Parenting

The Psychology Behind Why Eldest Children Are Given More Responsibility

the-psychology-behind-why-eldest-children-are-given-more-responsibility

In some families and cultures, the eldest child (or firstborn) is responsible for “stepping up” and managing the younger siblings, providing an example to emulate, maintaining the household, and even acting as a young parent. This can build maturity and leadership skills, but it can also lead to stress when needs exceed the ability of a child to perform or are disproportionately assigned. This article breaks down why families (and cultures) expect more from older kids, through the work of developmental, family, and cultural psychology scholarship. It then takes the science and breaks it down into strategies that parents can employ to assign responsibility more equally and to intentionally create sibling relationships.

What “Responsibility” Looks Like in Families

Responsibility is not one specific behaviour; it is a set of chores, roles, and expectations that can include:

  • Instrumental activities: domestic chores, homework organisation, caregiving tasks (e.g., taking care of younger children, cooking).
  • Socioemotional activities: conflict management, “being the big person,” self-control demonstration, and parent stress buffering.
  • Moral/role requirements: functioning as a representative of family values, protecting the family image, and meeting other-oriented needs.

Researchers make a distinction between developmentally appropriate activities (e.g., a 12-year-old spending 30 minutes with a younger sibling sitting together) and parentification—the regular assumption of adult-responsibility or adult-roles by a child, risks incurred when occurring continuously or in excess (Hooper, 2007).

Evolutionary and Socioecological Reasoning: Why Eldest Children Are Used by Families

Task assignment to the eldest can be adaptive at a family system level from an evolutionary and socioecological understanding:

  • Sibling caregiving as an adaptive resource: Anthropological data show that older children provide alloparenting care from non-parents that enhances the survival and growth of younger children (Weisner, 1987). In most ecologies, this division of labour frees caregivers to perform baby care or to earn a livelihood. 
  • Competence and proximity: Eldest children are typically closest in skills and physical ability to adult competence and can safely perform more tasks than younger siblings. Parents may perceive marginal gains (e.g., “you’re already capable, so adding one more task costs little”) and thus assign more to the eldest (Whiteman, McHale, & Crouter, 2003).
  • Risk management: Tasking the oldest child with supervision can reduce risk: an older child will be more able to discern risk and self-regulate, in alignment with parents’ safety goals (Kochanska et al., 2001).

Read More: Gifted Children and Emotional Sensitivity: A Guide for Caregivers

Research on Birth Order: What We Know

Birth order findings are more subtle. While “firstborns are always X” is an exaggeration, there are numerous consistencies that exist:

  • Parental expectations and achievement socialisation: Parents anticipate more and spend more on firstborns in early childhood (Black, Devereux, & Salvanes, 2005). This may result in responsibility, conscientiousness, and striving behaviour (Sulloway, 1996; Damian & Roberts, 2015).
  • Role consolidation: As the family grows, first roles are cemented, older siblings become de facto helpers, rule enforcers, or mediators by default (Whiteman et al., 2003). That role then determines access and feedback loops (e.g., teacher praise for the eldest’s “maturity,” further cementing responsibility).
  • Sibling deidentification: In attempting to reduce competition, siblings will take on different “niches” (Schachter, 1982). If the firstborn takes on “the responsible one,” the others can vary (e.g., “the playful one” or “the creative one”), which indirectly reinforces responsibilities for the firstborn.

Takeaway: Firstborn responsibility is shaped as much by socialisation and role formation as by age.

Family Systems and Role Theory: Why Eldest Roles Stick

Family systems theory emphasises that families seek stability; once a pattern (e.g., “eldest = helper”) proves useful, it becomes self-reinforcing (Minuchin, 1974). Role theory adds that assigned roles guide behaviour and identity. When children receive consistent messages (“you’re mature,” “your sister looks up to you”), they internalise these expectations, increasing responsible behaviour and self-concept (Biddle, 1986). Parents also employ differentiated expectations to minimise disorder (“if everybody’s doing everything, nobody is”), making the oldest’s role particularly “sticky.”

Cognitive and Socioemotional Development: Capacity Determines Expectation

Developmental psychology helps explain why adults think it is reasonable to expect the oldest to do more:

  • Self-regulation and effortful control: Older children have more inhibitory control and obedience (Kochanska et al., 2001). Adults interpret this “readiness” as deserving of responsibility.
  • Perspective-taking and empathy: As the child matures, they become increasingly able to read others’ needs (Selman, 1980). Older children are then able to perform relational tasks—calming an underchild, reading ahead for needs—desired by parents.
  • Identity work (Erikson): Tasks most appropriate to a child’s phase of development (industry in middle childhood; identity exploration in adolescence) can be self-rewarding, whereas loads like an adult at these phases can be developmentally inappropriate and tension-inducing (Erikson, 1968).

Read More: Self-regulation Tips for People with Anxious Attachment

Parental Beliefs, Values, and Cultural Norms

Cultural systems exert powerful influence on what is “responsibility” and who does it:

  • Filial responsibility and collectivist norms: In most collectivist environments, older sisters and especially older daughters provide domestic maintenance and child care for younger siblings (Weisner, 1987; Germán, Gonzales, & Dumka, 2009). These behaviours are everywhere considered a moral obligation and a passage to adulthood.
  • Family scripts and moral language: Parents sometimes use moral narratives (“you’re the example,” “you must sacrifice”) to justify asymmetric responsibilities, particularly in resource-strained homes. These narratives can be motivating, but they can also tip into guilt or parentification when persistent and unbalanced (Hooper, 2007).
  • SES and time scarcity: When parents work long hours or lack affordable childcare, eldest children pick up the slack. This is not simply cultural; it is structural (McHale & Crouter, 2003).

Read More: Parental Behaviour is the Foundation of a Child’s Beliefs

Parental Differential Treatment (PDT): A Process to Criticise

PDT—differential treatment of siblings in attention, rules, or work is normal and comprehensively understood by children as such (Dunn & Plomin, 1990). Reasonable PDT is to be expected due to differences in children by stage and the need to treat them differently. But:

  • Perceived fairness first: When firstborn children perceive harder work as fair and are monitored, outcomes will be positive (Whiteman et al., 2003).
  • Perceived injustice predicts sibling aggression, anxiety, and less warmth (Jensen, McHale, & Pond, 2013).

PDT is the reason that two families doing the same work will have varying outcomes: it’s not always the work, but the structure—work that is seen as fair, prized, and time-bounded.

Read More: Emotional Roles in Matrilineal and Patrilineal Cultures

Practical Reasons Parents Say (and Their Psychological Core)

  • Safety and logistics: Oldest can cross the street, operate appliances, or watch in short time frames—home safety minimised.
  • Reliability: Oldest receive early training and adult response, appear more reliable; parents provide more, even creating a competence cycle.
  • Modelling: Parents model social learning—permitted to the oldest to model behaviours for the younger children to imitate (Bandura, 1977).
  • Resource optimisation: Alloping to the oldest allows parents to focus efforts on doing only what adults can do (e.g., legal, finance). 

These are great, but still require guardrails so they don’t become overused and resented.

Read More: Single Child Or Siblings: What Do You Prefer?

Advantages and Disadvantages of Oldest Children

1. Possible Advantages

  1. Self-efficacy and leadership: Participation in age-typical activities constructs agency and problem-solving (Kochanska et al., 2001).
  2. Achievement and academic orientation: There are some possibilities of firstborn advantages in achievement and conscientiousness, perhaps via expectation and investment plans (Black et al., 2005; Damian & Roberts, 2015).
  3. Prosociality: Sibling care can increase empathy and perspective-taking (Kramer & Gottman, 1992).

2. Potential Risks

  1. Role overload and chronic stress: In the situation of an indeterminate or overloaded workload, risks include anxiety, fatigue, and irritability.
  2. Parentification: Constant responsibilities at the adult level (instrumental or emotional) can be an internalising symptom predictor with no support (Hooper, 2007).
  3. Sibling resentment: When the oldest is labelled as “enforcer,” warmth can be decreased (Jensen et al., 2013).
  4. Gendered inequalities: Elder daughters will most likely face an unequal burden, which will maintain gender role strain (Germán et al., 2009).

Bottom line: Responsibility is healthy when developmentally right, time-limited, observable, and allocated, and perilous when chronic, skewed, and unsupportive.

How “Eldest Responsibility” Impacts Sibling Relationships

Responsibility allocations impact sibling warmth, conflict, and cooperation.

  1. Warmth is facilitated when responsibilities are blended with positive interdependence (e.g., “we cook together”), respect, and room for both children to experience success (McHale, Updegraff, & Whiteman, 2012).
  2. Conflict increases with perceived injustice, policing tasks (e.g., “tell your brother to…”), and lack of control (Jensen et al., 2013).
  3. Skill transmission occurs when older brothers teach without over-controlling because social learning theory mandates (Bandura, 1977).

Read More: In the Shadow of a Sibling: Understanding the Struggles of Glass Children

Evidence-based Sibling Relationship-building activities 

It is not about removing responsibility from older children but naming and re-anchoring it so all the children grow up and the house is run well. The following are evidence-based practices.

1. Align Tasks with Stage of Development

  • Create defined age brackets for jobs (e.g., 6–8: simple task done under adult supervision; 9–11: two tasks done independently; 12–14: minimal babysitting with reporting).
  • Use scaffolding: concurrent demonstration, followed by brief independent practice and then full delegation (Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development; Kochanska et al., 2001, adapted).
  • Time-limit tasks (“until 7 pm,” “three days this week”) to avoid role creep.

2. Make Fairness Visible

  • Have a weekly 10-minute “family stand-up”: drop down tasks; allocate to effort and time; exchange where required.
  • Chart the data on a two-axis graph (effort × time) so kids can see that weights are balanced for the week but not the day.
  • Make equity (needs-based justice) and equality (sameness of task) transparent; perceived fairness has been demonstrated to temper the ill effects of PDT (Jensen et al., 2013).

3. Alternate High-Value Tasks and Give Younger Siblings Real Work

  • Don’t always make the oldest the “policer” or “default sitter.”
  • Reversal of prestige jobs (e.g., “family chef,” “games curator,” “tech captain”) to make it possible for younger siblings to be able to make a meaningful contribution.
  • Pair-paired tasks: the older person shows, the younger does a subset task (builds closeness through interdependence).

4. Replace Policing with teaching

  • Elicit instructional scripts: “Watch me do the first two, you do the next two,” and not “just do it.”
  • Instruct process praise (“you explained patiently”) to Oldest to elicit teaching, not bossing (Dweck, 2006).
  • Rehearse behaviour rehearsal with resistant behaviours (e.g., bedtime transfers), preventing conflict spillover.

5. Protect Oldest Children from Chronic Parentification

  • Set red lines: no emotionally adult responsibilities (e.g., marital stress, confidant), no chronic care-giving before homework/sleep, no “substitute parenting” of a toddler at adult cost.
  • Reward the oldest with flexibility in schedule, perks, and show thanks when the time deficit is egregious—milestones that the other ask for time-limited and beneficial (Hooper, 2007).

6. Coach Sibling Conflict—Don’t Leave Discipline to the Oldest

  • Employ a two-step solution script: (a) articulate the need in one sentence; (b) propose two that work for both.
  • Parents step in early; phase out gradually as children become competent (Kramer & Gottman, 1992).
  • Shun “tell your brother to” commands that place the eldest on duty perpetually as enforcer.

7. Create Sibling Warmth on Purpose

  • Schedule cooperative mastery activities (cooking, building, music) whose success requires teamwork—these build warmth and lower competition (McHale et al., 2012).
  • Insert micro-rituals: 3-minute evening “one good thing about each other” circle; warmth has in the literature been associated with improved adjustment.

8. Monitor and Realign Parental Differential Treatment

  • Check monthly in private with each child: “What does feel fair? What does feel unfair?” Mark differences.
  • Track praise minutes and instruction minutes per child per week and aim for a rough balance.
  • Make responsibility match privilege (e.g., staying up late when there is still work to be done) to enhance perceived fairness.

9. Use Evidence-Based Programs and Tools

  • Siblings Are Special (SAS) is an intervention for the school-age child to increase the quality of the sibling relationship and self-regulation; measures show improvement in warmth and reduction in problem behaviour (Feinberg, Solmeyer, & McHale, 2013).
  • Parent training models (e.g., positive behaviour support) generalise to speech routines as well: set clear expectations, pre-teach, reinforce approximations, and debrief (Sanders et al., 2014).

10. Transitions That Matter in Language

  • Use rather than “because you’re the oldest, you have to.”
  • Use rather than “because you’re great at X, would you mind calming Y down for 10 minutes? I’ve got Z. I’ve got Z covered.”
  • Name limits: “I’m not asking you to fix his feelings; just stick around him as I talk him down. Don’t mind talking much; I’ll talk him down.”
  • Notice effort: “You did homework and helped with dinner—I noticed it and thank you.”

Read More: Psychology of Sibling Rivalry: Why We Compete and Compare

Special Considerations

1. Age Spacing and Family Size

Small spacings limit tasks with limitations of children’s closeness in needs. Plan by task shared (both clean the play area together for 5 minutes). Large spacings facilitate keeping an eye on the oldest, but can facilitate role lock-in. Counterbalance with rotation and privilege balancing.

2. Gendered Responsibility

Watch for gender bias, especially overblaming the older girls. Switch on occasion between stereotypically gendered tasks (e.g., older boy maps out the meal, older girl cuts the grass) to balance expectations and capability (Germán et al., 2009).

3. Neurodiversity and Temperament

A neurodivergent oldest will need scaffolding or replacement tasks by strengths; a too-perfectionistic or anxious oldest will be too stressed out. Implement strength-based tasks and tracking stress (Dweck, 2006; Kochanska et al., 2001).

Putting It All Together: A Blueprint in a Week

1. Plan

  • Make a list of household chores; categorise each as adult-only, learn with support, or kid-capable.
  • Assign to skill, not birth order; add time limits and checks-ins.

2. Rotate and Pair

  • Select one helper rotation activity and one prestige rotation activity per week.
  • Buddy brothers on a common task (e.g., “you chop, I sauté”).

3. Coach and Praise

  • Practice beforehand one skill with the younger child; the oldest can demonstrate, not lecture.
  • Provide process praise to both (effort, patience, cooperation).

4. Audit 

  • Ask both children: “What was fair/unfair?” Make changes next week.
  • Monitor privileges so responsibility and autonomy are maintained.

This is an equitable process, increases competence in both children and protects the oldest from excessive chronic overburdening—situations with greater sibling warmth and less conflict (McHale et al., 2012; Jensen et al., 2013).

Conclusion

Increased responsibility is being put in an increasingly intensified manner on the oldest child in terms of functional needs (competence, safety), family-system stability (role solidification), cultural ideals (collectivism, filial piety), and developmental potential (self-regulation, empathy). These forces can empower the eldest to consolidate leadership, agency, and prosocial competence—but oppress them if they become adult-like, unequal, or common.

Evidence testifies to a straightforward principle: keep responsibility age-appropriate, visible, rotational, skill-based, supported, and equitably recognised. It not only protects the oldest, but also facilitates fraternal relationship development, such as warmth, cooperation, and respect.

Read More: Reparenting Yourself: A Self-Healing Trend Rooted in Therapy

FAQS

1. Why does the eldest child often take up adult responsibilities from a young age?

Eldest children are often supposed to take up responsibilities and act maturely from a very young age due to expectations arising from evolving family dynamics and society, which acts as the primary reason.

2. How do prolonged expectations from eldest children impact their mental health?

Eldest children are often placed with heightened standards and expectations from the beginning, which directly and indirectly leads to the greatest tilt toward perfectionism, problems of stress, mood swings and depression and high chances of anxiety arousal.

3. What are the common gender norms associated with eldest children?

The gender norms societally accepted and commonly practised force older daughters to act like mothers from a very young age. Also, older boys are forced to settle down and look after the family from a very young age. Such Imbalances still prevail.

References +

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(Note: pagination corrected: 37(2) is common citation; some editions report 36(2).)

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