Birth Order Blues: How Parents Can Help Their Children Meet the Challenges of Their Birth Order

By Meri Wallace

Book Overview

Birth order has a powerful effect on children's emotional development, on their self-esteem, and on their sense of well-being. The youngest child, the firstborn, the middleborn, twins, and the only child all have specific birth order issues that, if not atted to early on, can impair their functioning and their interpersonal relations at home and at school, and can follow them into adulthood. Parental birth order, too, plays an important role, as do such other factors as gender and family size. To understand these birth order blues, the author, an expert in parent-child relationships, first raises parents' awareness of the impact of birth order upon children. She then shows how to identify their children's birth order problems, often disguised by behaviors such as underachievement or aggression, and suggests how they can resolve these issues and prevent negative behavioral patterns from developing.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805052100
• ISBN13: 9780805052107
• Release Date: May 1999
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 222 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A must read for new parents and veteran parents!

I am a single child and never had to deal with siblings. I bought this book when my wife was pregnant with our first child. It was very interesting and eye-opening for me. Three girls later (about 5 years apart each), I find myself still going back to read this book. The author includes discussions about the oldest child, the middle child, the youngest child, as well as single children, twins, age gap and gender differences. She gives short case studies, effects on children's development and strategies for parents. I've recommended this book to my in-laws and friends. An excellent book - worth every penny! Go get it now!

Birth Order and Parenting

A reviewer gave this book a very low score. In all fairness to the book and its writers this is a book for parents on birth other. If you want a general birth order book, the Kevin Leman book is the best place to start. However this it is in fact an outstading resource. It breaks down the specific characteristics of each child, the developmental peculiarities it brings and then provide specific guidelines for parents. Every parent will benefit from reading this book. It is written thoughtfully and with compassion for all birth orders.

A Book for Your Family's Reference Shelf!

"Birth Order Blues" is a truly useful book--for any family memeber at any age. Here I am, a middle-aged woman with no biological children, yet I find the information Meri Wallace presents so clearly and calmly useful. It's news I can use as I reflect on my own childhood relationships with my two siblings and my parents, or as I consider my neices and nephews and other children in my life. Meri Wallace is a kind writer, focused on the essentials, and on results. I love the scripts for good words we can all use with each other, instead of the habitual ones that may most easily (and destructively) come to our lips first. A book that should be on every family's reference shelf. Janet Grace Riehl, author Sightlines: A Poet's Diary