Appreciating challenges associated with birth orders in families may offer insight into the reasons behind how we function and view ourselves as adults, including insight into sibling dynamics. An Alderian approach suggests that while birth orders are not deterministic; they can increase the likelihood of people's exposure to certain experiences.
A caveat needed at the outset is to say, these assessments aren’t hard and fast, the intention is not to stereotype people; nevertheless, personality traits formed in childhood are recognised as influencing us as adults and our interactions with the world around us.
Let’s begin with the oldest child. Generally speaking, they receive the lion share of parental attention, are often dependable, hardworking and can become high achievers. Parents may place a lot of expectations on the firstborn. It can happen, when the next sibling arrives, they feel threatened and see the need to vie for parental affection and attention. The converse is also true, they can embrace the newcomer to the family, with much reliant on how parents integrate the new arrival and ensure the oldest remains feeling secure and loved.
Then there is the second child. From the outset, they share affection and attention with another sibling, which can turn competitive as they endeavour at some level to emulate and compete with the older sibling. It can happen that they strive to gain recognition in areas the older sibling is not strong in or become their clone to win parental praise and recognition.
Then we have the middle child. This child may feel invisible, and develop a ‘poor me’ mentality, and become the ‘problem child’. In families marred by conflict, they are likely to assume the position of appeaser or withdraw from confrontations. They may also feel the need to emulate one or both older siblings in a bid for validation.
The youngest child may become the pampered and babied member of the family, developing a form of helplessness in the knowledge that others will come to their rescue and do their bidding. They may also become fiercely independent and develop their own strengths.
Then there is the only child. Sharing similar characteristics to that of an oldest child, being high achievers, they could however, struggle with cooperating with others, having lived largely independent lives. They have been center-stage of the family unit, may have had their every whim attended to and threats of dethronement may not be received well.
In reflecting on our birth order, we may pinpoint connections to the way we function and interact as adults, providing greater insights into why we do what we do, and respond how we respond.
If we identify areas that are proven to be problematic in our interactions with the world, yielding outcomes we repeatedly identify as unwanted, we may see the genesis of these in our birth order, and once recognised, can gain strategies to shift entrenched behaviours.
The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.
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