The Birth Order Book: Why You Are The Way You Are (2004) - Plot & Excerpts
This Adlerian psychologist, author and speaker has updated his first book with some interesting additions.His thesis is that birth order plays an important part in making people who they are and that by understanding birth order they can gain important clues about their personality, spouse, children, the kind of job they have and how they get along with their maker (if they believe they have one!). He agrees that birth order “theory” is not based on hard science and is all rather subjective but even if it cannot predict behavior he believes it provides clues to help people understand and figure out their lives.Birth order is simply an individual’s place in the family line. He outlines the different traits of the oldest child, the middle child and the youngest and then identifies further variables that come into play when talking about birth order (such as spacing of children, sex differences, differences in physical size looks and abilities, multiple births, deaths and adoptions, blended families and the birth order of parents and their parenting styles). He details the strengths and weakness of each birth order, spending most of his time on the first or only born, less on the last born and almost nothing on the middle child who he believes remains “a mystery”, and so it is the smallest section.In additional chapters he identifies the curse and burden of perfectionism as a major problem for all firstborns and devotes two chapters to managing it. He also explores controllers and pleasers as common lifestyles (followed by martyrs, victims, attention getters and drivers). Another chapter details how reality discipline and birth order used in concert can achieve desired results. This author is a Christian speaker so there are the occasional religious statements in this book, but he is also funny occasionally and that helps lighten the text.For the most part this content is more suited to a daily talk show, and from what I read in his book he is often a guest on radio and TV.I picked up this book out of curiosity and it had some interesting content, but it is not one I would recommend to others.
The Birth Order Book describes common roles and characteristics of each child in a family. It explains that your personality can easily be predicted simply because of the order that you fall within the other kids in your family. According to specific studies, first borns seem to be very responsible and more well rounded compared to second, third, or maybe even fourth born children. The baby of the family or the last born seems to always be fighting for attention from people. Most news anchors or hosts on tv shows tend to be the babys of most families. Through specific research, peoples' futures can be predicted just because of where someone stands in their family, birth order wise. I loved The Birth Order Book! I found just about all of the information to be very accurate, which just got me even more involved with the plot. I would reccomend this book to anyone. No matter what age someone is, I think they will still be able to connect with the facts inside the book. I really connected with the book because everything about the third born child, or middle child, (which is me) was 100% accurate. As I was reading, I compared the predictions and facts to other families and children, not just to mine. Still, after that, I found the information to be just as accurate. I really wouldn't change anything about this book, I loved it all.
What do You think about The Birth Order Book: Why You Are The Way You Are (2004)?
I read this book years ago and really enjoyed it. I came back to it because I was hoping to gain greater insight into my children and how to parent them within their birth order but the book was not that helpful. Really nothing on middle born children. Most of the last born child info was all about the author's experience. In fact, a good portion of the book was just about the author's personal experience of birth order. I guess I was hoping for something less anecdotal and more philosophical. I will have to see what else is out there. Maybe a return to The Child Whisperer?
—Angie Libert
Heaven knows I love a book with yet another explanation for why we are all so different. I've always considered myself a middle child, since I am the third of four children. However, the 11 gap between me and my next oldest sibling means that I spent most of my childhood as an oldest child. And reading this book I can definitely relate as an oldest child more than I relate as a middle and certainly am in no way a youngest child. I didn't carry the parental expectation my older sister did as the literal first child (thank goodness for that!) but I do have perfectionistic tendencies and have always felt more responsible for others than say, my little sister or even my older brother (who spent 11 years as the youngest). So anyway, I wouldn't go so far as to say that everything can be explained by birth-order, though there does seem to be a lot of truth to it. There are too many exceptions to make it a rule but I still enjoyed reading through it. Even though I kind of wanted to slap Doc Leman for continuously referring to himself as "Cubby Leman". Come on baby-of-the-family. Let it go.Recommended by Monique & Angie
—Diana
I liked it and learned some things along the way. Here are somethings I liked:* Firstborns tend to be conscientious, well organized, serious, goal oriented, achieving, people pleasers and believers in authority.* One of the best predictions in life is that whatever the firstborn in a family is, the secondborn in the family will go in a different (and oftentimes opposite)direction.* The bottom line is that parents expect too much of firstborns.* A child's personality is pretty well formed by age 5.* Middleborn children often hang out more with their peer group than does any other child in the family.* Lastborns get away with murder (no surprise there!)* Babies of the family can be charming and endearing but then turn rebellious and hard to deal with.* Parents get all "taught out" by the time the lastborn arrives. The tendency is to let the lastborn sort of shift for himself.
—Stacy Beck
