Here's why younger siblings are their parents' favourite

Younger siblings may feel they get a bit of a bum deal in the parental pecking order. Not only are they forced to wear their big bro or sister’s hand-me-downs, they also have to match up to them in the school work stakes. Plus it’s pretty trick to compete with their first-born when it comes to favouritism.

But according to a new study, the youngest sibling is in fact more likely to be the parents’ favourite. However, it all comes down to perception.

Researchers from Brigham Young University’s School of Family Life have concluded that favouritism is in fact in the eye of the beholder.

Turns out younger siblings, are more concerned with comparing themselves to their older siblings – so it’s more important to them to develop a stronger parental bond.

But for older siblings, whether they’re considered to be the favourite or not has less of an effect on their relationship with their parents. Interesting right?

To come to this conclusion researchers studied 300 families, each with two teenagers, who were asked various questions about favouritism.

The parents were asked how much warmth and conflict they have with their children, while the teenagers were asked to describe their relationship with their parents.

Essentially, they found that if the youngest child feels like they’re the favourite and their parents agree, the relationship is strengthened. If they don’t think they’re the favourite, the opposite happens.

“It’s not that first-borns don’t ever think about their siblings and themselves in reference to them…it’s just not as active of a part of their daily life,” explains Alex Jensen, assistant professor at the BYU School of Family Life.

“My guess is it’s probably rarer that parents will say to an older sibling, ‘Why can’t you be more like your younger sibling?’ It’s more likely to happen the other way around.”

So how do parents deal with the thorny issue of favouritism? According to Jensen treating your offspring equally is not necessarily the best approach.

“When parents are more loving and they’re more supportive and consistent with all of the kids, the favouritism tends to not matter as much,” Jensen says. “Some parents feel like ‘I need to treat them the same.’

“What I would say is ‘No you need to treat them fairly, but not equally.’ If you focus on it being okay to treat them differently because they’re different people and have different needs, that’s OK.”

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