Birth Order, Birth Spacing, and Parental Favoritism

Do most parents have a favorite child? What is the ideal number of years to have between kids? How important is birth order in shaping who we will become? What does the research say about these questions? Host Dawn Davenport, Exec. Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support nonprofit, interviews Jeffrey Kluger, author of The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us, and an editor and science reporter at Time Magazine.

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Do all parents have a favorite child?
How do parents exhibit favoritism?
Is favoritism always detrimental to children?
What are the effects of birth order on a child’s development?
How does birth order affect personality?
Is there truth to the power of birth order?
Can parents overcome the natural birth order effects? Should they try?
What is the optimal spacing between children?
Can you have your children too far apart for them to form a relationship?
Will sibling rivalry be increased if you have your children close together?
How prevalent is extreme sibling rivalry?
What can parents do to lessen sibling rivalry?
Are sibling relationships in blended families different?
What does research show on how long it takes in a blended family for siblings to feel like full siblings?
How important is it to have more than one child?
What are the advantages to having on only child?
What are the disadvantages to having an only child?
Is homosexuality more common in second born sons?