The only kid is all right

Parents of one child may wonder if they have doomed the little one to a life of dysfunction due to the lack of a sibling. Rest assured, only children seem to have social skills on par with peers who have siblings.

In a study presented Monday at the American Sociological Assn. annual meeting, researchers followed up on a previous study examining how only children fared socially. The 2004 study found that children without siblings had poorer social skills in kindergarten compared with those who had at least one sibling.

The new study questioned students in grades 7 through 12 at more than 100 schools. This time researchers found that only children were selected as friends by schoolmates just as often as peers with brothers and sisters.

“Anyone who didn’t have that peer interaction at home with siblings gets a lot of opportunities to develop social skills as they go through school,” a co-author of the study, Donna Bobbitt-Zeher, said in a news release.

-- Shari Roan / Los Angeles Times

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