How birth order affects personality

Personality development is a complex process that is affected by lots of different variables. While it’s wrong to say that one factor is solely responsible for developing a child’s personality still, you can confidently assume that some factors can affect the personality to a great extent, provided that the other factors are constant.

Parenting can greatly influence the child’s personality; in this article, I will explain how birth order affects personality.

Birth order and the child’s personality

• The firstborn, the oldest child: The firstborn is the one who learns how to take responsibility at an early age because he is usually asked to help his parents with the newborn children. The firstborn usually develops Good leadership abilities and the role of the caretaker. The firstborn also feels threatened by his newborn brother because he losses a big part of the attention that he was getting before the arrival of the new child.
• The youngest child: The youngest child usually competes with the firstborn on attention, and this sometimes leads to an intensifying rivalry between them. Sometimes the youngest child becomes a risk-taker because he learns how to do anything to get attention even if it was dangerous. The Youngest child might also learn how to become a rebel because of the frustration he usually experiences when he fails to do what the oldest child is doing.
• The middle child: The middle Child suffers the most because he is the one who gets the least attention. He finds himself stuck between the youngest and the oldest, who get most of the attention, and that’s why he learns how to become diplomatic and calm. His role usually becomes the peacemaker who maintains peace between the youngest and the oldest.

Siblings rivalry

Because of the battle for the attention siblings go through, they sometimes turn into complete rivals who try to get that attention at any cost.

The biggest mistake a parent can make while raising children is to compare them to each other because that would ignite their jealousy and intensify their rivalry.

Instead of doing that, the parents must find out each child’s unique talents and help him develop them. Buying three coloring books for the three children might be a bad idea while buying something special for each child to help him develop his unique skills is a sage decision.