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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Most only children want a sibling.[/quote]

Is this the teacher? What grade do you teach?

IME working as a counselor with kids of various ages, it's common for preschool and early elementary kids who are onlies to wish they had siblings, but way less common to hear this from tweens and teens. Little kids want siblings because they want built-in playmates.

Some families are dysfunctional, and an only child in a dysfunctional family might long for a sibling, who they envision as an ally in navigating family challenges. But my observation is that in dysfunctional families with siblings, it rarely works that way. The sibling relationships wind up being dysfunctional as well. It's just hard and lonely being in a dysfunctional family -- it being larger doesn't ease that and could make it worse in some cases.

But in functional families, tweens and teens who are onlies virtually never talk about wanting a sibling. By this age they see some of the advantages of being an only and they no longer crave a playmate. Teens tend to highly value independence and crave being treated more like adults as they near actual adulthood. Only children in functional families (so no overbearing parents or couples using their child as a go between or anything like that) tend to get both of those things. I've never encountered a child for whom being an only caused problems. Nor have I met kids for whom having a sibling caused problems (that wouldn't have been there even without the siblings). The one caveat is that I have worked with families where the parents were overwhelmed and struggling to parent and more kids can make that harder. It's just logistically challenging and not everyone is cut out for it. But even with this, it is often other issues (financial difficulties, marital problems) that are the true source of the problems. Not simply the existence of another child.

I really haven't seen any evidence that having or not having siblings is itself a deciding factor for raising well-adjusted kids. I might even go so far as to say it's irrelevant in most cases.[/quote]

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