Parents become progressively more permissive as younger children age
Una investigación australiana ha puesto cifras a una intuición familiar: los hijos menores crecen bajo reglas distintas a las de sus hermanos mayores. El estudio, realizado con cerca de cinco mil niños, revela que la permisividad parental no es un accidente sino un patrón medible que se intensifica con el tiempo. En la brecha de apenas nueve a catorce minutos diarios frente a una pantalla se esconde una pregunta más profunda sobre cómo las expectativas que depositamos en los hijos moldean, silenciosamente, quiénes llegan a ser.
- Los hijos menores acumulan entre nueve y catorce minutos más al día frente a pantallas que sus hermanos mayores, una diferencia pequeña en apariencia pero que se amplía con los años.
- Los padres imponen menos normas sobre televisión y videojuegos a los hijos nacidos después, y estos niños perciben que las expectativas sobre ellos son, sencillamente, más bajas.
- El tiempo ganado frente a las pantallas se resta directamente a actividades de enriquecimiento como la lectura, la música o los deberes, configurando infancias cualitativamente distintas.
- Lejos de corregirse, el patrón se agudiza: cuanto más crecen los hijos menores, más permisivos se vuelven sus padres con el tiempo de pantalla, creando un ciclo que se retroalimenta.
- Los investigadores no emiten un juicio de valor, pero sí advierten que estas diferencias son lo bastante consistentes y medibles como para no poder atribuirse al azar o al cansancio parental.
Investigadores de la Universidad de Monash, en Australia, han dado respuesta científica a un viejo debate entre hermanos: ¿quién tuvo la infancia más fácil? Según un nuevo estudio, los hijos menores. Y la evidencia más clara aparece en el tiempo que pasan frente a las pantallas.
El trabajo analizó los registros de uso del tiempo de cerca de cinco mil niños de entre dos y quince años, clasificando sus actividades en siete categorías: sueño, escuela, actividades de enriquecimiento, actividad física, tiempo social, medios digitales y cuidado general. El resultado fue consistente: los hijos segundos y terceros dedicaban entre nueve y catorce minutos más al día a las pantallas que sus hermanos mayores, y esa brecha se ensanchaba conforme crecían.
La diferencia no se limita a lo que hacen, sino a por qué lo hacen. Los padres establecen menos normas sobre televisión o videojuegos para los hijos nacidos después, y estos niños perciben que las expectativas depositadas en ellos son menores. El tiempo que no pasan frente a una pantalla tampoco se destina a leer, tocar un instrumento o hacer los deberes: las actividades de enriquecimiento también retroceden.
Publicado en el Journal of Economic Behavior & Organisation, el estudio sugiere que no se trata de agotamiento parental ni de circunstancias cambiantes, sino de un desplazamiento deliberado —o al menos coherente— en el enfoque educativo. Los primogénitos llegan a padres más vigilantes y estructurados; para cuando nace el segundo o el tercero, algo se ha aflojado. Las reglas parecen menos urgentes. Las expectativas, más flexibles. El estudio no juzga si esto es bueno o malo, solo constata que es real y suficientemente consistente como para medirse.
Researchers at Monash University in Australia have settled a question that has sparked countless sibling arguments: who actually had it easier growing up? The answer, according to a new study, is the younger children. Parents are measurably more lenient with their later-born kids, and the evidence shows up most clearly in screen time.
The research examined time-use data from roughly five thousand children between ages two and fifteen. Younger children's parents kept detailed logs of their activities, while kids over ten filled out their own twenty-four-hour diaries. When the researchers sorted everything into seven categories—sleep, school, enrichment activities, physical activity, social time, digital media, and general care—a consistent pattern emerged. Second and third children spent between nine and fourteen additional minutes each day looking at screens compared to their firstborn siblings. That gap widened as the younger children got older.
The enrichment activities category tells part of the story. This included homework, reading, music lessons, and board games—the kinds of things parents often push their children toward. Younger siblings spent less time on these pursuits. Digital media, by contrast, encompassed television, video games, internet use, and social media. The researchers found that younger children devoted substantially more time to these activities, and crucially, they did so largely unsupervised.
Why the difference? The study points to parental behavior. Parents are significantly less likely to establish firm rules about television watching or gaming for their later-born children. More tellingly, these younger kids perceive that their parents hold lower expectations for them overall. As the researchers note, the pattern intensifies rather than fades: parents become progressively more permissive with screen-time rules as their younger children age, and the children respond by spending even more time on digital media.
The findings, published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organisation, suggest this isn't simply about parental exhaustion or changing family circumstances. The data points instead to a deliberate—or at least consistent—shift in parenting approach. First children arrive to parents who are often more vigilant, more rule-bound, more invested in structured enrichment. By the time the second or third child comes along, something has loosened. The rules feel less urgent. The expectations feel more flexible.
This matters because screen time and enrichment activities are not neutral substitutes. The hours spent on digital media are hours not spent reading, learning an instrument, or playing games that require sustained attention and social negotiation. Over months and years, those minutes accumulate into measurably different childhoods. The younger sibling's experience is genuinely different—not harder or easier in some absolute sense, but shaped by a different set of parental boundaries and expectations. The study doesn't judge whether this is good or bad, only that it is real and consistent enough to measure.
Citações Notáveis
Parents are more indulgent with later-born children and less likely to establish rules about screen time or gaming for them— Monash University researchers, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organisation
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
So parents are just... tired by the second kid?
That's the intuitive read, but the data suggests something more deliberate. Parents aren't just letting rules slip—they're actively choosing to set fewer rules. The younger kids perceive lower expectations, which means the parents are communicating this difference.
But couldn't it be that younger kids are just more independent, so they need fewer rules?
The study controlled for that by looking at the same families. It's not that younger kids are inherently different—it's that they're treated differently. Parents impose the rules less often.
Nine to fourteen minutes a day doesn't sound like much.
It compounds. That's roughly an hour to two hours per week, or fifty to a hundred hours per year. Over a childhood, it's thousands of hours of different media exposure versus enrichment activities. The gap widens as kids age, not narrows.
Do you think parents realize they're doing this?
Probably not consciously. It's more like a gradual loosening. The first child gets music lessons and homework supervision. By the third child, the parent is tired, the rules feel less essential, and the kid is already watching screens anyway. It becomes normalized.
Is this actually a problem?
The study doesn't say. It just documents the pattern. Whether more screen time is harmful depends on what's on the screen and what's being displaced. But the fact that it's happening unevenly across siblings—that's worth noticing.