Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Birth Order and Parenting Style?

I saw La Tex posting on another thread about birth order and parenting style.

I'm the oldest of 4, only female, and I feel it totally influences my parenting style.

I think that I'm bossy, and that this relates to birth-order. I also think that I take 'rules' more seriouly that I would have at some other birth position.

I also know that I feel more comfortable with 'that little streak of sadism' that goes along with parenting than other birth-order parents. It's part of life, and I think if we can forgive ourselves when it surfaces we have a better chance of keeping it in check, even using it for good if possible.

Interestingly, before becoming a parent, friends would be suprised by learning my birth-order. Apparently I was able to keep that side of me 'under cover' until the challenge of parenting.

DH is second/baby. The biggest difference is that he doesn't remember how 'babyish' little kids are day in and day out. He's constantly suprised by how 'immature' children are.

Anyone else care to think aloud about how their birth-order dynamics play out in their family?

Smiles,
Grinity

Following Judith Rich Harris, author of "The Nurture Assumption", I doubt that birth order has an important effect on parenting style or other aspects of personality once someone leaves home:

http://judithrichharris.info/tna/birth-order/believe.htm
Why Do People Believe that Birth Order Has
Important Effects on Personality?

by Judith Rich Harris

In the first two essays on this website, I summarized the results of more than half a century of research on birth order. My conclusion was that birth order does not have noticeable effects on adult personality. The question I must deal with now is: Why do most people -- including most psychologists -- continue to believe that birth order does have important effects on adult personality?

In this essay I will discuss several sources of the belief in birth order, including people's subjective impressions based on their own personal experiences, flawed or misleading research, the tendency for research to be published and publicized only if it supports the belief in birth order, the impressions psychotherapists get from listening to their patients, and biological factors.

It isn't enough, however, to explain why people came to hold a particular belief. I also have to explain why they cling to it so tenaciously in the face of disconfirming evidence.

<rest of article at link>