The Middle Child

I would think most people would want their children to have some positive leadership ability. It seems like a pretty helpful character trait to acquire and I think most people can agree that it’s easier to learn those traits and those lessons in your youth when the stakes are low and they are still teachable. It becomes much more difficult to acquire skills and traits once you are an adult and set in your ways. Difficult but not impossible.

You also don’t typically think to sit down your children and have them listen to you lecture on leadership or ask them to read a colorful cardboard picture book on leadership, I don’t think that’s a thing…(although I just thought of a new publishing venture…)

Oldest children are naturally given the most leadership and responsibility simply by default or out of necessity, but I think this default scenario that plays out perpetuates the ‘middle child syndrome’ that we see so often. It seems a good idea to me to engineer a scenario where some leadership is needed or responsibility can be learned safely for the middle children, and mom and dad are close by for training and coaching.

Our four girls had been staying in two separate rooms. As you would typically expect, the older two are in one room and the younger two are in the other room. That make sense for clothing, napping, bedtime, etc. But we recently switched it up and Put girl 1 and 4 in one room, and girl 2 and 3 in the other room. The oldest can mother the youngest, but this opens up a leadership opportunity for girl #2, Nicole. Nicole now has the opportunity to lead by example, model obedience for her younger sister. This puts her in a role (the older sister in the room) that she has only been observing and following up to this point in life.

I’m anxious to see how this changes her in a positive way. She has so much potential!