Remember Stephanie Tanner from the hit SitCom “Full House”? Remember her several issues with “always being in between!” Well, that is a glimpse (a very tiny glimpse) of middle child syndrome for you. Without a doubt, in reality the syndrome can get much worse. So, how does a parent know that their little angel is suffering from a syndrome simply because of the birth order? A lot of questions that need answering, let’s take them one at a time.

Middle Child Syndrome Characteristics
What is middle child syndrome? Let’s understand the basic concept of middle child syndrome. What does the term entail? What are the middle child syndrome symptoms?

• The first being that this child will neither be the oldest out of the siblings, nor the youngest. He will be in between.
• The child will not be a leader of sorts. He will prefer to follow the trends.
• The child will lack a specific focus, or drive.
• He will have very very few friends. Mingling with people won’t come very easily to him.
• Relationships won’t really be his forte. In fact he will try to shy away from it as far as possible. If he does get into one, it will not last long due to his lack of interest.
• He will be fairly shy. He will try to go unnoticed and stay out of the radar. Nonetheless, he will do enough to keep the ball rolling.
• He will be quite artistic and creative.
• If given direction, and a little egging, he can achieve well in the field of art and literature.
• He will hate doing monotonous work. Things should have a certain degree of novelty to catch his interest.
• He will not be able to perform under pressure, at all!!

Yes, not all is bad about the middle child syndrome. However, it is very important to make sure that it is avoided as far as possible. The positive characteristics of middle child syndrome can be seen in a middle child even if he is not suffering from MDS.
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