I am writing about a set of siblings, and I have figured out their personalities but I wonder about the age order, I had made a decision on this but I am having second thoughts on if it makes sense because of their personalities. How much does birth order affect how the personalities of a set of siblings are shaped, if at all? How much truth is there in stereotypes of the personalities on siblings based on birth order? How do you determine the age order if you have a set of siblings in your book or if your MC has siblings and you want to decide if they are the oldest or middle or youngest etc,?
Experts agree there is truth in the theory of birth order, that certain personality traits are associated with first-born, middle and youngest. They are treated differently by their parents, and have different relationships among the siblings. First-born personality traits: reliable, conscientious, structured, cautious, controlling, achievers Middle-child: people-pleasers, somewhat rebellious, thrives on friendships, large social circle, peacemakers Youngest: Fun-loving, uncomplicated, manipulative, outgoing, attention-seeking, self-centered The above are just tendencies, not hard-and-fast rules. How Birth Order May Influence Your Kid's Personality Traits
Yes, I have been reading articles, but how do you go about choosing the birth order of your characters with siblings?
That's what I would suggest. Is it important to the story that they have specific traits defined by birth order? Meaning that the readers probably aren't going to make the connection unless it's stated explicitly.
To simplify it, make the bossy one the oldest, the peacekeeper the middle one, and the free-spirited one the youngest
yeah..... i'm the 2nd born in my family and i have the "first born" traits. my younger sister has the "middle child" trait and my older brother has the "youngest" trait (though he grew out of his self-centeredness). I feel like it all depends on the family. by brother was the first boy, first grandson, and first grand child as a whole. so he got spoiled all around. Our younger sister was born when i was 8 and my brother was 10, so she spend her years trying to hang out with us to the point of trying to please us and our older cousins so we'd let her hang out with us. Me? I was indifferent to a lot of things and kept to myself (dont know why... my mom says i never really wanted to be bothered by anyone). needless to say, they left me alone to do my own thing, which meant i was always hyper focused on tasks and they began to see me as someone who gets things done, no questions asked. OP: Soooo..... think about your characters family dynamic... not just the kids in their birth order. but develop the family. also, are the kids closer in age? is there a pretty big gap? is it a big family (cousins, aunts, uncles)? those types of things
Also keep in mind that the first child is the most difficult for parents; they've never been parents before, so that's where a lot of mistakes and "experiments" occur. With subsequent children it gets a lot easier.
Keep in mind birth order doesn't just have the potential to affect personality, but also the relationships between the siblings. There is a different feel to being someone's big brother vs little brother, and likewise for big sister vs little sister. The age difference can also be significant. A ten year age gap is going to result in a different relationship than only a one year age gap.
There are many other factors that could complicate things. I was firstborn, but my sister has firstborn traits and I don't. Birth order is one good way to determine character traits, but it doesn't always happen that way. Statistically though it frequently does. That's about as close as you can get to anything approximating order in systems as complicated as human beings and families. There are always many complicating factors, but it can be said that 'generally' certain things are true.
Speaking for myself, the second child, I always regarded my older brother as the quiet, serious, and smart one who succeeded at everything he put his mind to. On the other hand, I was the more light-hearted one, more eager to please, less successful in school, and more striving for attention through jokes and magic tricks. He was going to be the rocket scientist, and I was going to be the comedian. It didn't turn out that way for either of us, of course. But that was the family dynamic.
