by R. Renee Bembry

Created on: January 28, 2009

Whereas falling into the overprotective parent trap or spurring a child into intolerable brat-hood can happen to any parent, studies suggest these problems may surface more when parents have an 'only' child. Spurring an only into brat-hood often occurs when parents harbor guilt over not providing their only with a sibling. In attempt to overcompensate for their guilt, some parents repeatedly allow onlies to have their way for requests that should be denied. Concern over the fact that a child is an only may even prompt parents to exercise unreasonable care with their child. Unreasonable care can lead parents to overly protect a child. What's worse is overprotection often instills messages in onlies' minds that they're incapable of accomplishing certain tasks and should only attempt such tasks at the approval and perhaps oversight of their parents.

There are many reasons parents, women in particular, disclose for settling to have only-child families. Among these reasons are fertility issues, simply not wanting more than one child, some women are simply more career than parent oriented, and troubles dealing with onlies sometimes instills concerns that leave parents wondering if they would be capable of dealing with more than one child. Whatever the reasons cited by parents, approximately 20 million onlys live in the United States; and for reasons such as those cited above, the number is rising rapidly.

Overindulging, overcompensating, and not setting limits for any child for any reason can lead to parental frustration and distress whether parents have multiple children or just the only. Ways of avoiding these problems are pretty much the same for raising onlies as they are for raising two or more children. After all, parents with more than one child, at some point, have onlies they manage to raise just fine.

A major difference with parents raising onlies compared to parents with multiple children is mindset. Multi children parents never have to concern themselves with 'he or she is and will always be my only child' - not even when their first child is an only. Only child parents, however, do have such thoughts because in the backs of their minds they know if something happens to their only, for them, parenting could come to an end - in particular if fertility was an issue with the first one.

In order to ward off this understandable, but ill thinking, parents of only children should see their child as a child rather than labeling the child an only. They should proceed

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