Prepare to smash your middle-child stereotypes

It’s a common belief that birth order colors a child’s personality for life, with the oldest, the middle, and the babies each bestowed certain stereotypical traits. Being in the middle is commonly  thought of as the most unfortunate placement, with the term “Middle Child Syndrome” even being coined to describe their perceived qualities of being envious and feeling neglected.

Well, not so says a new book entitled “The Secret Power of Middle Children,” by co-authors Catherine Salmon and Kartrin Schumann. They say their research has found that middle children are NOT the sullen milquetoast that they are often portrayed as, but actually “agents of change” and more successful in business, politics, and science than their firstborn and lastborn peers. In fact, more middleborns have been president of the USA than any other placement.

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Let your kids duke it out and they'll find life in the boardroom easier.

Of  all the child development studies that have come out recently, the conclusion of a new study on sibling rivalry is the one I’ll cling to most.

The bottom line: my kids’ constant bickering, frequent shouting and occasional suckerpunch is has a pay off.

Even better? The less I get involved, the better. Continue reading »

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Kids from split families

In a piece yesterday for the Huffington Post’s new Divorce section, Jodyne Speyer talks about her perspective as a five-year-old on her parents’ separation. The bottom line: not such a bad thing after all.

“While someone always loses something in a divorce, sometimes there are amazing things to be gained. Saying good-bye to my birth father at the San Francisco International Airport was one of the saddest days of my life.

…What I gained from their divorce was a family, and a home filled with love, with three sisters who adore me and who shoot death rays at anyone that says I’m not a “real” sister. I can’t imagine a world without my mother, both fathers and my sisters in it. And I never have to.”

Not everyone has a similar take and it made me wonder about the research on divorce. So I did a literature search on the topic, hoping for a coherent picture of how it affects children. Instead, I found a mess of studies, all claiming different things about how kids from a split family fare in the long run. Some found withdrawing and behavioral problems, but a big study recently found no differences, as long as the post-divorce family environment was stable.

Here’s my take on the research, and why a lot of divorce-talk misses the point: Continue reading »

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The hazards of talking while parenting

Listening to one side of someone’s cellphone conversation is annoying — so much more annoying than having two people chatting back and forth right next to you.

That’s because when you hear one side of a conversation, no matter how dull (“oh really? He said what? Oh, you’re so right about that…”) your brain is heavily distracted trying to fill in the blanks, says a new study in the journal Psychological Science. It can’t predict the pattern and zone out like it can when you hear both parties talking, so your attention is constantly, and sometimes painfully, drawn.

I’ve always known that it’s not ideal for me to be on my cellphone in front of my son, but it’s not just because I’m distracted. It’s more than that.

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Think your kids are stressed?  According to the American Psychological Association, you don’t know the half of it.   The APA just released their Stress in America survey and for the first time ever, they included young people in the study. Not only did they discover that kids are more stressed than you might think, they also found that parents are often clueless about what their kids are worrying about.

More than 1,200 kids aged 8 to 17 were polled about  issues relating to stress and, not surprisingly, 44% said that they worry about doing well in school.  What is surprising, however, is that 30% of those surveyed admit to worrying about money.  No, not their allowances.  Kids are worried about the family finances.

In this economy, with so many parents worrying about money, it shouldn’t surprise us that our kids are picking up on it. But when asked what they thought their kids were worried about, the parents in the survey pointed to extracurricular activities.  In reality, only about 10% of the kids surveyed said non-school activities were a source of stress.

Also interesting was what the survey revealed kids were not worrying about. Despite the fact that many parents assumed their children worry about family relationships, only 8% of kids agreed that their parents were a source of stress.

The upshot, says Stanley Greenspan, a clinical professor at George Washington University, is that parents need to tune in to what their kids are really feeling.  Thinking that you are shielding them by not discussing financial worries is a mistake.  They know what’s going on and they are worried.

Image: sxc.hu

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