The advantage of having one child is that you can always give him or her as much attention as she needs. Kids may pick up academic skills somewhat faster since they have more of your time for teaching. Even after you give them lots of attention, you probably still have time to clean the house and get a reasonable amount of sleep. You can sign them up for whatever activities they want without needing some form of faster-than-light travel to avoid conflicts with your other kids' activities. Only children sometimes end up particularly good at relating to adults. Everything's cheaper. You don't have to buy 2 gallons of milk every three days. :-) There's less laundry.
The biggest advantages of having more than one are that you get to have more people around to love and more laughter around the house. It's easier to teach kids important social skills like sharing and getting along with peers. The kids always have a playmate and are often not so dependent on adults to direct them all the time. When they get older, they'll have close family members beyond their parents to rely on. Having multiple kids also helps you realize that kids are different and that there's not just necessarily one right way to raise them. Kids in larger families are less likely to be spoiled and more likely to learn independence earlier. Often they learn self-help skills like getting dressed earlier. (But the house is likely to be messier and I can vouch that by the time you get to 4, babysitting becomes a pretty darned expensive proposition!)For the parent, is it better to have one child or several children?
I think it is better to have more then one child, I am an only child and when I was growing I was lonely , now as an adult I have such a huge load on my shoulders with my parents. Sometimes parents depend on their kids too much, if I had siblings this could be a shared load
Report Abuse
Personally its up to you. Me, I would like two or three. But years apart so its not to much to handle.
I'm a mom of one with #2 on the way. This will definitely without question be the last one. From my experience of being a parent of one child for the past two years, advantages are that it's much cheaper with one child. You also have more one on one time with your child than you would with two or more. You're only dealing with one kid's practices and school stuff. The disadvantages to only having one child though is that they don't have a playmate in the house. If anything ever happens to both parents, the only child has to cope alone without the support of a sibling.
The advantages to having two or more children (I have one brother), is that there's always someone to play with, especially if they're close in age. Siblings can also support one another and help eachother out. They learn a lot from eachother and have fun playing together too. The disadvantages to having two kids is that they do fight, it's more expensive, your schedule is more hectic.
The reason we're only having two kids is that pregnancies for me just plain suck. We were hoping that my second pregnancy wouldn't be as bad as the first (with my first one, I spent most of my time in the hospital, was sicker than a dog the whole nine months throwing up all day every day, and also had some other complications) and so far this one is worse than the first, so this is without a doubt, our last one. Good luck.
In my personal opinion, I feel it is better to have more than one. Friends of mine who were only children always wished they had a sibling. I'm guessing it's kind of lonely?
Advantages to one:
More time for parent to rest, only one child to run after, no naps to coordinate
Easier (usually) to get family members to babysit
Less expensive
Able to give more attention to child
Only one college education to pay for
Only one rebellious teen to deal with
Disadvantages:
Only one child to care for you when older (make sure to get good long term care insuranc)
If he or she gets married and moves away, they might spend holidays with the spouse, although you could end up with 3 kids who do this. With one, he might be guilted into being with you since he's the only one.
Like anything there are pros and con's. We have four children and I think they have more opportunities to learn certain skills. They get to deal with things before school starts like sharing, working out differences. There is always someone to play with at home. My kids are never bored. I think ';only'; kids get more one on one which can be positive or negative. I've seen both situations. Only children can be a tad spoiled and don't seem to be as good at sharing and such. They also have the full focus of their parents and I've seen this be negative where the kid feels like they are under a microscope. On the positive side, onlys seem to be very smart and polite when dealing with adults (dealing with other children is another story). I guess it just depends on the family atmosphere that you want to create. Parents of only one child tend to have a little more freedom, with four it's a little harder to have that. With four, getting that important one on one time with each child is more of a challenge. Not impossible but not easy. We wanted a home full of children and laughter. It's a little chaotic at times but we wouldn't change a thing :)
I think that having more than one child means a heck of a lot more work and $$$ for the parents, but, when your child is grown up, hopefully they will always have a close relationship with their siblings.
For me, having brothers and sisters means that I am never alone in the world. We provide a huge amount of emotional support for each other.
I am a parent with only one child. The advantage of having one child is that you can focus on giving that child the time and attention he/she needs. The disadvantage is that the child wants siblings (and sometimes feels like he/she is the only one without them--although you explain over and over again that that is not the case), gets lonely, always having to find someone for the child to play with, or otherwise having to keep the child occupied.
Several is better. Only children tend to be more self-centered. Also, once you're gone, there are always sibs. Sibs make built in friends, teach kids how to put others first, teach empathy and all sorts of other healthy things. The primary thing is to nip rivalry in the bud, be consistent, be fair, demand love and respect in the household.
It's all about personal preference.
I suppose the advantage of having only one child is the fact that he/she will not be fighting with a sibling. ;)
My husband and I have two children. I never thought about advantages or disadvantages. In some cases it's all about certain issues that one child might have, I suppose. Some children might be more demanding, high maintenance. A child might have a medical condition that needs to be constantly monitored, therefore putting the other child sort of on the ';back burner';.
In our case, our daughter was born with a cleft lip/palate. She's 5 years old, has endured 7 surgeries so far. Our son is 8 years old. In the first weeks/months of our daughter's life it was quite stressful, with us trying to adjust to a new little one who would be facing many challenges with multiple surgeries. We tried so hard not to neglect our son, naturally, and kept him involved as much as possible. At the time, I did have horrible PPD, so it was a very difficult time, but somehow we made it through.
No comments:
Post a Comment