I had a set list of questions for Gracie that I had pre made based off of my research. Each question testing addressing an only-child specific trait.
I started off simple. What was the hardest part of the college transition for you? Expecting an answer dealing with social issues since only-children are generally seen at worse at cooperation and other social behaviors. However for Gracie her hardest part of the college transition was time management. She jumped into many activities including a lot of sports which were difficult to schedule around. This answer intrigued me since from my research I understood that generally only-children proved better in independent thinking. However only-children did score lower in persistence with activities than children with siblings, indicating a potential trait of short temperedness, an issue in a tight schedule. |
I then asked Gracie about the level of obligation she felt to perform academically for her parents. The literature, a common thread is that only-children generally have a higher intrinsic motivation to perform better academically. Some of the reasons this is hypothesized is that parents give their all to their special child, and therefore the child in return feels the need to reciprocate.
Gracie fits into that mold. Although she says that her parents do not pressure her about her school work, she is motivated by her own self to succeed. This self-motiavtion could have been produced from growing up in an only-child environment. |
Finally I was curious if an only-child would admit or consider themselves to be more egoistic than children with siblings. A trademark quality of an only-child is considering themselves before others, however this does not need to be all negative for example a selfish person. From the literature I understood that an egoistic person is just necessarily uncomfortable with others making decisions that would impact their day.
This idea did not phase Gracie. She is very spontaneous and doesn't mind interrupting her plans to fill in some new ones. The generalizations for only-children: socially lacking,academically motivated, and egoistic were not all true in Gracie's case. While generalizations can only go so far, variability is inevitable. As is the case with Grace's transition to college not fitting her exact only-child mold. |