essence of both theories is that young persons are more likely to self-regulate when they are in a positive, supportive environment with other peers near or around their own age. In a family setting, children with siblings are likely to be in such an environment, but with dwindling family sizes there is cause for concern that a lack of siblings could result in reduced opportunities for self-regulation. This issue is significant for all families. Many people believe that smaller family sizes are good. My personal experience, coming from a large family, is that having siblings can help a child to self-regulate. This paper will argue that the role of siblings positively impacts self-regulation in early childhood by providing children with opportunities to learn, lead and develop self-control.
Part One: Articulation of the Issue
The sizes of families in the U.S. for both the majority white population and the minority black population have been shrinking since the 1950s, as Fahey (2017) shows in his study of demographics in the country. The number of siblings that children have has dwindled over the past 7 decades. Fahey (2017) notes that the “sharp decline in children’s sibling numbers (sibsize) that occurred in the United States since the 1970s” has amounted to a revolution in the family environment; moreover, this dramatic change impacts the environment in which young children are placed by limiting their exposure to other children near to them in age from whom they may learn or for whom they may lead by way of example. The change of environment in which young children are growing and developing means that their sense of self and of their surroundings is changing as well. If siblings have a positive impact on the development of self-regulation in early childhood, as this paper argues, the decline in the number of siblings that children have means self-regulation in early childhood may not be occurring as much as it could or should be occurring. To better understand the impact of siblings on self-regulation, it is necessary to look at what recent research has had to say about this issue that is important for both families and educational systems.
Backer?Grøndahl and Nærde (2017) have shown that siblings help to promote self-regulation in early childhood. They conducted a longitudinal study with more than 1000 children up to the age of 3. They found that children with siblings were more likely to display self-regulating characteristics than children without siblings. Bridges and Hoff (2014) also found in their study of the impact of older siblings on the development of younger siblings’ ability to learn language that when older siblings were around younger children were more likely to pick up the language of the older ones. This shows that social learning theory and Vygotsky’s theory of the zone of proximal development are valid in terms of how children are impacted by the role that other children—i.e., siblings—play in their development.
In my own experience, I have seen how having siblings helps younger children to learn to self-regulate. Older siblings set the tone for younger siblings. When a first child is born, he or she takes cues from the adults who must guide the child in self-regulating emotions and so on. When other children are born, they have the example of the oldest child to follow. They also have to learn to live with the child in terms of sharing space, one-on-one time with parents, and attention when other children are around. There is a learning curve process that goes on. The younger children still have parents to act as guides, but the siblings that are nearer to them in age will serve as the first line of example in terms of behavior.
Part Two: Articulation of Alternative Perspectives
Some people believe, on the other hand, that having one child and no more provides the best and most optimal conditions and environment for that child in terms of developing confidence and skills. For example, I have a friend who is a professional counselor with a Master’s in child psychology: she believes the research shows that children who grow up in single-child families are more likely to be confident, have skills needed to succeed in life, and will attain a higher level of self-regulation than children who have multiple siblings. I could not find any research to support this argument, however. When I asked her for a source, she referenced a book published in the 1990s that is more philosophy-oriented than rooted in empirical science.
Scholars who have engaged in empirical analysis have argued, however, that self-regulation is mostly impacted by the role that parents play in the development of the child. Powell, Frankel, Umemura and Hazen (2017), for example, show that the adult-child relationship is pivotal when it comes to self-regulation of eating. Feeding practices used by adults influence how the young child thinks of and approaches food. The researchers surveyed over 250 mothers and fathers to determine their approaches to feeding their children, whether there was anxiety about the process, and how the approach impacted their children.
Another perspective is that self-regulation is merely a mechanism that children use to overcome the challenge of dealing with overcontrolling parents. Perry, Dollar, Calkins, Keane and Shanahan (2018) shows that children in early childhood engage in self-regulation because their parents are too controlling. Children adjust to their situation by learning to control themselves in order to avoid conflict with parents. They conducted path analysis of 400 children to arrive at their conclusion.
These studies are helpful in showing that parents have an impact on early childhood development. The argument of my friend was less helpful: I was hoping that she would have some professional, peer-reviewed sources to back up her opinion. Instead, I felt that she was operating rather from a standpoint of confirmation bias. She herself only has one child and does not intend to have anymore. To justify her position she pointed to a book that she read when she was younger that confirmed her feelings on the matter. The other researchers were more credible in terms of at least presenting a complete study—even though their focus tended to be too narrow, based on the other findings that I observed from the previously mentioned studies.
For that reason, these arguments are only partly significant because they only part tell something of the whole story. Yes, parents can impact the development of children—especially if one is talking about only one child families. The problem with the studies described above is that the researchers do not say whether the families studied are one-child or multi-child families. They do not control for the factor of siblings, in other words. Their studies thus lack a degree of validity in terms of understanding the degree to which siblings impact self-regulation in early childhood development.
Part Three: Statement of Critical Conclusions
The arguments that have had the most influence on me are those provided by Barker et al. (2015), Fahey (2017), Backer-Grøndahl and Nærde (2017) and Bridges and Hoff (2014). Starting with Barker et al. (2015) they showed that Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development theory is helpful in understanding how children develop and grow, learning to regulate themselves emotionally and socially by being around others. This idea was supported by the findings of Backer-Grøndahl and Nærde (2017) and Bridges and Hoff (2014), all of whom presented empirical evidence indicating that siblings help to positively develop younger children simply by being around them and part of their environment. This is explained by Vygotsky’s theory that children learn simply by being immersed in the zone of proximal development. It is like a sponge soaking up water essentially.
The findings of Fahey (2017) regarding the decline in family sizes also helped to show me why this is a problem that needs to be addressed. If prior to the 1950s family sizes were larger and there were more siblings around, children in early childhood development stage were more likely to benefit from exposure to other siblings and engage in higher levels of self-regulation. But because the sibsize has decreased over the last several decades, this option is less and less available for children. This may be why social structures are breaking down, why violence is more and more becoming a serious issue in schools, and why communities appear to be self-destructing. While this connection is beyond the scope of this paper, it is one that is worth looking into as it seems like a natural extension. Children who fail to develop self-regulation skills because they are not around enough siblings could lead to other social problems down the road. Adam Lanza, for instance, was basically raised as an only child by his mother after his parents’ divorce, and his assault on an elementary school could potentially be traced back to his lack of development in self-regulation at an early age due to limited exposure to siblings or other children his own age. By attempting to control too much the population, we may be inadvertently harming the children we do have.
More investigation does need to be done on this subject, however. As Backer-Grøndahl and Nærde (2017) point out, there are not enough studies on the subject of sibling impact on early childhood self-regulation to draw a clear, distinct conclusion one way or another. Currently, all that is possible is to see indications and suggestions. The empirical evidence appears to point this way, but more study and research must be conducted before the argument can be presented as fool-proof.
My own personal experience, though, is enough to confirm at least in my mind the benefit of having siblings. I have seen in my own life and in the families of others where there are many children that big families can help to bring about a sense of regulation and order. I do not want to say that this is the case in every situation and environment because it is not. Siblings are not the only factor in fostering self-regulation. All the factors have to be there: siblings, stable adults, a stable home environment, a strong community, a solid school, and so on. I have seen big families for instance that have not had strong parenting input (the father was missing, for example) and the community where they lived was poor and their school not very good. The children demonstrated a lack of self-regulation in terms of being able to make good decisions both in early childhood and in later years. This shows that there are numerous variables that have to be taken into consideration when judging the impact of the environment, the home life, the siblings, the parents, the community, and the school on the development of self-regulation in early childhood. Siblings can certainly be a major factor—but so too can parents, as Powell et al. (2017) and Perry et al. (2018) have shown.
To explore this issue further, a full study of all the variables that impact early childhood development of self-regulation should be conducted. A longitudinal study would be best so that the subjects can be studied over the time-span of five to ten years. This would require an ample amount of resources with multiple team members needed who can devote a decade or more to such a project. The number of participants would also have to be significant—i.e., in the thousands so that a good sized group could be obtained that is representative of the whole population.
Changes do need to be made in the way this issue is studied and discussed, however. Currently, big families are viewed as though they had just come from Mars. Comedian Jim Gaffigan makes the joke that when he had two kids everyone was happy for him. When he had three, everyone indicated that, okay, his work was done—no more. When he had a fourth, people began to raise eyebrows. When he had a fifth, people began to become very worried and demonstrate real panic and concern. The joke is that big families are just not popular anymore. Gaffigan himself came from a big family—but his family was also religious. There could be a connection between the state of religion in the U.S. and the shrinking size of families. If anything, we need to reassess the way we live just in order to understand why we are where we are today and what we can do about it.
References
Backer Grøndahl, A., & Nærde, A. (2017). Self?regulation in early childhood: The role of siblings, center care and socioeconomic status. Social Development, 26(3), 530-544.
Barker, D., Quennerstedt, M. & Annerstedt, C. (2015). Inter-student interactions and student learning in health and physical education: a post-Vygotskian analysis. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 20(4), 409-426.
Bridges, K., & Hoff, E. (2014). Older sibling influences on the language environment and language development of toddlers in bilingual homes. Applied psycholinguistics, 35(2), 225-241.
Fahey, T. (2017). The Sibsize Revolution and Social Disparities in Children’s Family Contexts in the United States, 1940–2012. Demography, 54(3), 813-834.
Perry, N. B., Dollar, J. M., Calkins, S. D., Keane, S. P., & Shanahan, L. (2018).
Childhood self-regulation as a mechanism through which early overcontrolling parenting is associated with adjustment in preadolescence. Developmental psychology, 54(8), 1542.
Powell, E. M., Frankel, L. A., Umemura, T., & Hazen, N. (2017). The relationship between adult attachment orientation and child self-regulation in eating: The mediating role of persuasive-controlling feeding practices. Eating behaviors, 26, 121-128.