Sifting and Sorting

In the past two months, I have had the blessing and treat of attending two different conferences. And, yet I look forward to attending one more at the end of May. If you have had the opportunity then you know how fun but overwhelming such experiences can be.

Join me in these posts as I sift through the abundance of antidotes and information for the sake of tilling the soil and planting any seeds of application into the soul that might make this journey of sanctification more fruitful.

Dr. Kevin Lehman was our keynote speaker this weekend. What a character... which I am sure supports his assessments of birth order. He is the youngest in the family, and he has found that they are the ones who are very happy-go-lucky, more inclined to go-with-the flow, often humorous and able to see the lighter side of life. Their tendency to be unstructured can pose problems on more urgent matters.

As for those who are firstborns, they tend to be the perfectionist type and very driven because they were often seeking to please the adults in their lives, seek to be very organized in order to accomplish and perform, and often become too up-tight having to remind themselves to relax.

Middle children are often the flexible ones, peacemakers,see both sides of the scenario, and perhaps can become frustrated because of this position. They also will seek to identify with non-family in order to further enrich or affirm their own person. Middle children often feel squeezed out because of the firstborn who sought center stage and the youngest who often "got their way."

Obviously these are nuggets of a much fuller theory. I see much evidence for such findings as these and I think that healthy nurturing... spiritually, physically, emotionally, intellectually can corroborate birth order, can foster how someone steps into life, and can impact people's innate personalities. I wonder if a person's birth order is about a predisposition because of birth sequence and can impact people's innate personalities, but does not dictate the personalities themselves. The personalities are uniquely organized within the womb while birth order is an "environmental" factor that impacts the personality outside of the womb throughout ones childhood.