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S3E35 - How Birth Order Shapes Your Child's Personality · Play Therapy Parenting: Real Parenting Questions Answered by a Child Therapist

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  You're listening to the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast
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  with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
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  Hi,
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  I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks,
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  The Kid Counselor.
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  This is the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast
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  where I give you insight,
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  awareness,
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  and enlightenment about your parenting
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  and your relationship with your kids.
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  In today's episode,
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  we are going to talk a little bit about birth order,
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  one of my absolute favorite topics.
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  And for those of you that have more than one child and or you have siblings,
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  This will hopefully give you a lot of perspective about how much insight you can have
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  based on the
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  birth order role
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  in
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  your children and or in your family of origin,
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  if you have siblings.
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  And obviously,
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  I'm not going to be able to dive into every single birth order role,
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  and I'm not going to be able to look at each individual thing,
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  but I really want to hit highlights here.
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  And
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  if you have questions,
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  if you want to process some things with me,
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  please shoot me an email.
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  It's one of my favorite topics.
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  I,
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  I've spoken on it.
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  I've done workshops on it.
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  I've read lots of books.
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  I think it's just so fascinating because you don't even need to know.
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  The person and you can hear what birth order role
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  they are and you can with pretty high levels of accuracy
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  predict what their personality is like because
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  the roles in your family
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  influence
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  who you are as a person.
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  And so I want to kind of go big picture
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  and then,
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  you know,
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  specificity,
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  you know,
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  if you want more details,
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  reach out to me,
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  brnna at the kid counselor.com.
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  But here's what's really fascinating.
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  When I sit down with parents,
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  they're sharing with me,
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  you know,
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  what's going on,
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  why they're seeking therapy,
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  what the struggles are,
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  etc.
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  And one of the most helpful things that
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  a parent tells me is
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  the age of the child and what other siblings are in the home.
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  Because what
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  happens if you know birth order
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  is you can largely understand what the dynamics are.
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  So typically what goes on when a parent's talking to me is I'm thinking,
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  OK,
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  how many age,
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  how many years apart are the children in age?
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  Is it
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  same sex or different sex siblings?
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  How many siblings?
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  And where does this one fall?
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  So overarchingly,
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  If you have an oldest,
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  you're going to likely
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  understand.
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  Perfectionistic,
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  people pleasing,
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  driven,
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  ambitious.
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  Always wanting to keep the boat steady,
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  making sure that they tow the line,
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  do what they're supposed to do,
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  don't make waves.
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  The quote good child.
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  Almost across the board.
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  Now,
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  let me be really clear,
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  there are role reversals.
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  So sometimes
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  an oldest,
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  for example,
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  does not take first born traits.
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  They don't become what I just described,
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  which means the 2nd or 3rd child can take it because it's up for grabs.
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  So sometimes a role reversal is evident as well,
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  but generally an oldest is going to have the traits that I just talked about,
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  or you have a youngest.
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  Life of the party,
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  super fun,
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  very social.
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  Everyone wants to be around them,
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  friends with everybody.
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  Difficult time being ambitious,
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  difficult time making decisions,
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  difficult time executing things because everyone in
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  the family always does everything for them,
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  including siblings and parents.
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  And you have middle children,
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  largely forgotten,
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  largely ignored.
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  They're the peacemakers.
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  And they
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  typically are the most.
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  Interested and committed to friends because friends fill the void.
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  Oldest get attention for being smart and capable.
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  Youngest get attention for being the babies,
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  and middles don't really get a lot of attention,
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  so their attention turns outside of the family
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  to their friendships.
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  Friends are so important to middle children.
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  They're peacemakers.
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  They know how to pacify everybody.
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  They know how to keep everyone kind of calm and settled.
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  So
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  it's so fascinating when a parent sits down
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  and starts talking.
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  And I
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  am putting pieces together of birth order rolls and then I say,
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  OK,
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  so you have 2 boys,
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  they're 2 years apart.
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  You just described the oldest.
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  I'm going to take a guess at how the youngest is.
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  And they haven't even given me any information on the youngest,
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  but I literally just described the polar opposite
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  of what they described as the oldest,
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  and it's 99% of the time right on the money.
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  Why?
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  Because same-sex siblings close in age.
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  are very competitive,
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  a lot of rivalry,
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  a lot of jealousy,
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  and they
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  are about as far apart as you can get personality wise.
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  So,
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  here's why we're talking about this,
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  because it is really important to understand.
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  That part of your child's personality is because of their birth order.
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  Nothing they can do about it.
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  They didn't choose when they got born.
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  They didn't choose that they had an older sibling or a younger sibling or no siblings
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  or 6 siblings.
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  None of that was in their control,
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  but
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  the circumstances dictate part of their personality.
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  Another component,
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  you also have a birth order
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  from your family of origin.
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  For example,
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  I'm an oldest sister of a brother.
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  So I know what it's like to be an oldest child.
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  I know what it's like to have a younger brother.
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  What's fascinating is the way that we parent.
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  is influenced by our own birth order.
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  So what we find in research
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  is that oldest children parents relate most to their oldest child.
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  Youngest child parents relate most to their youngest child.
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  There's always a connection because you know what it's like to be that birth role.
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  You don't know what it's like to be the baby.
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  Here's a fun fact for you.
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  I'm the only
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  oldest in my family of origin.
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  My mom,
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  my dad,
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  and my brother are all youngest.
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  I'm the only oldest in the whole family.
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  They all get each other.
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  They all think the same.
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  They all behave the same.
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  They all see the world through the same lens.
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  They operate very similarly.
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  Obviously they're different people,
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  so there's some differences,
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  but generally
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  in the grand scheme of things,
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  the three of them get each other.
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  And they don't really get me all that well.
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  And they don't really connect with me all that well.
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  Because
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  none of them have ever been an oldest child.
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  And I've never been a youngest,
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  but all three of them have been youngests,
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  so you can see the dynamic there.
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  So your own birth order role also influences how you parent.
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  It influences who you choose as a spouse.
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  It influences your friends.
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  It influences so many things.
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  It's one of the most fascinating constructs.
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  That's why I love it so much.
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  If you want to read a book,
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  I often get asked like,
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  what book would you recommend if we want to look into this?
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  Birth Order and You
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  by the Richardsons.
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  It's a husband and wife team.
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  Birth Order and You by the Richardsons.
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  I love that book.
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  It's an old book,
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  like published a while ago,
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  but I love it because it goes through.
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  What is a natural tendency for who you pick as a friend?
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  What's your natural tendency for who you pick as a spouse?
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  What's your natural tendency for who you click with?
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  What's your natural tendency for the way that you parent?
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  If you are an oldest child in your family of origin.
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  You may have a little bit of harbored resentment
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  toward your youngest child
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  because
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  you might have a little bit of harbored resentment
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  that you always had to be so responsible
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  and you always got in trouble
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  and you always had to do everything right
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  and you watched your youngest sibling get away with murder.
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  And
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  you were like,
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  that is so unfair.
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  I never would have been able to do that.
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  I was never able to have that kind of freedom.
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  They never get in trouble for anything,
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  and you grew up with a little bit of resentment
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  that
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  your youngest sibling
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  could do anything and there were never any consequences.
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  Well,
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  you might be really harsh on your youngest child.
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  Because you refuse to let your youngest child get away with anything,
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  because you still have a little bit of resentment from your own childhood.
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  And there's all kinds of other examples there.
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  So what I'm hopeful is that this conversation
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  is at least sparking some food for thought.
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  And at the very least,
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  you're starting to think,
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  wow,
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  OK,
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  so yeah,
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  my oldest does kind of act like that and my middle does kind of act like that,
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  and my youngest does act like that.
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  These aren't character flaws.
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  These aren't issues.
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  These aren't problems.
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  This is the byproduct of
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  growing up in your family.
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  Your personality was largely dictated by your birth order
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  role and or you had a role reversal.
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  So if you're youngest and you're like,
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  no way,
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  my older brother is like
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  an absolute moron,
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  like,
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  has never been successful a day in his life,
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  like has nothing going for him.
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  OK,
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  well,
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  you probably role reversed then.
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  So he didn't take firstborn traits,
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  so you took them,
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  and you're the successful,
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  driven,
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  ambitious one.
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  But it still
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  shaped your personality
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  because
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  you would not have become that had your brother taken that role,
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  but it was open,
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  so you grabbed it.
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  So please
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  look into it a little bit,
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  if nothing else,
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  because it really does help you understand
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  why your kids behave a certain way,
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  what their propensity is,
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  what their tendencies are going to be,
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  and they're not set in stone and it doesn't need to be rigid,
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  and you don't want to box your kids in like,
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  oh well,
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  you're a middle child,
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  so of course you're going to be.
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  That's not the purpose.
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  We still preserve relationship at all costs.
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  We still unconditionally accept our children no matter what.
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  But at least it will provide maybe some insight and perspective
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  so that you might be able to understand them
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  more appropriately,
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  relate to them more appropriately,
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  and maybe even understand yourself in light of the way that you parent
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  a little bit more.
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  I hope that encourages you.
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  I love y'all.
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  I hope you have a great week.
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  We'll talk again soon.
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  Bye.
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  Thank you for listening to
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  the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
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  For more episodes and just subscribe to our newsletter,
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  please go to www.playtherapyparenting.com.