One of the simplest when said but has a great importance in reality is being discussed here – The advantages and disadvantages of being an only child. It is a topic where people do not find much to ponder about but has a lot to tell when thought thoroughly. This subject is often seen very less in various discussions in social media. It is something which the people must think about because we are indeed discussing about the future of the nation. Being the only child a lot of advantages at the same time it has a lot of disadvantages. Today being a world with advancing each and every day in all formats, the youth is the most influenced by that
5 Advantages of being an only child
The advantages of being an only child are discussed below in detail:
1. Relationship with parents
Being an only child can be seen as a strong way in which the child can improve his/her relationship with their parents. If you are the only child your parents have, then you will have a stronger bonding with your parents since you can spend most of the time with your parents. Also, since the parents do not have any other child, they will also be able to give their full attention in taking care of you. By spending more time in caring about the child, the child also gets a lot more attached towards their parents. Like this, the parent – child bonding can be made much stronger.
2. Makes the child more self- dependent
One of the biggest strength of being an only child is that you do not have to depend upon anyone in achieving anything in life. By being the only child, if any sort of issue or problems arises in our life, this makes us face it on our own rather than being scared or weak during the situation. As a single child, right from the childhood you will be taking care of things on your own. All your life routines are done by yourself and you are not depending upon anyone for anything. As this type of life proceeds, as you grow up you would be matured enough facing such problems. It is a common factor that you will face a lot of challenges in your life as you grow up. But, as you are a person whose been doing all the things in your life on your own, it will make you more mature and firm about tackling such problems.
3. Thinking capacity increases
Thinking is one of the important factor in which the world is depending upon. When you are the only child in your house, you get a lot of time to be spent alone. This gives the child a lot of time to be free and alone. This makes the child think about various things around them. When they have a younger/elder sibling with them, they will probably spending a lot of time with them and hence will not have time to be alone and think on their own.
Thinking alone brings up a lot of ideas and thoughts to a person’s mind which he/she will be practically able to achieve it. As the thinking capacity of a person improves, he/she will be able to wider thoughts about various things and will be able to express their own thoughts. Also, various ideas which will even do better for the whole nation can be achieved by this. Thinking capacity increases to a greater extend being the only child in the house.
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4. Behavior with other people
As you are the only child of the house, you will be a person who spends maximum time with elders (i.e., parents and other family members). You will be interacting with people who are very much above your age. This influences your behavior and maturity a lot. By spending most of the time with the people more than your age, you become more matured in your thinking skills and will learn how to behave and respect elders a lot. Also, another great achievement by this is that, as we grow in life we will be able to talk to any elders of any category. We will have the knowledge and idea about how the elder people think and we will be very much comfortable.
Also, as the parents teach us about respecting and treating others, also by spending time with elders, we will have a greater maturity and thinking level than others.
5. Support for the parents by all means
This is one of the most of important benefit of being the only child. First of all being the only child, parents do not have to spend much on you. The family expense can be reduced to a greater extend by this. Also, your parents can give you their full support towards you for achieving their goals. Being the only child, you will not face any comparison with any of the sibling of your family.
Living without being compared to others will be a great benefit for a person’s self confidence. Also, as parents can be totally depended upon you, it boosts your self- beliefs to a greater extend and can be very strong in taking decision on your own. Also, as mentioned earlier, parents will able to spend less on the family and this will increase the family income and their economic status will be proper.
A lot of money can be saved in this manner and thus the family will have a stable stage in terms of their economic status. Hence, being an only child improves the family income greatly.
5 Disadvantages of being an only child
The disadvantages of being an only child are discussed below in detail:
1. Selfishness
This is one of the major defect of being an only child. Right from the childhood, being the only child, we get whatever we ask for. Parents to agree to almost all demands given by their children since they have only one child. This makes the child happy for that moment but it has a great impact on the other hand. Having received everything upon their demand from the childhood, as they are grown up they still need to get everything on their own. They will have the feeling of getting everything as soon as they demand. This is mainly seen in almost all single children of the country. Also, it creates a sense of selfishness on the youth. They will not share their belongings to others. Whatever gets to them, they feel like keeping it for themselves and will not share anything with anyone. By having a sibling, you get to learn the importance of sharing and it will help you a lot in your future life.
2. Trust issues
Trust is something that plays a very vital role in our lives. It is the same thing that can at times be the villain in the lives of single children. With no interaction with any sibling, single children are bought up with the complete trust of their parents. All children trust their parents blindly. This becomes a problem in the lives of single children. Since they trust their parents blindly, they have the same attitude towards the outside world too. They trust each and every person they see around. This becomes a great issue for them. People can easily cheat you regarding this matter and mainly single children become a target to this. People are of different types and have different characters. These people utilize the factor that you are a single child and use you for their own needs and you will get cheated in different manners.
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3. Mistakes
We are all human beings and we all make a lot of mistakes in our life. There are certain things in our life which just cannot be taught by our parents. This is where the role of a sibling comes up. This is mostly beneficial if u have an elder sibling rather than a younger one since elder ones are more matured than us. We tend to make a lot of mistakes in our life. Siblings not only tell us about our mistakes but also make sure that we do not repeat it in our life. We can share everything to them and they will find a solution to all the problems we have.
4. Family support
This is another major impact of being the only child. Parents are after all human beings and they are aging. After a particular stage, it comes to a situation that we must take care of our parents on our own. It is the sole responsibility of each child to take care of their parents, but it becomes very difficult being the only child. The whole family comes under your responsibility and you have to take care of them all on your. Also, you have another major responsibility of taking care of your own family too. This is a big burden on the life of each single child. Having a sibling reduces the amount of responsibility on this matter since both the kids equally will take care of their parents.
5. Intelligence level
Another major disadvantage which is very much less discussed about being the single child is IQ level of the child. A person should not just be excellent in their own studies but also should have a lot of intelligence and common sense. Being the only child, you do not get the exposure of mingling with a sibling. This might make you good in studies, but their smartness and IQ level reduces a lot. This also makes the children to be that type of a “dull” child in the world of fast thinking. Children should have a smarter thinking power. Having a sibling would help them a lot in this regard and they will have a bright future too.
So, these were some advantages and disadvantages of being an only child. I hope you liked this article. Kindly do share with your friends too and read our other articles also.
