The second category according to these professionals is the bound: These are children who are treated like priceless medals after the death of one. This is done by the parents in a bid to protect the remaining from facing the same fate. What these parents do not know is that this negatively impacts on the growth and development of these kids. Researches show that these siblings fail to be independent or autonomous, they fail to lead their own lives and are somewhat over-dependent on their parents and in extreme cases this may in turn lead to them to be rejected by their parents something that would greatly undermine their health.
When one experiences rejection by others, they become distressed and might even isolate themselves from others, or in other words they become introverted. The third category is the resurrected siblings. This occurs when the next child in the line is treated as displacement of the dead one. In most cases this sibling is given a name that would obscure the existence of the former. (Stearns, 1999)
The claim that birth order affects ones intelligence has been contradicted by other researches that have been done by other researchers for example the one that was done by the National Longitudinal Survey (NLSY) This research was done on several homes in the United States and it showed that there is no correlation between birth order and the intelligence level of the siblings. Records show that birth order has an effect on the mental health of the first born siblings. It shows that these are children who do not spend a lot of time with their parents as attention is shifted to other children when they are born.
It is believed that the kind of relationship that exists between the parent and the sibling could help to shape their thinking processes but this does not happen to these kids because of the limited time they share with their parents and they end up experiencing what psychologists refer to as dethronement. Research show that, “Parental interaction with first born of two years old has been found to become more vigilant, less playful and more strained following the arrival of a sibling” (Solloway FJ, 1998).
Positive interaction between the parents and the first born is said to diminish particularly if the gap between the first born and other siblings is short. First borns are said to suffer from anxiety and regression than others. The birth of other kids in the family is not taken kindly by the first born and this has psychological effects on them. Psychologists refer to this as traumatic experience and the most affected are those that are between the age of two and three years.
Another effect attributed to the birth order of the siblings is rivalry that develops between them and this may also impact negatively on the health of the siblings. It is common to see brothers and sisters fighting over things at home. Rivalry starts immediately another kid is born in the family and the main reason is that the attention that the first child used to get from the parents starts to be divided between the two and in most cases it is the new born child that receives much of the attention.
Rivalry mostly impedes on the personality development of these kids but this depends on how brothers and sisters relate in a family. Researches show that children who are brought up in a family where there are other siblings have better mental health and interpersonal skills because they play and share problems than those from families where they are the only one. (Stearns, 1999)