We already know what the key to a child’s readiness is: being the first child in the family.

Being the first born son means a lot. But first of all, you are your parents’ experiment. We’ve heard it a thousand times: “We were very careful the first time. The second? It’s calmer, easier now.” But sometimes being first is more complicated at every level for the child in question, and it’s the most normal thing in the world to want to give up all the responsibilities that the title entails. However, research shows that it all works out in the end.

Research highlights that firstborns perform better on IQ tests and are more likely to do well than their younger siblings.

Studies. Over and over, research has shown that first-born children do much better at many things than their younger siblings: they do better in school and are more likely to become the next head of government than, for example, younger brothers or sisters. And on the other end of the spectrum, firstborns are less likely to use drugs and become pregnant while young.

It’s probably not surprising, therefore, that first-time kids do better at school than their younger siblings. It is one of the findings documented in a study by professors at the University of Washington in St. V. Joseph Hotz & John’s Swamp. But it is much less clear why birth order is so important to the level of school performance.

Why? Many theories have been put forward, from genetics to the stability of family life and sibling teaching dynamics. The study offers a different explanation: It all depends on parents’ reputations for disciplining with their children. Reputation is important to politicians, teachers and even car dealers. Less obvious, but equally important is the reputation of parents in the eyes of their children.

The basic idea is this: There are two types of parents: those who are called “unforgiving” because they punish poor school performance regardless of the child’s birth order in the study, and those who are “forgiving”, that is, those who will not forgive. They like to punish their children regardless of their birth. The second type of father faces a dilemma. If you don’t punish your oldest child’s misbehavior, all your children will know that mom and dad are kind and don’t punish bad grades. As a result, all children of tolerant parents will tend not to work hard at school.

parent’s paper. To avoid this situation, forgiving parents are strict with their firstborns, hoping to create a perception that will affect their young child’s behavior as well. Younger children who see their brothers or sisters punished will be less likely to slack off at school. Call it the “drop” discipline: It gives the most energy to firstborns and tries to set the same tone for everyone.

Then these forgiving parents, who really don’t like to punish any of their children, start to slack off in their upbringing. So the result of this strategic parenting is that while all children benefit from the punishment of the firstborn, the impact on the oldest child is greater.

superior performance. In this study, they analyzed data from the children of the women surveyed and focused on families with more than one child. To do this, they provided information on mothers’ perceptions of their children. While 34% of firstborns were considered “best in class”, only 27% of fourth-borns received such recognition. At the other end of the spectrum, only 7.3% of firstborns were considered “below average or bottom of class”, while mothers ranked 11.7% of the rest.

They also found that firstborns were more likely to face daily homework checking than younger siblings. And the more younger sibling a child has, the more likely parents are to watch the older child closely after that child underperforms in class. In fact, with each additional younger sibling, the increased chance of inspection increased by 2.2 percentage points.

More chances of success. Other studies, such as this one by Feifei Bu and colleagues, who surveyed a group of 1,503 siblings, found in their research that older children were 4% more likely to pursue higher education than younger children. Also, just because the oldest child is 7% more ambitious than the later-born doesn’t mean that your birth order should determine your degree of success in life. But yes, it can undoubtedly have important consequences.