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What is the ideal difference between an older child and a younger child
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Psychologists who analyze the mental state of children from families with different numbers of children have derived a formula for the ideal age difference between brothers and sisters.
It turned out that the greatest number of problems in terms of psyche and relationships await only children in the family, their parents are too fixated on upbringing, place too many hopes and expectations on it, sublimate their desires and failures. Such behavior of parents leads either to excessive egoism of the child or to complete withdrawal into oneself and loss of connection with parents.
Twins are surprisingly not the best option either, trying to treat children equally, parents almost never take into account the individual spiritual and taste needs of each individual child. So twins begin to copy each other and behave the same, thereby not understanding themselves as individuals.
Oddly enough, parents often treat children born close in age the same way as they do twins, trying to give them everything the same. This is aggravated by the fact that the younger child does not have time to grow up to the demands of the older one, and the demands on the older one are lowered.
With a large age difference, more than 10 years, older children are faced with the responsibilities of a “nanny”; after the birth of a new child, parents begin to perceive the older one as already grown up and force him to participate in the upbringing of the younger one equally with everyone else, while the first child may still need a parent’s shoulder.
According to psychologists, the ideal age difference is considered to be 4 years. After all, by the age of 4, a child can more easily survive the birth of a new family member; in infancy, he received enough attention and can now switch to learning about the outside world and communicating with other children.