Does Your Family Play Favorites? - East Idaho News

Does Your Family Play Favorites?

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gettY 091614 happyfamily?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1410867042432iStock/Thinkstock(PROVO, Utah) — The Smothers Brothers comedy routine always included Tommy Smothers feeling hurt and complaining to his brother Dick that “Mom always liked you best.” Well, a new study published in the Journal of Family Psychology shows that some families do play favorites, and it can have a negative future impact on children.

Alex Jensen, a professor at Brigham Young University and the lead author of the study, examined perceived preferential treatment among different types of families and categorized those that weren’t close to one another as “disengaged families.”

Jensen looked further at the disengaged families and found that children who considered themselves slightly less favored were almost twice as likely to use alcohol, cigarettes and other drugs.

And the study found that if a child’s perception of not being the favorite was even greater, they were nearly four times more likely to abuse substances.

“With favoritism in disengaged families, it wasn’t just that they were more likely to use any substances, it also escalated,” Jensen said in a press release. “If they were already smoking then they were more likely to drink also. Or if they were smoking and drinking, they were more likely to also use drugs.”

On the opposite end, the link to abuse of substances didn’t exist at all in families that took a strong interest in one another. The bottom line: happy kids make for happy adults and a happy family.

Jensen suggests that parents who know they play favorites should make a strong effort to show all their kids more love than they already are.


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