1. They have top-notch negotiating skills. Because they grow up negotiating with their older and younger brothers and sisters,
middle children are skilled at striking deals and coming to compromise, says Schumann.
2. They’re trailblazers and risk-takers. Parents tend to have firm expectations for their oldest and youngest children, says Schumann.
Middle-born kids escape those constraints, so they feel free to try new things.
3. They’re creative. Often left to their own devices, “middle children develop exceptional problem-solving skills,” Paul Hokemeyer,
JD and PhD, a licensed marriage and family therapist, tells Yahoo Parenting, “They learn to think out of the box.
The expansiveness of their thinking makes them wonderfully creative beings.”
4. They have big hearts. “Middle kids have lots of empathy; they know what it’s like to be the underdog,”
says Schumann. Adds Hokemeyer: Because they are forced to exist in dynamic family systems where
other children are given points just for their place in the birth order, middle children learn to listen and understand before taking action.”