Siblings can be your best friend or worst nightmare. The more siblings a person has, the poorer his/her mental health, reveals a new study published in the "Journal of Family Issues".
A team of professors from the United States and China analyzed data from thousands of elementary school students and assessed their mental health to determine the impact siblings had on their well-being.
"What we found is that the effect of siblings on mental health is more negative than positive," study author Doug Downey said in a statement.
In China, only children reported good mental health, while in the United States, those with a sibling had similar mental health.
Those with the worst mental health were children with older or same-age siblings. Experts believe that more siblings lead to poorer mental health because of the focus on other children.
Any child surrounded by multiple siblings receives fewer resources and attention from parents, and this can have an impact on mental health, according to experts.
But other studies over the years have shown that having more siblings translates to better social skills and a lower likelihood of divorce for couples with many children.
Source: New York Post
