Children from bigger families ‘more likely’ to suffer sibling bullying

Does having lots of kids make for familial harmony or is it a recipe for disaster?

New research indicates that the latter may be true. Children with two or more siblings are more likely to be bullied than those with just one, according to a study. Longitudinal data for over 6,800 children born in Britain in 1991 and 1992 and their mothers was analysed. At 5 years of age, the mothers were asked how often their children were victims or perpetrators of bullying at home. At 7, the researchers gauged sibling relations by asking how much time children spent doing various activities with their brothers and sisters. At 12, they asked children whether they had been bullied by a sibling or if they had bullied a sibling in the past six months. The research team from the University of Warwick found that 28 per cent of the children in the study were involved in bullying and that psychological bullying was the most common form. Bullying happened more frequently in families with three or more children. Researchers said that this was because parental attention was more limited. They found that younger children and sisters were most likely to be targeted, while older children and brothers were most likely to be bullies. They also found no difference in bullying between families of different socioeconomic backgrounds.

"Despite our cultural differences, humans are still very biologically driven," Dieter Wolke, lead author of the study, told Science Daily. "A first-born child will have their resources halved with the birth of a sibling, and even more so as more siblings are added to the family. "This causes siblings to fight for those limited resources through dominance."