Newsflash, a new birth order study says that the youngest children in the family get away with everything.
No? Really? Who would have thought that?
I can definitely see this in my own family, though I don’t know that I would say my youngest son gets away with everything so much as I would say that I have learned to pick my battles. Things that seemed important to me when my oldest son was four, don’t seem as important to me now.
My oldest son will sometimes mention that when he was four years old he wasn’t allowed to stay until 10pm, that he wasn’t allowed to watch commercial television, or he didn’t have x, y, or z. And I tell him that he is the trailblazer for his siblings after him. There are good things about being born first and not as good things, but that holds true for whatever position you are born in the birth order.
The study also said that parents expect more from their oldest children. One of the things that my husband and I marvel at is how when my oldest son was four years old (the current age of my youngest), we felt like he was such a big kid. My youngest son seems like a baby to us. And how we treat them accordingly. We make allowances for the youngest, because he is just a bay-bee. All of us do, including the older siblings. It is all in our perception.
But why is any of this important? According to the study from researchers at Duke University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, parents punish older children more harshly — and they’re wise to do so. The reason? The younger children in the family learn from the transgressions of the older. If they see the oldest sibling punished for doing something wrong, then they will believe that they too will be punished for the same act and will, therefore, be less likely to do it.
Do you find anything from this study new? It seems to be the same thing we have all known in our own families for years.
I don’t think the study receals anything new. But I still think the situation is a bummer for us oldest kids.
Comment by Brigitte — February 14, 2009 @ 6:24 pm
I read it and somehow it doen’t make no sence to me know how i have a little girl she is 9 and i just had a baby boy (1 month) and then i logged on and i read it, it doesn’t give alot of information.
Comment by Jesyca — February 22, 2009 @ 9:16 am
The study discussing issues about how parents treat their oldest to their and youngest,In my family we treat our youngest like the baby cause she is, but our oldest child is the one we find it hard to punish, more then it is for us to punish the other two.
Comment by jamie — February 23, 2009 @ 5:34 am
There are three kids in my family. my older sister(20 now) was and still is loved and adored by my mom. my younger brother(6 going on 7) has gotten away with everything, no matter what it was that he did or does and my mom actually try’s to blame me for anything he does, even if I’m not there. I’m the middle child(15 almost 16) and everything gets dumped on me. They used to give me all the chores but now they cant because Ive progressed slowly with many diseases such as arthritis (ect.) that make it hard for me to do so. My guess is that my sister was her first born child and my brother is her last and she can never have another and her first ones already gone to college and moving away so shes going to treat him like gods baby for the rest of his and my life. But i still have to love them. so i think that this study is either based on a family with only two kids or is completely off. even though when I was the youngest(just me and my sister)my sister was still favored over me and she got away with everything and always got her way.NOT ME.
Comment by Jen — February 25, 2009 @ 1:11 am