August 12th marks a special day for many of us with 3 or more kids! Yes, today is National Middle Child Day! I’m a mother of three beautiful children, two boys and one girl. Middle Child Syndrome is believed that the middle child is often ignored or excluded due to order of birth.
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Adler’s birth order theory says that a child can have many personality characteristics depending on birth order.
- Oldest Child: Very strong willed, authoritarian, power driven due to expectations often set by their parents
- Youngest Child: Treated like the baby of the bunch, sometimes seen as spoiled.
Characteristics of middle children are often seen as quiet and mild temperature, often overshadowed by the oldest siblings strong willed personality and the youngest sibling being the baby.
I’ve often said this about the middle child of my three children. Wesley is a very intelligent, caring, and quite seventeen-year-old. It’s never “all bout him”, unlike my oldest who’s twenty years old and my youngest who’s fourteen years old. I’ve often had conversations with my husband about our middle child. Sometimes family members tend to forget we have three kids. Often family members and friends will have conversations with Wesley standing there and ask about all the things that my oldest is doing as a student athlete at Texas Tech. They will want to keep up with everything that my daughter is doing, all the while standing in my middle child’s face and not even acknowledge all the great things, he is involved in.
Believe it or not, we have family members who will buy Christmas gifts and Birthday presents for my oldest and youngest, and not my middle child. In Wesley’s defense I find myself saying, you do know I have three kids…right!
They may sometimes feel as though they are not seen as equals to the oldest and youngest child. You may see sibling rivalry from the middle child, they often feel as though they must compete for their parents’ attention. Like most parents, we don’t have a favorite child when it comes to my three children. My husband and I love our children equally, and that love is never ending. But some middle children find themselves feeling as though they are not the favorite child. There’s always that thought of the oldest being seen as special because he is the oldest, then the youngest because she’s the baby. We always try to make our middle child feel as though he is seen as an equal. I would never want him to feel that my husband and I show either of our other two children more of our attention then we do him.
It’s been said that Middle Child Syndrome may have lasting affects on children as they grow into adulthood. Some may have grapple with codependency in an adult relationship, they can even have a hard time being seen as a favorite person in the relationship. Today, we will shine a little more light on Wesley and celebrate him for all the things he has accomplished and the great things that lies ahead for him!
Photo Credit: HD Flores Photography
