Birth Position
Relentless competition, name-calling, hair-pulling and blame-shifting plague households with two or more children everywhere. Can’t we all just get along?
Well, sure, sometimes. But the reality is that all siblings aren’t created equal and they don’t get treated as such. Firstborns, for example, often get shafted because parents are stricter with them, while later-born kids might have fewer rules. And everyone knows that the youngest seems to get away with murder because parents have seen it all before. And where’s the middle child in all of this? Forgotten or overlooked.
Depending on birth position, there are special roles within families, leading to different adaptation patterns and different personalities, says Ben Dattner, a New York City-based organizational psychologist. As a result of a stricter upbringing, for example, firstborn children tend to be more extroverted and confident, while second-born kids are more rebellious and open to new experiences, he says. The youngest child is usually the most creative and can be manipulative to get his or her way.