BellaOnline Forums Family Siblings Birth Order...

Right Phyllis I read a lot of medieval books and the eldest son would instantly get the title, the lands, everything. The second son would often settle for being a clergyman. What if the first son was a wastrel? In fact in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park that is the very situation. The eldest son is gambling away the family money. The second son has to go into the clergy. It probably really affects their personality right from birth if they grow up the entire time knowing that "Oh I'm the eldest I get everything" or "I'm only the second child, I'm stuck with doing xxxxx".

We have it MUCH nicer in modern times.

That makes a lot of sense, Lisa. If one has a predetermined role cut out for them, they may not strive to reach their full potential in life. I bet this has happened so often, not only in the past, but in today's societies as well.

Ok here's a twist for the birth order theory that researchers have been looking into - IQ and family size. The larger the family, the lower the IQ. anybody heard of this?

Am I allowed to put my ten cents worth in and throw a spanner (wrench) in the works?
Most of the "birth order" information that is available is generally anecdotal and not really grounded in psychological or medical science.
When I was a Principal for a private school a few years ago, my board asked me to research this topic in case we could use the information re. the students. Sadly, most of the scientific data opposes the popular viewpoint---rather education and training have more influence.
Also, the new info. re IQ and the more children the less smart they are??????? I come from a very large family---there were nine kids. I have several Bachelor Degrees, Masters and a Double Doctorate --all earned, and yet some of my brothers and sisters have much more!!! Yes my mom and dad were "ordinary working folk". I think our success depends more on the drive and encouragement we get from parents and teachers than anything else.

Hey, you're preaching to the choir on that one -family size and IQ. Other researchers also dismissed it but it keeps resurfacing.

The research I find is that the eldest child tends to have a higher IQ, and the theory is that the parents were spending one-on-one time with this first child. And also that the new child being new and all, that they were really excited about it and focused on it.

But by the time #2 and #3 and #4 come along, the parents are now multitasking and also getting more relaxed about it all. So for example in most families, there are tons of photos of the first child, but less of subsequent children.

So I really do believe the first born theory - it makes a lot of sense -

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I understand the first born theory- even as far as the birth order personality because the parental and sibling influences are usually consistent across families. Their cognitive process is improved out of necessity. But I'm not sure I buy that siblings in smaller families have higher IQs than the siblings in larger families. There are just too many exceptions and generalizations which is why some researchers have come up with information to debunk the theory.
Of course, I have to say this since I'm from a large family. When I look at myself, I know that theory is wrong but when I look at my younger brother...well...they may have a point

Well 240,000 is a rather large sample

They're not saying "all kids in a large family suffer". They're saying kid #2 on average is just slightly less encouraged than kid #1 to reach his or her full potential. And that kid #3 has slightly less again.

So in that sense, families that stop at 2 kids don't end up with kid #3 who is at a slight disadvantage compared with the other 2 kids. It's not that the entire family of a large family is tainted by the size

And again we're only talking 2 points. Heck, if a family fed their kids junk food during their entire childhood I'm sure they could knock off far more than 2 points from a kid's brain. So a large family who was focused on education and eating right and so on could still end up much higher towards their maximum potential per kid than a family with just one kid who lived in a house full of mercury and ate bad food ... it's all about potential

Tony, thanks for bringing up some good points. I am amazed at all the research that has been done on this 'birth order' theory. I did not realize it was such a widely discussed subject, worldwide.