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The Social, Cognitive And Familial Benefits Of Having An Only Child Essay

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Does an only child’s lack of siblings help or hinder them while growing up?

Introduction: Many husbands and wives embark in conversations discussing how many children they wish to have with one another. Arguments vary from having one child, several children, to even none at all. Many cultures around the world have general belief’s, and in some cases even laws that regulate how many children a couple may have. The argument of how many children to have has been waged for centuries. The goal of this paper is to explore the research that has been done to assess the social, cognitive and familial benefits of having an only child. By the end of this paper readers should have a better idea of how growing up as an only child is very different than growing up with siblings. Throughout this paper we will explore the benefits and downfalls growing up as an only child, and how it may affect the child academically and socially. There will be time spent looking at several studies that searched for an answer to similar questions in the field. Having an understanding of how an only child operates is very important because it can be the difference between success and failure for that child. The biggest piece for parents in deciding how many children to have tends to come down to how much time, energy and ultimately attention they have to give their children. This idea describes the Resource Dilution Theory (Chen, 2015). The theory says that the more children a family has the less

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