Characteristics of middle born children

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Unfortunately for middle born children -- and I am one -- the studies have confirmed what people have long thought. Middle borns do tend to be a little more lost in the thickets in the family. They tend to fight more. They do, later in life, tend to find it a little bit harder to find direction and, generally, will take a little bit longer to settle on a career paths. The upside of middle borns is that, as a result of not getting their needs met as generously as first and last borns are, they tend to develop denser and better social networks outside the home. When there is more than one middle child, in larger families, those middle children tend to cleave a little more closely and form very strong bonds with the other children who aren't the first or last born. One of the other upsides that middle borns should consider is that there are conditional firstborn situations. The middle born may step up to the firstborn position when, say the firstborn goes off to college, or in some situations where the firstborn isn't inclined to take over.

Video Categories: ALL PARENTS, Parenting, Personality and Temperament, Family Life, Siblings and Only Children

Jeffrey Kluger, Science Journalist & Author, explains how results of recent studies on middle born children and some of the positive and negative characteristics they often posses

Transcript

Expert Bio

Jeffrey Kluger

Science Journalist & Author

Jeffrey Kluger is a senior editor and writer at Time magazine, covering science, health and other fields. He is the coauthor, along with astronaut Jim Lovell, of Apollo 13, the book that served as the basis of the 1995 movie. His more-recent release, Splendid Solution, told the story of Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine. His novel, Nacky Patcher and the Curse of the Dry-Land Boats, was published in June 2007, and his newest nonfiction book, Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex, was published in June 2008.

Before coming to Time, Kluger worked for Discover magazine, where he was a senior editor and humor columnist. Prior to that, he was health editor at Family Circle magazine, story editor at The New York Times Business World Magazine, and Associate Editor at Science Digest magazine. His features and columns have appeared in dozens of publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Gentlemen's Quarterly, The Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, Omni, McCall's, New York Magazine, The New York Post, Newsday, and, of course, Time. He has worked as an adjunct instructor in the graduate journalism program at New York University; is a licensed—though non-practicing—attorney; and is a graduate of the University of Maryland and the University of Baltimore School of Law. He lives in New York City with his wife Alejandra and their daughters, Elisa and Paloma.