Can Siblings Affect Your Child's Intelligence?

Not very long ago it felt like nearly everyone came from a big family. But these days, usually parents have just one, two, or three children. Instead of worrying about a lack of a big family, psychologists believed we should be happy that we don't. According to some studies, bigger families can produce children with lower IQs. Psychologist also believe based on evidence that keeping a family smaller can actually increase the likelihood of having more intelligent children, as a child's mental aptitude is affected by where in the order of birth he or she was born.

This classical study of a family size and its relation to intelligence was conducted in the Netherlands. It was based on examinations of almost 400,000 Dutchman. The analysts found that the smartest subjects were from the smallest families and had the fewest number of siblings. Therefore the firstborn child in a family with only one or two siblings was usually smarter than the last born in a family of 12.

The implications of family size on the intelligence of its children may be accounted for by what a house full of young kids does to the home environment. Increase as the amount of time a child wastes with other siblings and cuts down on the amount of attention he or she gets from its parents. As this happens, and children get less contact with more intelligent adults, development of their IQ has been known to be strained.

On the other hand, some other research has suggested that more interaction with siblings can produce a more charismatic and socially aware child. This is a different type of intelligence, and may just be very well as important or more critical to the IQ than the intelligence developed through much contact with parents. A large family with many children develop social skills much more quickly, and a different type of the brain is activated in this case, thereby developing a different caliber of intelligence, one relying on social cues rather than logical or problem-solving abilities.

Regardless, the effects of having many family members can have drastic changes on a person as they grow, especially in the earlier years. There are benefits to any child in having a large family as well as a small family. Neither can necessarily inhibit the full growth of a human being. Environmental science is a very sensitive thing, and intelligence is not completely dependent on the home environment or how many siblings one grows up with.