Are you a firstborn, middle child, or the youngest in your family? Your place in the birth order may play a bigger role in your future than you realize.
A recent article in The Washington Post explored research suggesting that firstborn children may have certain advantages later in life. Columnist Michael Coren notes that younger siblings tend to fare worse than firstborns in areas including lifetime earnings, educational achievement, and mental health.
But why would simply being born first make a difference?
Clinical psychologist Dr. Jen Hartstein of Hartstein Psychological Services recently joined NBC News to discuss the research and what may actually be behind the “firstborn advantage.”
One important factor is time and attention. Firstborn children typically experience a period when they have their parents entirely to themselves. That can mean more one-on-one interaction, conversation, learning opportunities, and focused attention during important early developmental years. When additional children arrive, parents naturally have to divide their time and resources among multiple children.
Dr. Jen explains how these early differences in parental attention and family dynamics may help set firstborn children up for certain advantages later in life, while also emphasizing that birth order is only one piece of a much larger developmental picture.
Does being born first really give you a head start? Watch Dr. Jen Hartstein’s full NBC News segment to learn more about the science behind birth order and how it may shape our future.
