The Birth Order Effect
The roles we seem to grow into based on birth order and family dynamics can offer a window to understanding the Self and the children in our care. This understanding can bring us freedom in our personal development, and inform us how to guide the children into developing healthy social patterns and relationships.
In this workshop, we will focus on three primary topics together:
1. Family Systems – There are many ways to create a nuclear family and extend it with a circle of support. Each variation has its own unique benefits and challenges. As a teacher, understanding the child’s family system can inform decisions about their care.
2. Birth Order – Position in the family impacts how one is parented, interacts with siblings, and the roles played later in society. Regardless of birth order, a healthy attachment is key; children need to have dependency needs met in early childhood. In a group of children, they will play out roles connected to birth order and attachment. For example, a firstborn will often be a leader so it is important to give them opportunities to lead.
3. Healing the Past – When we re-enter our family system, we may find ourselves falling back into old roles and wounds. How can we accept ourselves, heal our past, and find freedom? Children in our care may also have unmet needs which can be addressed when we understand what they are and have done the work for ourselves.
Each 1.5 hour session will have a lecture, an exercise and sharing. In order to create a lively “in-person” feel and to preserve the integrity of what is shared, this workshop will not be recorded for distribution.
**Participants can earn 3 Continuing Education hours with full participation in both live sessions. Sign up through a brief follow-up survey that will open at the end of the workshop.
Details of Workshop Content
The first session will include info about how families are formed and sibling roles based on Karl Koenig’s book, Brothers and Sisters. We will apply the birth order model to families we know and share them with the group (without mentioning names.). Finally, we will create a statement about our own birth order as in, “I am a first born so I bear the responsibility for supporting my family.”
The second session will begin with the statement from the first. We will discuss the impact of attachment on child development. We will consider what it looks and feels like to be stuck in a birth order role and to have an insecure attachment pattern. How can we free the “inner child”?
We will discuss how the voice of our parents becomes our inner voice and how secure attachment is created. We will participate in an exercise to notice how the inner voice responds to specific scenarios and then write or rewrite the script to speak to ourselves with the non-judgmental voice of the loving parent.
The inner voice impacts how we communicate with others. We will practice a method of conscious communication that comes from the inside out. Children are truth tellers and they sense whether we are in alignment or not. When we speak to ourselves with loving kindness, we can then communicate with children in a way that is firm and kind. We can stay connected to ourselves while connecting with children.
About The Instructor
Judith Frizlen is an author and educator with a special interest in early childhood education and healing the inner child whenever the time is right. She has written four books, regularly teaches LifeWays online courses, and posts biweekly on her blog. Her experience includes founding a LifeWays Center, teaching every early childhood class in a Waldorf school, growing up one of eight children, creating an international family system, and embracing the role of grandmother. Along with her husband, Judith loves to hike, kayak, swim and support the arts locally. She cherishes her family and friends, living from the inside out, and lifelong learning.