First-Borns Are Smarter - Recent Study

The latest studies have found out that first-born children do better in school than the kids who were born later. A particular study follows several other ones that came to similar conclusions about the children who came first.

It was found that first-borns got better grades, and that's because parents are stricter with the first-borns and get a bit more lax when it comes to enforcing TV rules, monitoring homework, and even getting upset over bad grades for subsequent children.

"Parents always relax more with the second kids and relax more still with the third kids," said Jeffrey Kluger, senior editor at Time magazine and author of "The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us."

"Now sometimes that's a good thing because you are not going to boil the pacifier every time it falls on the floor with the second and third kids," said Kluger. "The downside can be that (parents) become a bit more lackadaisical."

Previous studies found that first-borns had higher IQs than their siblings because they got more undivided time and attention from mom and dad before their sister or brother came along.

"Clearly we know that parents' input and verbal involvement with kids has a pretty significant effect upon their development," said Dr. Richard Gallagher of New York University's Child Study Center. "And so if it gets what you would describe as slightly watered down for older born kids, that could have an effect."

That said, Gallagher, associate professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine, said we need to be careful about assuming that a first-born is always going to perform better academically than his or her siblings. He also said there's a takeaway here for all of us parents.

"When you know this information, it's a good idea to say, 'Hmmm. I guess I better not provide less attention in the early years to my next born kid. I guess I should also make sure that I should raise the same kinds of concerns about school performance with my younger kids that I've done with my older kids,' " he said.

And ultimately, how much does it come down to nature vs. nurture?

Give all children, no matter their birth order, the gift of thinking anything is possible, many moms say.

 CNN