Can birth order truly determine behavior?

Excellent discussion, ptower76! You use three different words here.... 'determine' behavior, 'predict' behavior, and 'affects' behavior. Interesting. I don't believe birth order determines behavior, but very definitely affects it and is a good source for making predictions about behavior but many other things must also be considered. I once taught at the elementary school level and I made it a point to know each of my students birth order. I found that it helped me in a variety of ways. I actually noticed a difference in the way a child approached learn. As a very loose example, when working in groups to solve a problem, the oldest children often found it necessary to make sure other 'understood', while youngest often allowed others to do the work. Important to note; this was NOT always consistent. I found birth order to be a good aide towards understand a child but not always accurate. I've given this much thought and think that I believe a parents birth order also plays into how they treat their children of various orders. (does that make sense?) I am a youngest child of 4, and the mother of only one child who came later in my life. So in my son's case he is an "only" and throws a lot of the birth order ideas out the window. My opinion is that the first sentence of this paragraph will affect my son's behavior because of how I've raised him more than birth order alone. Thanks. I haven't taught in years and haven't visited a theory that once played heavily into my daily practice in a long time. I enjoyed responding to this discussion!

I believe that birth order affects behavior like being first born makes you more responsible and in most cases have a positive traits includes leadership abilities and ambition compared to middle born and last. Like in my case I was born ahead 30 minutes of my twin sister. I was nurtured by my parents that i have responsibility with my twin sister since I was older than her so I acted like a protective older sister to her. When we were in the intermediate grade i made her school activities coz she didn't showed interest in studying, I wanted her to get the same perfect score like I earned only during examination that she did alone.I was in a dean's list of honor student and she was not. All along I didn't noticed that she was more dependent on me until such time that we were in college when she wanted me to enroll the same coarse that she took up. At the end she finished the degree she liked and i finished mine too.

In my own family, considering myself and my siblings, I can see that there were different ways that each of us were treated. Of course, this is also compounded by the fact that we lost our father when we were 14, 12 and 8 years old. However, I do definitely know that my little sister (six years younger than myself) was able to get away with a lot more than I was as a teenager. Now with me, I've only got two children and they are four years apart. I do realize that I haven't been nearly as protective with my son as I was with my daughter but in most situations, I do believe that I treat them in the same way.

I think that it is impossible to treat your children excatly the same even if you have twins. The reason is all children are different and respond to different things. My sisters big punshiment was to be sent to her room. This would ruin her whole day. Now send me to my room I would stay there all day just to piss my mom off. My sister and I are pretty different. I actually act like the older sister even though I am six years younger. I am a more indepent person and I was way more bossy when we were growing up. My sister is just more laid back and would rather have someone to boss her around then to make descisions for herself. I myself only have one child who is three but there are things that work with her one day and not the next so I do change my approach when I need to. Every child is different and some need more attention some need less. My husband is a child who needed a lot of attention (he will tell you different) but I was a child that was fine on my own could play by myself for hours. Now my daughter is more like me she is fine to play by herself but I think because my husband was not he feels that he has to go keep her company everytime she is alone. There are times where she is fine with the company but other times she just wants to be by herself. My sister and I have talked about the different things that our parent did with us. We could see the difference, because she was the oldest she was expected to look out for me and take care of me and I was the baby and the golden child. My sister had to work hard for her grades where I did not, my mother once told me that I was the child she didn't have to worry about. I know if I had another child there are things that I would do the same and things that I would do differently the basics are still the same but my approach may be diffrent. In my husbands family he was the golden first born and his sister was the 2nd one who was difficult. It is funny how now the roles have changed but growing up that is how it was. So no you can not treat your chilren excatly the same because they are different people and require different things from you.

yes it does. I call how the oldest acts the first born syndrome. lol i noticed that most of the first born act similar. I have to say i don't mean to but i do treat all children different to an extent. I treat them the way the behave and what i know they are capable of doing.

There's no evidence that birth order affects behavior in any significant way. In fact, there's increasing evidence that parents have far less influence on how their children grow up than we've always believed. What's most important is temperament, and that's something you're born with. Even if parents could treat each child exactly the same way, the children would respond in line with their innate temperament. Temperament may be modified slightly as we grow older, but it doesn't change.

I do think birth order has a lot to do with behavior. There are different expectations for each child. A real good book on this is called the "Birth Order Book" it really clears a lot of things up and also helps parents know how to deal with each child.

I believe that birth order can determine behavior. The first born siblings seem to take on the in control and take charge atttitudes. Younger siblings seem to play follow leader to the older siblings. Younger ones get the chance to learn from the mistakes of other siblings. They learn how to get what they want where the older siblings had to learn on their own. it may not seem like it, but behavior does matter in your birth order.

I am not married yet. However I do believe that all people are perfectly different from each other. That's what we call Individual differences even the identical twins have differences. As I believe you must not treat your children equally. You should treat them according to their personality, hobbies, and as a real person. For example, you cannot ask all of them to take an Art major, if they other one doesn't like. you should know their character so that you would know what kind of person they are. I do believe that those parents treating them according to their own wants, the children will grow like a great pretender. They usually hide their real feelings, their real opinions, and real personality. They can be good in front of you but they aren't at your back. And most parents are surprised about that. on the other hand, I do also believe that birth order will determine the child's behavior. Most of the time, eldest brothers or sisters are usually bossy, responsible, and hard worker because they know that they would be the second parents in their family. Those children who are the youngest usually spoiled brat because they are the apple of they eye of their parents and elders. Finally, Children who are in the middle of the family are usually growing away from the family, sometimes they rebel against their parents and brothers/sisters because they don't usually get the right attention from them. Whenever they fight with their eldest, parents tell them that they rude because they fight with the eldest. However whenever they fight with their youngest, parents are angry with them again because they fight with the youngest and they do believe that youngest are really baby to fight with, and tell that " you should love your youngest".