Being a middle child in your sibling's birth order means you're likely more creative since you've had to teach yourself how to combat boredom, and that you're likely super-flexible and can adapt to changing situations. Key birth order traits of middle children: Adaptable. Social butterfly.
The “middle child syndrome” cliché comes from Adlerian birth order theory. According to Adler, middle children often feel squeezed between their older and younger siblings. They feel like they've been robbed of any position of significance within the family. Middle children can become competitive or rebellious.
Characteristics of a Middle Child
They're good at being mediators and want fairness in situations. They're also trustworthy friends and work well as team members. Not as family-oriented as their siblings. They may have a stronger sense of not belonging than their siblings do.
Popular culture imagines they are forgotten, rebellious, or unable to measure up to their older or younger siblings. In fact, stereotypes often tell us that middle children aren't as smart, connected to the family, capable as leaders, or likely to follow rules as their older or younger siblings.
Compared to their siblings, middle children may be much more agreeable and easygoing in life. They are more extroverted, as well. They don't have to lead the pack, and they don't get the “babying” that their younger siblings do. This allows them a bit more freedom to be themselves.
To compensate for a perceived lack of attention, middle children may either act rebellious or try to people-please. Their behavior may be partially based on their older sibling's personality.
Overall, 38 percent of Americans who are the youngest in their family report they were the favorite, compared to 27 percent of those who were oldest. Middle children are the least likely to say they were a favorite child; only 20 percent believe they were.
Middle children are more independent as they gain confidence. Middle children typically have more freedom and less pressure growing up. Sometimes they can even get away with more things as a kid. This, over time, leads to them developing more independence and confidence, according to Schumann.
Middle children tend to be more satisfied with marriage in general, but they seem to pair best with spouses who are the youngest in their family. Similar to two people marrying who are the oldest child in their respective families, two middle children marriages has its problems.
Middle children are less likely to be Introverts (-5.74%) and more likely to be Extraverts (+5.39%). Youngest children are very slightly more likely to be Introverts (+1.13%) than they are Extraverts (-1.07%).
The team found that birth order did not alter any of five broad personality traits. Those traits, what psychologists call the “Big Five,” were openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
Middle child-lastborn couples are a pretty good match. Leman says that a compromising middle child tends to make a good partner for lastborns who are usually socially outgoing.
Oldest Child - “The Achiever”
Due to the nature of first-time parenting, many often employ stricter rules, high levels of attention, and trial-and-error. As a result, firstborn children tend to be responsible, well-behaved, and possess strong leadership qualities.
Middle children are unfairly stereotyped as apprehensive underachievers who suffer from parental neglect, but research shows that they're actually quite ambitious: Many middle children grow up to be the most successful members of their families, and several have gone onto become some of the most accomplished people in ...
"The stereotypical middle child is more sensitive, more distant from the family, even when they get along well, and often finds a path that's very different from the others, so they have a defined sense of self," says Dr. Daramus.
According to Katrin Schumann, co-author of The Secret Power of Middle Children, a marital happiness survey revealed that middle children are the happiest and most satisfied in relationships.
“Parents tend to favour a child that is most like them, reminds them of themselves, or represents what they view as a success of parenting,” she says. “Younger children are most likely to have been raised by a parent who, over time and experience, is more confident and skilled in their child-raising.”
When primary caregiver differentiates between their children, it gets very frustrating for the middle child. Every child has a need of being loved, cared by their parents, fail to get these basic needs fulfilled increase frustration, anger and aggressiveness in children.
As the middle child, you're cooperative, independent, and empathetic. At the same time, you can be quite rebellious, doing things not expected of you. Dating you is like being dealt a wild card — it's hard to predict how the ride will turn out to be.
In such clear-cut scenarios, the middle child is simply the one born after the eldest and before the youngest.
Birth order and introversion-extraversion☆
A two-way analysis of variance indicated that first borns were more introverted than either middle-horns or last-horns, with no difference between the latter two groups.
In male university students, he found that first or fourth and higher birth order was acknowledged more commonly by left-handers than by right-handers. In females, however, the differences in birth order between left- and right-handers were smaller.
Middle kids need connection outside the family so they can experiment with being more powerful. Middle children will often want to play with friends instead of siblings. That's fine, but include their friends with the family as well, so they're at your house some of the time, rather than always at friends' houses.