As I mentioned in another post, I have studied this area to some degree... particularly in relationship to the effect of birth order in dysfunctional families... "Dysfunctional" families meaning those families that fail to function or thrive in the conventional terms most of us would consider "normal". Dysfunctional families generally involve some kind of addictive disorder that affects one of the "role models"... My studies were with Adult Children of Alcoholics, Breaking the Silence groups and Co-Dependency therapies...
In a dysfunctional family, the birth order MAY look like this:
Oldest Child - Super-achiever:
The oldest child is generally the child who takes over for the absence of one of the primary role models becoming in effect, "the surrogate spouse" for the remaining parent. Given this enormous task, the oldest child often suffers a turbo-boosted childhood... one where they struggle against their natural instincts to "become" all that the remaining parent needs from their spouse but cannot get. Often they become the ally of the remaining parent. Often, they start working in their earliest teen years. And sadly, they often spend a great deal of their lives haunted by being unable to stop their younger siblings from being neglected or abused. Given the "favorite" child position in the eyes of their siblings, they are... anything BUT favored...
Second Child - Family Mascot:
This child is known to use various mechanisms to divert the family's attention from the "elephant in the living room" and will do almost ANYTHING to provide that diversion. For him/her, facing reality is painful for their whole family and they feel that most keenly... This child will take on the ominous task of attracting an abusive parent's attention to keep the rest of their siblings from being beaten or demeaned. In the shadow of the Super-Achiever, this child also longs to take his/her place but often feels guilty to find themselves glad that they didn't. This child is the one with the proverbial lampshade on their heads... yelling... "I'm dancing as fast as I can..."
Third Child - Black Sheep:
Here's the kid who breaks the rules... In direct opposition to the Family Mascot, he or she attempts to force the family to SEE and RECOGNIZE the "elephant in the living room" or at very least, recognize the huge mess it's leaving for everyone else to clean up. This child appears to defy authority on any level and will often be the one who gets in trouble with the law. Families will make this person "the identified patient" because he or she becomes an easy target as the family scapegoat... In reality, he or she is a brave soul who demands in every action that the family face the real problem and until they do, he or she will continue to act out and act up. The family eventually rejects this child IF they remain unwilling to face the real issues...
Fourth Child - The Lost Child:
This child often spends his/her life appearing to be "out there" to anyone who knows them. Forming the ability to detach early in their childhoods, it is natural to them to remain distant from anything that could harm them... They often leave home early in childhood with a sense of having been on their own all along so wanting the perks that come with independence. For the Lost Child, attachment comes hard and is an uncomfortable situation at best.
The foregoing information was derived from my many years of involvement with this area of life and is something I am MOST interested in. It should also be said that as the dysfunctional family changes, so do the roles of each child... The family, in and of itself, is comparative to a baby's crib mobile... With all of the pieces of the mobile working, it spins around in perfect balance. When one of the pieces gets ripped off by the baby or falls off, the mobile will fail to spin and if it does, it will spin in a sloppy fashion. Each child born to a dysfunctional family setting is dedicated to restoring the balanced spin... and... so it goes...
As I learned this, I was amazed by how accurate the studies were as they applied to my own family of origin... A child in a dysfunctional family is generally sealed off from the rest of the world... hiding the family secret. Because of this, they grow up thinking no one knows... When you find whole reams of information from people who weren't even IN your family, even THAT can be a real eye opener in our healing...
Silken
Free Forum Hosting
Important Announcement
First 