I’m an oldest–I know, I know, shocking   So I have never been a middle child. I’ve heard a lot about MCS but in typical oldest fashion I’ve thought, “Oh, get over yourselves–you took the spotlight away from somebody else so now it’s your turn”  

And I never really noticed this with my daughter but I’m now wondering if that wasn’t because they were still so young when the twins were born and/or if it had to do with her being the only daughter and so having a very special and marked place in our family dynamics.

But when the twins were born my second son became, literally overnight, a middle child–with an older brother and sister, and two younger brothers.  I started to be concerned about the phenomenon I’d heard about and how it might affect him.  Then throw in the triple wammy–oldest brother has autism and can’t be the neurotypical older brother most younger brothers get to tag around with and the two younger brothers are TWINS who get a ton of attention *smacks head* and who tag team him just like they do everyone and everything else in life.

And what you get is . . . full-fledged Middle Child Syndrome.  At least that has been diagnosed and confirmed by all of the middle children who are grown now but remember full well (and still struggle with) their middle child experience that we know.  So with my official diagnoses I have started to wonder what on earth I, an oldest, and dh, a youngest (by 9 years to his next older brother) can possibly do to help our son through this.

Some of the things we are doing include talking to his older brother and, especially, sister about who he is, what he needs and WHY we believe he is acting this way. His older brother is trying harder, and we’re catching things even more quickly since they are at similar developmental stages that involve “he came towards me pretending to hit me which means he IS hitting me” AAAK.  His older sister has an amazing gift of compassion and responded, “Oh, THAT is why he does this and this and this. How can I help?” We talked about his love language being quality time and attention and that when he says everyone hates him it’s because he doesn’t *feel* loved–that if the choice is between taking a few minutes to play a round of Sorry (one of his favorite games) or playing tennis with him on Wii (our holiday gift from my parents) and watching tv she can take the healthier more positive choice of playing with him. She thought that was a good idea.  And we talked about how she can turn down requests with, “I love you and I want to spend time with you. Right now I’m doing X. I can join you . . . “  She needs reminders still but she wants to do it so she’s doing well at it

And I’ve been talking with him.  His love language really is quailty time and attention because the child will sit for hours and cuddle me while I play games on the computer and he doesn’t even really want to play, just to cuddle me.  Half the time I’d have stopped playing long before but I am so enjoying the calm, sweet moments with him and all we get to talk about together during that time

I’ve been intentional about validating his feelings a lot, and reassuring him of our love for him. I’ve been talking to him about the stage the bubbies are in and reminding him how he was at that stage.  “I WAS???”  Yeah, I warned him someday that would come back to bite him

And I’ve been blessed to have a dear friend who keeps reminding me if I ever need to have one less child she’d be thrilled to have ds2 all the time   She knows I’d never even think of giving up a child so don’t think for a second she is serious, but she has no children and really connects with ds2 because he reminds her of herself when she was younger. Seeing what an amazing woman she has become inspires me to make sure he has every chance possible to become the awesome and amazing man I know God has created him to be!

Lots of people ask how we find time for all of our children or if we ever feel like we can’t give them all what they need with regards to time, attention, etc.  My answer is–we find the time because we are parents–that is our job requirement and we have to–not doing it isn’t an option for us.  We also happen to enjoy it immensely which is why we have so many children   As for giving them all they need–thank God he made them all different and what they need and how much of different things varies by child. Somehow we are figuring out the dance our family needs to dance to keep going and as long as we live intentionally we seem to do pretty good

Oh, and with all the intentional effort to help him find, understand, and appreciate his placement in our family, ds2 is calming down and beginning to thrive again.  Definitely worth the effort