Understanding Human Nature: Birth Order

Adler was the second of seven children, and all his life he felt that he was competing with his clever older brother, Sigmund.So it is not surprising that he was one of the first psychologists to ask how a child’s place in the family shapes its character.

“Before we can judge a person, we must know the situation in which they grew up, and an important part of it is their position among their brothers and sisters.The youngest child is usually the smallest and the most in need of help, so it grows up in a warmer atmosphere than the others.But no child likes to be the smallest all the time, so the youngest often wants to prove that it can do everything, and to overtake everyone.Some youngest children become the most capable members of the family; others lose courage and become experts at making excuses.

The oldest child is often given responsibility early, as if the family were saying: ‘You are bigger, stronger and older, so you must also be cleverer.’Oldest children often respect power and rules, and they tend to be conservative.The second child always has someone ahead, so it lives like a runner in a race, trying hard to catch up and overtake.The only child is the centre of attention and has every difficulty removed from its path, so it may learn to depend on others and to fear the world.

“It does not matter whether a child really is inferior or not; what matters is how it interprets its situation.And it makes very little difference whether one is first or not: history and experience show that happiness does not lie in being the first or the best.Let us be modest in judging others, and never make moral judgements about a person’s worth.”