Parents Belief on Children Influences Difference In Siblings Academic Performance

Parents' belief about their children's performance has an influence on who their kids become. A new study done by Brigham Young University (BYU) professor and lead author of the study Alex Jensen found that the child who is seen as less smart by theparents will tend to do worse academically in comparison to their sibling.

The study looked at 388 teenage first- and second-born siblings and their parents from 17 school districts in a northeastern state of Utah and focused on siblings and academic achievement.

Researchers investigated about the academic performance of their children. The majority of parents thought that the firstborn was better, although on an average, siblings' achievement was pretty similar.

Parents' beliefs about sibling differences were not influenced by past grades; instead future grades of the teenagers were influenced by their parents' beliefs.

The child who the parents believed was smarter tended to do better in the future, while the child parents believed was less capable, tended to do relatively poorer the next year.

Specifically there was a 0.21 difference in Grade point average (GPA) among study participants, the researchers said.

"That may not sound like much. But over time those small effects have the potential to turn into siblings who are quite different from one another," Jensen said.

Source: Medindia